Last weekend, I was looking carefully through my closet, trying to find my most professional outfit. I was going to be ushering for a play at my university, and none of my clothes seemed to fit the bill. Finally, minutes before I had to leave, I decided on my nicest black and white striped skirt and a black blazer. Looking in my mirror before I headed out the door, I thought to myself: "I look put together. I look professional."
I caught my Lyft ride to the venue where the show was located, but my driver dropped me off across the street, and as I crossed the street, a young college woman in a relatively empty neighborhood around 7 PM, that was when I heard it: a grown man in a black pickup truck rolled down his window and yelled, as he drove past me, "Nice ass!"
And in that moment, I felt like that was all I was.
My immediate instinct, as the moment came and went in a flash, was that I wanted to go inside. I felt exposed and almost naked, as was called out and automatically objectified. I felt that it was unfair, as I had felt that I had looked so professional when I last looked at myself in my dorm room mirror, but after he drove by, it didn't seem to matter, as the only thing that mattered to him was my ass.
There is no official Wikipedia page for catcalling. In fact, it is listed under a page titled "Street Harassment". And that's exactly what it is. It is unwanted, non-consensual harassment, plain and simple. In a poll by YouGov in August 2014, 55% of those poll labelled catcalling as harassment, although 20% of the group called it "complimentary". And that 20%, that accounts for the man in the pickup truck, who thought that it would be "appropriate" and "complimentary" to shout a demeaning and humiliating comment to a young woman who just wanted to cross the street. And that fact is sick.
Catcalling is not a compliment; it is not supposed to make your day better. Would anyone's day be better if their body was called out by a random stranger in the middle of the street? I doubt it. It is not respectful towards women either. If a catcaller truly wanted to be respectful, they would realize how demeaning the ordeal is, and would stop. They would notice the hundreds of articles and videos circling our society that berate catcalling, and they would stop. But the sad fact is, most catcallers don't care. They see something they like, they shout it. It is a move of power, done despicably to me whilst driving by, so that you cannot even respond or retaliate, as there is no time. They just leave you there with their demeaning comments floating around your body and pegging your brain.
This makes you want to hide, to cover up, to be ashamed. "It is my fault.", "It is my body." That weekend, my body was objectified, but it is him that should be ashamed. The feminist in me and the extrovert in me wished so badly that I could speak to this man, to even try to explain to him the degrading nature of his words and contemptible actions he decided to take. But I can't. He drove by, and I'll probably never seen him again. But what I can do is not be silent, not be bogged down by his abhorrent words. I can speak up, I can write, I can explain why catcalling shouldn't be a thing. To this man in the pickup truck, I may just be a "nice ass", but I know that I am so much more. I am a feminist with a voice, and I am using it to speak for change.
