Gigi Hadid recently received some backlash after she pushed off an assaulter that grabbed her on the street. The assaulter was later identified as Vitalii Sediuk. According to this response, Sediuk has been arrested several times in the past, and each time he defended his actions as “pranks.” Sediuk has “previously kissed Will Smith against Smith’s will,” “buried his face in Leonardo DiCaprio’s crotch,” and “crawled under America Ferrera’s skirt.” After grabbing Hadid, Sediuk described his attack as a “manifest or protest.” He stated, “By doing this, I encourage [the] fashion industry to put true talents on the runway and Vogue covers instead of well-connected cute girls from Instagram.”

How did the papers react? Many praised Hadid. Some labeled her as “aggressive.” Most called Sediuk “a prankster,” insinuating that Hadid just overreacted to a simple, harmless joke.

But this behavior isn’t a joke. It’s not a statement about your opinion on the fashion industry. Most importantly, it isn’t a compliment. It is an attack; it is harassment.

It is nearly impossible to walk down the street without getting offhand comments. It’s nearly impossible for a girl to walk down the street without some disgusting guy rolling down his car window and shouting a barely discernible comment about what he wants to do with her tonight. Or a comment about her ass. Or a comment about some other body part.

But what do catcallers have to gain from this? Do you think a girl will be seduced by your crude comment about her tits? Do you think she'll come running after you, asking you to repeat yourself? No, catcallers have nothing to gain. Yet, they have nothing to lose either. They are not afraid of women coming after them, attacking them, getting "aggressive." They understand women will "just ignore it," and to them, it's possibly a twisted sort of funny.

“What? It’s a compliment. Lighten up!”

Harassment is constantly brushed off as a joke or a compliment. This happens so incredibly often that we’ve become desensitized to it, and perhaps this seems commonplace enough to be brushed off as a “joke” or a “compliment.” Yet, getting grabbed, stalked, or even catcalled is insanely terrifying. The goal of catcalling isn’t to give a compliment. Compliments are kind, and we like to take them if an actual compliment is given.

Last Saturday, a man I’d never met before walked up to me in a coffee shop.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“You are absolutely beautiful, that’s all I wanted to tell you. Have a wonderful day.”

I thanked him genuinely. He smiled and walked back to his seat.

That was a compliment.

I finished my homework in the coffee shop and packed up to go to work. I was running late, so I decided to take the bus. I waited for about five minutes. In those five minutes, I got several comments thrown at me from passing car windows. One group of drunk fraternity kids pulled up to the bus stop, rolled down their window, and poked their laughing heads out towards me.

“How much for the night?”, they yelled.

Immediately, they sped away, shouting from the window as they swerved their car in the opposite direction. Five minutes.

Of course, this is by no means "severe." I was advised by a passerby to “ignore it.” But something about that comment was incredibly amusing to me. So, I posted on Facebook (comments and names erased to protect privacy)

What really stopped me was that one comment. In a post about harassment, albeit a half joking post, some commenter found the biggest issue to be the men’s characterization as “frat bros.” Is the event so trivial, so commonplace, that the actual comment those boys threw at me becomes fully irrelevant? Maybe it is.

Maybe I shouldn’t have called them out for being in a fraternity. I’ll take the blame for that one. Perhaps instead I could have said “random fellows decked out in fraternity gear.” The most noteworthy thing about that status wasn’t what was yelled at me from a passing car, but that I characterized them as “frat bros”. And I think I understand why.

The cultural acceptance of such basic, “harmless” harassment brings negative consequences to men as well. Yes, to men. Since I was old enough to walk down a street, I was advised to “watch out for random males,” “to just ignore them,” and to “not engage in any kind of extra interaction.” My mother warned me that “men have guns in this country, and men are highly volatile.” Like many girls, I grew up firmly believing that men are animalistic monsters that lack any form of self control. Any man you don’t know is automatically dangerous. “Boys will be boys,” and boys will be monsters.

Of course this isn’t the case, but when we’re constantly advised to be careful, watch our own actions, and to “just ignore it,” we start creating that image of men. That’s why men are overly defensive when they are called out. That’s why some men grow upset not about the harassment, but about women’s reactions to it. They do not want the blame closely attributed to them (in this case, to a male organization).

And men have every right to upset by the animalistic image created of them, and women have the right to be upset about the “passive, inhuman, victim” image pushed towards them. When a woman defends herself, she’s labeled as the aggressor towards a man who was “just being a man.” But women have voices too. We are not select, walking pieces of meat you can appraise as you drive past. Men have enough impulse control to quit this casual harassment.

I came into work the night of the bus stop run in, still mildly pissed about the catcallers I met along the way.

As I was taking an order to a table, a man walked past me and slapped my butt.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

I had an order in each hand, so all I could do was glare back at him.

“Damn, why do you have to be so aggressive. Lighten up.”

Aggressive. I said nothing and walked off to deliver the two orders. After all, what could I say? I texted a friend.

“Just ignore it,” she told me.

But I’m sick of ignoring it.

I’m sick of bringing baggy clothes to change into before I walk home alone.

I’m sick of begging my male friends to walk me home.

I’m sick of holding my keys between my fingers, ready to use them as a weapon if anyone comes near me.

I’m sick of being told I’m overreacting.

I’m sick of being told I need to take a compliment.

I’m sick of being told to lighten up when I stand up for myself.

I’m sick of all men, my friends, my baby brother, being blanketed as monsters with no self control.

I’m sick of all the failed sexual assault convictions, the light sentences most rapists seem to get.

I’m sick of the attitudes towards victims of assaults — victim blaming.

I’m sick of it all.