What I Hear When You Catcall Me

I ride my bike to class because it is practical and because I want to. I wear shorts to class because it is summertime and because I want to.

I do neither of these things to get attention from insecure “men” in pickup trucks who blast down the road in a cacophonic disruption of societal complacency, polluting everything in their path. I do neither of these things to get catcalled.

When you catcall me, I feel assaulted, not flattered.

Me.Ow. I hurt.

How do you expect me to feel? How do you expect me to react? Is this your best attempt at seduction?

When you catcall me, you are degrading me. You are telling me that you not value me as a person. That to you, I am a thing below dignity — something to be subordinated and tamed, another victim of male domination.

Centuries of cultural socializing has taught you to take control of everything around you, it is your right as a man to rule over all other living things, and it is my role as a woman to comply. Your catcalling is an assertion of male rule, a reminder of my powerlessness.

When you catcall me, you’re telling me that my body is yours to enjoy. It is yours to look at and fantasize over, not mine to control. My body is all that I am worth, it is something wild that should be veiled and tamed. It something I was socialized to hate. I was trained to criticize every flaw and loathe every imperfection. I was taught to never be satisfied, to engage in a constant struggle with myself, striving at an imaginary perfection all so my body can be loved by anyone except myself.

When you catcall me, you’re telling me that I have no value, nothing to contribute to the world except my sexuality.

My first reaction is to scream back profanities. But you’d only laugh. That won’t teach you of my worth, it would only confirm your belief in my irrational temperament. Because, as you believe, women can’t control their own sentiments, we are weak, we need men to keep us in our place.

My next reaction is to question who raised you. What kind of mother would permit her son to behave so disrespectfully? How would you react if someone did that to your mother, or sister, or daughter? But that argument keeps the dignity of women enveloped in their traditional domestic roles, in their relation to men. And while these roles are important, we are more than that.

So how should I react? No reaction seems fitting, a lack of one seems complacent. Maybe there is no perfect reaction because the problem is not the victim, it is the perpetrator.

For more resources on catcalling, here is a flowchart by Playboy to help you decide if you should catcall a person.

Here is a link an organization combatting street harassment.