You wear headphones? Me too. You still hear them? … me too.
A note on catcalling and street harassment.
I can count on more than one hand the amount of times somebody has commented on my headphones.
Whenever my dad calls in to FaceTime, which is both precious but inconvenient when you live in the city, he mentions something.
“You always have your headphones in, Elise. Don’t your ears hurt?”
I didn’t think much about it and I don’t go into details because he is my father. But yes, dad; my ears do hurt, but I have spent my life conditioning myself to welcome verbal assault from music that makes me smile than from men on the street who try to tell me whether or not I should smile.
I do this often, as I am sure many other female-bodied people do, because I experience catcalling often. And in recognizing that this week is Meet Us On The Street’s international anti-street harassment week, I think it’s appropriate to write about this today.
If it isn’t somebody asking what else I have pierced, it’s somebody asking if I have tattoos in hidden places. If it’s not some random guy turning around to walk beside me to ask my name, it’s another random guy yelling “Hey (sexy, sweetie, baby, mami).” Sometimes it’s making kissing or barking noises; other times it’s licking their lips and gesturing with their hands.
Sometimes, I feel safe or brazen or stupid enough, depending on where in the patriarchy you align yourself, to call back at the cat callers. Shut them up, you know? But other times I don’t feel safe or confident and I’m silent, because there’s no split second way to know which person will or will not follow you.
So for me, and I assume many other female-bodied people, headphones are our shield. Whether or not I am actually listening to music, having my earbuds in sends a very clear message to others: I don’t want to talk to you.
Does this mean that people always respect it? No, of course not. If my music isn’t loud enough, I hear the comments anyway. But most cat callers are cowards, and they’ll either say something low enough that I can’t hear with headphones or be quiet so they don’t look like an idiot being ignored.
I love music, sure. Do I love it enough to listen to it every hour that I’m on the street? No. I’m from the light suburbs of south Jersey, where flowers and trees and birds all make noise. And I miss those sounds, sounds that are concealed by whatever’s invading my eardrums.
Today when I was walking from the train to school, I made the decision not to wear my headphones in for the 3 block walk.
I just didn’t feel like having the earbuds in; I had turned my music off because of a headache, and though I’d kept silent headphones in before, it hurt today.
Within three blocks, I was cat called four times, one of which was done in Spanish, which I don’t speak.
Nevertheless, I had a man yell “Hey sexy!” in my face; another who saw my face and told his friend that he would “fuck the frown right off my face” (okay, him I almost said something to); the third I didn’t understand much more than his tone of voice and him ending in “mamacita;” and the fourth Mmmmmm‘d at me while grabbing his belt.
(For the patriarchy, I’ll describe what I am wearing. Flip flops, patterned leggings, and a huge hoodie that covers my butt and curves in general. My hair is up in a high, greasy pony tail. Nothing that screams my conformity to the beauty ideal in America.)
This is the reality that many female-bodied people face, simply because we are female-bodied. A study of 2,000 female-bodied people conducted in 2014 reported that 65% of female-bodied people have experienced street harassment and catcalling. Another global study conducted around the same time reported that of the female-bodied people in the United States who has been harassed, 85% had first been harassed before the age of 17. These studies are only two of many that suggest we need to pay attention to catcalling and street harassment.
And as brilliant Medium writer Hanna points out, it isn’t always black and white whether or not we, as those being assaulted by catcalling, should actually engage with the assailants. There are so many things that complicate female-bodied people responding to those harassing them. Is it night time? Are they in a group? Am I in a group? Is transportation close by? Is there an exit? Am I prepared to run if I have to?
This gets even more complicated if we factor in the intersectionality of race, because we have to acknowledge power differentials and loaded history with treatment of Black and Brown men by white (cis)women and of Black and Brown women by white (cis)men. I often find myself in this bind. Where do I draw the line between wanting to protect myself and not wanting to come off as a snotty, entitled white girl? I don’t think there is a clearly defined line there — yes, protecting myself is key, but to what extent do I react based on the race difference between me and the verbal attacker? It isn’t an easy scenario.
In honor of anti-harassment week, I share one of my many experiences of being cat called for you. Because those who have done it don’t care that they made me feel afraid, sexualized, frustrated, or more motivated to go into my social work class where I can talk to others around why these things keep happening to me and millions of other female-bodied people. But I know that somebody reading this does care, and I know that somebody reading this also has a wicked earache from earbuds they wear more than their favourite pair of pants.
I don’t know if I’ll wear my headphones on the walk back or not. I don’t know if I’ll expose myself to what I might hear, choosing integrity of self and defiance of rape culture discourse like catcalling over personal safety. Or if I’ll do what I do most days and put the earbuds in and blast noise to drown out the rest of the what-could-be world.
I do know that although this week of international awareness is important and making leaps for female-bodied people, more work needs to be done — around race, heterosexism, and violence, among other things. It might not happen overnight, but in choosing to write about what happened today — what happens most days to me — it is a step in raising awareness.
I’m hoping for a day when the only calling out I hear on the street is from the birds.
