Maybe Women Need to be More Vain

I don’t know if I’ve ever catcalled a woman. I suppose I would say I was raised well; parents who instilled a strong moral sense in me. But I would also say that, before reading The Eyefucking Diaries, I hadn’t given much thought to the morality of catcalling.

Where do we draw the line between a sincere compliment and a catcall? Is it what they say or how they say it? Do they seem overly confident? Smarmy? Or are they blushing and looking at their toes? One is a catcall and the other a sweet bashful boy who just spent 10 minutes mustering the courage to talk to the pretty girl.

The Eyefucking Diaries hit a nerve with me. But I’m perturbable. I generally think people get overly offended, worry too much about being politically correct, and care way too much about what people are thinking/doing/saying. You could say the main thing that bothers me is how much other people are bothered.

I don’t know any of the women who kept these diaries, though I did read through a few of them. A common thread throughout the diaries was the women’s descriptions of the catcallers. Usually older men who had something unlikeable about them. They were dressed poorly, had ‘sleazy eyes’, smelled like something other than natural man musk. And that’s what made them catcalls.

These diaries were written with a leading question: Take note of all the times you are catcalled. Not all the times you’re spoken to by a man. Not all the times a man asks for your number or flirts with you. These women set out specifically searching for a catcall to write about. When the handsome guy was ringing her up at Whole Foods, I would bet good money that he stole a glance at her chest while she was busying being disgusted by the older ugly guy looking at her. But she didn’t write about the handsome guy, only the ugly one.

I know it’s sensationalist writing. It’s titled to get clicks, it’s written to evoke emotions. But it does it so one-sidedly that it made me write a response. I never write a response.

I think I’ve been catcalled before. Made me feel pretty good. And that’s really what it comes down to. If every man is catcalling all the time, maybe women just need to be less offended and more vain.