Haven’t done one of these in a while, so for this weekend, let’s go back in time to 1993 with Salt-n-Pepa’s None of Your Business.
I chose this song for this weekend because it astonishes me just how relevant this song still is.
Sometimes strangers think they have a right to comment on your body and your choices. They forget that you’re an adult capable of making your own decisions. They disapprove of your tattoos, your weight, the length of your skirt, the number of times you go out, the number of people you have sex with- and for some reason, they think that means that you no longer deserve privacy or respect.
Obviously, this is nonsense. Respect isn’t just for people you deem ‘respectable.’
So this weekend? Go wild. Drink, party, have one night stands or stay at home and have a Lord of the Rings marathon. Some people may not approve of your choices, but forget ’em. It’s none of their business.
Cat Calls Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
When street harassment is discussed, inevitably, the perpetrators or potential perpetrators of street harassment are men. This is because the majority of street harassment is perpetrated by men, just as the majority of people who experience street harassment are women.
The vast majority of any kind of sexual harassment or assault is perpetrated by men. Unsurprisingly, this can make women, particularly women who have experienced sexual harassment or assault, be wary of, or angry at men.
If you’ve read this far, you may find the tone of this post sounds very condescending, possibly to the point of rudeness. That is the same tone that women hear whenever someone has to add “you know, not all men are like that.”
“You know, not all men are creeps.”
“You know, some men know how to treat women.”
“You know, it’s not fair to blame street harassment on all men.”
Dear men in our lives: we know that the majority of you are decent, well-meaning and kind individuals. We know that there are many men who are basically decent people. We know. Men occupy half the planet. It would be incredibly difficult to walk through life only ever meeting women and male street harassers. There are quite a lot of you.
Before you add a comment like, “you shouldn’t blame all men,” please think about what you hope to accomplish. It is not helpful, it is not news, it doesn’t reaffirm a person’s faith in the male gender. All it does is detract from the person’s experience to make it about men.
There are no anti-street harassment movements that are focussed on blaming men because the focus is never on men. The focus is on people who experience street harassment.
When you add these comments, you tell us that your ego is more important than our experiences. You tell us that your discomfort at knowing you have the potential to harass someone is worse than the actual experience of being harassed.
Don’t beat yourself up, don’t think that you can never talk about street harassment again, just remember what Craig Ferguson says:
1.) Does this need to be said?
2.) Does this need to be said by me?
3.) Does this need to be said by me now?
We need to support each other if we want to combat street harassment, and more importantly, we need to support each other well.
Cat Calls Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
Everyone knows a guy like this. The one you go on one date with, and he already starts spouting off about true love. The one who texts you constantly even though you never reply back. The one who calls you a bitch for rejecting them, and claims no one likes ‘nice guys’ anymore because they believe a date, a kiss, or giving them your phone number means they’re entitled to more.
What does this have to do with street harassment? The person who continues to try to chat you up even when you’re obviously uninterested is the same as the person who Even if the latter seems nice (after all, you decided to date him!), he is not a nice person.
Don’t tolerate people who won’t understand or respect your boundaries. Don’t feel pressured to give up more of your time or energy to someone because they have a false sense of entitlement. You don’t owe them anything.
Cat Calls Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
(trigger warning: brief discussion of rape and victim-blaming)
Last week, David Mitchell beat and raped a 73 year old women. Nine days earlier, she had seen him masturbating in the bushes, and took a picture of him. Moments before the later assault, he asked her, “do you remember me?”
Since then, the incident has sparked discussion around whether or not she “provoked” the attack by taking his picture (spoiler alert: that’s garbage), and the new trend in reporting street harassment through social media.
To get the first question out of the way: No. There is absolutely nothing you can do that would warrant you somehow “deserving” or “provoking” an act of sexual violence upon yourself. Furthermore, in instances like this, harassers do not need and excuse to be “provoked.” If you respond, they may get violent. If you ignore them, they may get violent. Either way, it is never the victim’s fault. There’ll be more posts on victim-blaming and how harmful it is in the future, but for now, we’ll just leave it at that.
As for the second question, we live in a world where sexual assault and sexual harassment is one of the most under-reported crimes. In a 2003 survey, it was reported that 28% of women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace; less than a 1/3 placed a formal complaint. In a workplace, there is at least some system in place for you to make a complaint, no matter how flawed said system may be. It’s much harder to report street harassment.
The nature of street harassment is that you cannot always retaliate. Sometimes you don’t feel safe doing so, sometimes they’re gone before you can respond, sometimes you can’t even think of how to respond. That’s okay. The act of sharing photos, videos and stories of these incidents occurring lets people know that they are not alone. It lets people know that street harassment happens, and it is not okay. It lets harassers out there know that we can see them, and we will not tolerate them any longer.
Cat Calls Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
We know how much it can suck walking through public places where you’ve been harassed before. Having certain songs playing while you walk always help- it’s like having your own bad ass theme song follow you around.
Hardcore Girls is my personal favourite at the moment- it’s all about reclaiming public places and strutting your stuff regardless of the disrespectful assholes trying to bring down your game. Turn up the volume; drown out the creeps.
Cat Call Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
What is street harassment?
Simply put, it is sexual harassment in public places. It is often gender-based (though it can be motivated by or with other factors such as race or sexuality), and it creates public environments that are perpetually charged with the potential of disrespect and violence.
Cat Calls: Called Out believes that if we want to stop street harassment, even if just in our own area, we have to change our attitude. No one can be a bystander. In order to do so, this campaign has a few goals:
1.) Awareness. People need to know that street harassment happens, it happens everywhere, and it is a problem.
2.) Generating ideas on how to deal with street harassment when you see it or hear about it happening. There are ways to support people when they face street harassment. It can include giving people space to vent, calling out creeps, and et cetera. The “et cetera” part is where your ideas come in.
This may be a small campaign, but it’s an important one, and with your help, we can at least attempt to tackle some of the issues around street harassment in Sydney and in general.
Before we get started though, some disclaimers:
Cat Calls: Called Out is greatly inspired by the Hollaback! movement, as well as LivetheGreendot. Both of these are fantastic international movements, though neither of them have Sydney-based campaigns (though Hollaback! does have a Melbourne-based campaign). At the moment, Cat Calls: Called Out is not meant to be a Sydney version of either of these movements. Rather, this campaign hopes to work off of ideas from these campaigns, as well as generate new ideas to battle street harassment in Sydney.
For the rest of these posts, when I talk about street harassment, I will refer to people who experience sexual harassment with female pronouns due to the majority of street harassment being directed towards people who identify as women. However, this campaign fully acknowledges that street harassment can occur towards anyone in the gender spectrum.
On that note, any and all comments attempting to derail discussions with “but what about men?! / not all men are like that” and similar sentiments will be deleted. Same goes for any sentiments containing slut-shaming, racial profiling and etc. We’re all about support here, y’all. Hopefully this is an unnecessary disclaimer, but you never know.
Thanks for checking us out (not in that way), and stick around- we’ll have a lot more content coming your way.
Cat Call Called Out – The Facebook – The Twitter
Cat Calls: Called Out 