The daily reality of street harassment

I remember getting ready to meet my friend at IHOP for National Pancake Day – an annual tradition. In preparation for our free short stack, I wore my favorite V-neck sweater and painted my lips cherry red. Red lipstick has always been my take-on-the-world shade, and you know what – I was ready to take on the world. As I was walking up to our neighborhood IHOP, a man stopped his car, honked at me, and yelled “damn girl, you look so fine right now. I wish you were mine. Mmm mm mm.” At that moment, I froze. I went from feeling confident and free to feeling violated and small.

This example of an unsolicited "compliment" by a stranger in a public place is a form of sexual harassment known as street harassment. Street harassment has been defined as:

[U]nwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation. Street harassment includes unwanted whistling, leering, sexist, homophobic or transphobic slurs, persistent requests for someone’s name, number or destination after they’ve said no, sexual names, comments and demands, following, flashing, public masturbation, groping, sexual assault, and rape.

Street harassment is a pervasive and prevalent norm in culture. One report found that sixty-five percent of women and twenty-five percent of men have experienced street harassment at least once in their lifetime. To illustrate the extent of this phenomena, Shoshana Roberts conducted a social experiment by recording herself walking the streets of New York for ten hours. During her experiment, she was subjected to over 100 instances of street harassment. Noa Jansma created the  #DearCatCallers Instagram handle. On this account, she took a selfie with men who catcalled her. The juxtaposition of her expressionless face with the faces of her jubilant harassers was astonishing. Not only were the men willing to take a picture with her, but they were proud and unashamed of their actions because, to them, they were "harmlessly" asserting their masculinity through compliments.

These "compliments" have serious social and psychological ramifications. First, this form of harassment exemplifies dominance feminism and the male gaze reinforcing societal power dynamics of the patriarchy.

The 'male gaze' invokes the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualised way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women. In the male gaze, [the] woman is visually positioned as an 'object' of heterosexual male desire. Her feelings, thoughts and her own sexual drives are less important than her being 'framed' by male desire.

When women are catcalled, they are reduced to being viewed as sexual objects. Their utility in society is based on what men find pleasurable about women - their bodies. Research shows that this type of objectification can not only affect our dignity as human beings but also undermines the psychological wellbeing of those on the receiving end of a catcall. One study found that street harassment was related to self-objectification, depression, and eating disorders.

While there is evidence of the negative impact street harassment, the onus for avoiding this type of harassment has been put on the victim - not the perpetrator. This is one of the key reasons why street harassment has been found to be a part of rape culture. For example, "on the spectrum of violence against people it becomes clear that people are meant to police and control different areas of their lives to avoid becoming a victim or target." Instead of socializing harassers to stop their boorish and harmful behavior, victims are told to adjust their behavior in a variety of different ways, whether it be by dressing differently or drinking little to no alcohol in public places.

I remember the moment after the catcalling incident at IHOP, I went back to my car and pulled out a scarf to cover myself and wiped off my lipstick. I was socialized to blame myself for the harassment and believe that if I had worn something demure, I would not have been catcalled.

A few weeks later, I shared my story with a friend - a Muslim woman who typically wears a headscarf and an abaya (a robe-like dress) when she goes out. She shared the number of times men would approach her and tell her they were fantasizing what was under her abaya. Thus, it seems that no matter what types of "precautions" women are told to take, no one is immune from street harassment.

As a previous blogger on this forum stated, a woman's appearance is not an excuse to sexually harass her. 

These character judgments about women based on their appearance are harmful especially for young girls who grow up internalizing these messages. What is even worse is that the perception of women as sluts is used to blame victims of sexual abuse, commonly known as victim blaming.

Because street harassment in the form of catcalling has been such a commonplace experience, some cities and countries around the world have worked to make catcalling a fineable offense. For example, the British county of Nottinghamshire has classified catcalling as a hate crime. While there are exciting developments across the globe to legislatively combat street harassment in the form of catcalling, the United States has been slow to follow. Because most hate speech and offensive language is protected by the First Amendment, there is an argument that it may be very difficult to legislatively curb catcalling as it can chill speech and may be difficult to administer.

I am not sure what the best way to combat street harassment if the law is not by our side. While some women push back against the harassers, others ignore the provocation for safety reasons. What I do know is that the next time this happens (and it will happen), I will not blame myself. I will see catcalling for what it is: sexual harassment used to assert power and patriarchal norms to the detriment of women.