Five Reason to Never Catcall
Ever since I brought my house to Atlanta, Georgia, I have routinely done yard work like a good little homemaker. It’s not the most fun thing to do, but #Adulting. Folks from the South will tell you it can get hot down here like very hot. Most of the time, I do yard work; I either wear a muscle shirt or no shirt. An unexpected consequence of that is me being catcalled on several occasions. I usually laugh it off or joke with my partner about it later.
As a straight male, I don’t have to worry about any negative consequences or fear of things escalating when I’m catcalled by a random guy, a group of women in a drop-top, or a bus full of teenage girls. It’s rare and not a part of my daily life. However, for millions or even billions of women, catcalling is a regular occurrence and a severe problem. Verbal threats, sexual assault, and even murder can happen when women turn down sexual advances or catcalls of strange men in public places.
We now live in a post #MeToo era, which I think is good. There are some proponents of Me Too who claim that as a man, you can’t even talk or flirt with a woman without the worry of accusations of sexual harassment. Well, that’s bs. People can still flirt, date, hook up, and have relationships. It just means men shouldn’t be going around being dicks. I’m no angel and have been guilty of catcalling when I was younger. It’s not something I’m proud of, but as an evolved man, you can learn from your mistakes. So here are five top reasons you should never catcall.
Sexual Harassment
For one, it’s a form of sexual harassment. Just imagine for a second that some random person on the street tells you that you have a nice ass or touches you on the butt without consent. What about riding public transportation and someone pulling out their junk and flashing you. You’d be pissed off and feel very vulnerable whenever you went out. Many of my female colleagues have had to deal with those things daily. Some of them have dealt with this since they were the tender age of twelve years old. (For any adult man reading this, don’t catcall anyone, especially not a little ass-girl. I hate to have to say this, but this is the world we live in.) The same might also be true for my LGBTQ friends as well. Look at how things can escalate in countries like India or Bangladesh when it comes to street harassment.
Creepiness
When you catcall someone and make sexually suggestive comments towards a stranger, you don’t come off as sophisticated or smooth. Nope, you just come off as a real creep. Thus creating fear. It’s not cool and makes you an asshole.
Giving Strangers Orders
My wife, along with millions of other women across the country, has to deal with being given orders by strange men. It’s been a daily occurrence for my wife and many of my women friends. Every day, rando dudes on the block tell countless women they should smile. Why do guys say this to women who they don’t know anyway? Is it possible they imagine that those women are secretly smiling at them? Well, they’re not buddy, and like most people, women will smile when they’re laughing, hanging with friends, or in a good mood. It would be weird if someone went around smiling all day for no apparent reason. Think The Joker from Batman fame. He’s creepy because he walks around with a permanent smile. If I had to go about my daily routine and deal with some tool telling me to smile randomly, I’d look at the person sideways. It can be highly uncomfortable or intimidating to a woman who is said to smile by a group of strange men.
It Never Works
I want to meet a man who has met the love of their life via catcalling. If you have and can confirm this fact, I’ll gladly give you a hundred dollars of my hard-earned cash. Seriously!
It’s Dehumanizing
Andrea Nagel of the Sunday Times can break it down far better and I could ever:
“Flirting is about playfulness, catcalling is intended to demean; flirting assumes equality between the parties, catcalling is about dominance and manipulating the power dynamics of patriarchy; flirting is humanizing, catcalling is objectifying; flirting is fun, catcalling is scary; flirting is consensual, catcalling is about power and control; flirting is one-on-one, catcalling is about group dynamics; flirting is respectful and catcalling is just plain fucking rude.”
Evolving Folks Project 