A video about catcalling went viral after one woman walked around the streets of New York City for ten hours while experiencing over 100 instances where men verbally harassed her.
\nAfter the video was posted online by anti-street harassment organization, Hollaback! and marketing agency, Rob Bliss Creative, it provoked criticism and debate about what qualifies as harassment.
\nSome would define catcalling as the act of getting a woman\u2019s attention in a vulgar manner, others would describe it as a way to reinforce female oppression by making a woman\u2019s value equivalent to her appearance. The video\u2019s intention was to spread awareness of street harassment; an issue that women around the world deal with daily.
\nHanna Rosin, writer for the Atlantic, said the video\u2019s main point was to show a variety of street harassment, involving people of all backgrounds, according to Bliss. Unfortunately, Rosin said this didn\u2019t show up in the video.
\n
\n\u201cWe got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera,\u201d Bliss said. \u201cIt is not a perfect representation of everything that happened.\u201d
\nPatrick Terry, Sinclair student, said catcalling is wrong.
\n\u201cCatcalling is going to happen, but it shouldn\u2019t,\u201d he said.
\nWriter and activist Feminista Jones said street harassment has been a familiar topic for years. She said she feels like people still aren\u2019t empathetic though.
\n\u201cThis video is important for all sectors of this movement,\u201d Jones said.
\nMany viewers have said that this video focuses on harassment caused by minority men of the lower class level. Many of the comments relate to race, creed and social status.
\nLee Warren and John Klos, both Sinclair students, said it\u2019s mainly about ignorance, and disrespecting women. Klos said it goes back to parenting and how people were raised.
\nRachel Ruland, Sinclair student, has similar views about relating street harassment with parenting skills.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s about the dominative nature,\u201d Ruland said.
\nShe said parents should take responsibility for teaching their sons how to act toward women.
\n\u201cFatherless children growing up with disrespect for their mothers creates problems. People think it\u2019s acceptable to treat women that way,\u201d Klos said. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be treated that way at all.
\n\u201d Emily May, executive director of Hollaback!, said it\u2019s about acknowledging that people experience harassment differently.
\n\u201cWomen of color experience it differently. L.G.B.T.Q. people experience it differently,\u201d May said.
\nRuland said girls have to think everyone is a threat. She said she doesn\u2019t feel safe walking by herself now.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t respond to it negatively. It\u2019s a fear, but usually I ignore it,\u201d Ruland said. \u201cI\u2019ve noticed most men catcall when they are in a group with their friends to feel more dominant and in control.\u201d
\nShe said she would like to do an experiment where women would catcall men.
\n\u201cIt may open their eyes to how weird it is and how sick it is,\u201d Ruland said.
\nAccording to stopstreetharassment.com, 65 percent of women have been harassed verbally on the street. Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Reuters blogger, said the video demonstrates how constant and exhausting street harassment can be, even though she said the video was unfair.
\n\u201cThe video is not perfect,\u201d Fazlalizadeh said. \u201cThe video was a visual example of what [women] go through constantly\u2026it also served as proof to those who question the credibility of women who have spoken out about their ordeals with street harassment.\u201d
\nNot only did this video portray a side of verbal harassment women face every day, but it created two viewpoints, according to John Herrman.
\n\u201cThe video works in two ways. It\u2019s a neat portrayal of what it is like to be a woman talking about gender on the mainstream Internet. This became apparent within minutes of publication, at which point the video\u2019s comment section was flooded with furious responses,\u201d Herrman said.
\nMany of the comments were criticized for feministic thoughts, while arguing that the content wasn\u2019t near any form of harassment. Herrman said the comments from men, online and off, slammed feminism.
\n\u201cThey feel as though the perception of their actions as threats is a threat in itself,\u201d Herrman said. \u201cIn other words, they too believe that unsolicited public attention is inherently aggressive.\u201d
\nKelsey McKinney said any women, who has walked anywhere, knows the terrifying catcalls and whistles men make to get attention.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a way men make women feel unsafe walking the streets of their own neighborhoods,\u201d McKinney said.
\nMay, who has similar views as McKinney and Ruland, said that it\u2019s unfortunate of how it feels to be a woman in a public place. She said she believes all harassment is caused by the same problem, which is sexism.
\nFazlalizadeh said society puts distrust in women because they think they don\u2019t know the difference between a compliment and an undignified comment.
\n\u201cTo suggest that women should take these advances as a compliment or an innocent greeting, is not only dismissive, it\u2019s insulting,\u201d Fazlalizadeh said. \u201cThis is not an exaggeration. This is a truth being told by a woman who lives with the frustrations and dangers of sexism.\u201d
\nMetro U.K. said many of the responses were divided. \u201cSome questioned whether being told \u2018you\u2019re beautiful\u2019 constituted as harassment, while others called the footage \u2018eye-opening\u2019,\u201d Metro U.K. said in a recent article.
\nRuland said she fears the future. She doesn\u2019t think it will change unless we start teaching men how to respect each women at a young age.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a fine line between a compliment and harassment,\u201d Ruland said. \u201cYou can admire from afar, just keep it to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A video about catcalling went viral after one woman walked around the streets of New York City for ten hours while experiencing over 100 instances where men verbally harassed her. After the video was posted online by anti-street harassment organization, Hollaback! and marketing agency, Rob Bliss Creative, it provoked criticism and debate about what qualifies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3693,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-2KB","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3693"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10614,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10577\/revisions\/10614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}