I don’t remember the first time I was catcalled- or the last. I have actually become so accustomed to street harassment that I don’t bat eyelashes at it anymore; I walk on, I attempt to be fearless. When I was 18 and had started school, it terrified me to be out alone and encounter a talkative stranger. To this day, I walk a little faster around men who whistle and men who yell. When I was 18 and had started an internship, an older man on the metro asked me to live with him, and then backed off and remarked that he would leave me alone “because I looked like a nice girl.” (This was a feminist awakening, and I wish he knew that he spurred what became my feminist career.) When I was 18 and had just ventured DC alone, a much older man asked me where I lived, and if he could fly me back to New York with him.
Street harassment is a daily exercise in the life of a woman. It happens to women regardless of their lifestyle, appearance, behavior, location, status, ethnicity, or life experience. Street harassment happens to women when they are alone, traveling with others, and even (in one of my cases) when they are walking with their colleagues or supervisors. Street harassment is a pervasive form of verbal and physical violence against women. For many women, the problem is too pervasive and stubborn and appears impossible to solve. Many have given up in the face of comments like “why did you wear that?” or “why were you in that neighborhood?” For many women, street harassment has become an annoying, embarassing, and secret activity. For many women, it is a form of verbal and physical violence that goes ignored by them and their friends and loved ones.
For those women, there is Hollaback!, an organized movement against street harassment. Founded by Emily May in New York City, I began to consult the project on social media when they had already chaptered Hollabacks in other countries and continents, as well as across the nation in a host of cities. On July 8, Hollaback! will be celebrating its launch in Brooklyn, New York – the beginning of their second stage will be ushered in by a series of applications (for the iPhone, Android, and more) and a new focus on exposing street harassers, mapping where harassment happens, and then attempting to legislate against it.
I was probably no more than 13 when I began to struggle with street harassment. It is a behavior that confounds me, and frustrates me. The Sexist at Washington City Paper has published stories about violent street harassers who strike. (Similarly, she also reported on Miss DC’s recent badass attack on her harassers.) For women in the United States and around the world, freedom of movement is still a fantasy, hindered by misogyny that is manifested in catcalls, wolf whistles, and other forms of dangerous and dehumanizing behavior.
This spring, I was asked to lead my school’s Take Back the Night march against sexual assault, rape, and other forms of violence against women. I marched defiantly and proudly, finally free from the constraints of acceptable behavior and finally free from the overwhelming inability to fight back that so many women encounter in situations of street harassment. From the past week, I can recount around five examples of street harassment directed at me, all while I was walking to and from work, networking receptions, and concerts- and I’m done.
This July 8, I am giving street harassers exactly what- and all that- they deserve: a big fuck you.
Hollaback PSA! from Emily May on Vimeo.
