This afternoon I had the chance to catch up and watch the controversial video about the woman walking the streets of New York that we also discussed in the podcast. During the podcast I didn’t much want to comment on a piece I had not yet seen. After viewing my initial reaction is where are all the white men? Its hard to imagine that if she walked through every neighborhood of Manhattan, not a single white man catcalled or made a comment? The editing feels contrived, not entirely candid.
Perhaps I am inured to that type of harassment from years spent living in the city, and from when my daughter lived in the city too, and the constant worry about much worse events happening. I was mugged four times when we lived in Boston, twice at knife point, and two of the incidences were by women. Additionally, my children were with me during two of the muggings. Relatively speaking, catcalling and comments are easy to shrug off and ignore. The man who followed her for five minutes was truly perverse, but what would you do in a similar situation? In reality, you would never let it get that far. If I were alone without a cameraman present, I would have been very frightened and after about twenty seconds would have ducked into one of the many stores that were passed along the way.
What are your impressions after viewing the video?
Published on October 28th, with over 31 million hits.
Good Morning Gloucester 
I head her interviewed on NPR on my way to work – very interesting about why she did it and how she feels even more scared now because people knows what she looks like. But she does not regret her decisions at all
http://www.npr.org/2014/11/01/360494480/woman-in-street-harassment-video-i-do-not-feel-safe-right-now (4m 23sec) – perhaps you could embed as a follow up?
Did you read KT’s post to The Clam? #awesomeness#
Bex OUT
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Thanks Bex so much for sharing this link. The threats she is experiencing–an ACTRESS playing a part–is just insanely ridiculous.
As she is a recent resident (now transplanted) of NYC and Brooklyn, I’d love to get my daughter’s take on the video.
I’ll look for KT’s Clam post, thanks for mentioning that as well.
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“Speaking, catcalling and comments are easy to shrug off and ignore” — I don’t know if I agree with this. And I too lived in Boston, was mugged once, and the guy had a gun pointed at my head! Growing up in Michigan, though, as a 14, 15, 16 year old girl with boobs, the catcalling altered my worldview. I felt like it gave me a sexual identity well before I was ready for it. That hasn’t been part of the conversation, at least that I’ve seen: the impact on young, young women.
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Great point Sarah Jane. Girls at that age are so vulnerable to sexual harassment and I am very sorry that altered your view of yourself and the world around you.
I think I define sexual harassment as people acting in a way that communicates a desire for control, hostility, and aggression. Catcalling and comments fall into a gray area and it depends wholly on the situation and the tone of the person’s voice. Catcalling on a busy New York City sidewalk I would find far less frightening and intimidating than comments made late at night while standing on a subway platform, alone.
Its also partly a cultural thing too–as a visitor down at the dock pointed out after we had done the podcast, Jessica, in several European countries, its the norm for a man to put his hands on your leg while making comments.
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It’s creepy and rude – not good manners. Also it’s hard to tell the difference between just a plain old ill mannered guy and a guy who may actually harm a woman so it shouldn’t be a surprise that women feel uncomfortable you never know when or if one of these guys is going to grab you or get upset if you ignore them.
I lived in Austria as a child, attended the University of Vienna for a semester, backpacked around Europe twice and went many times to visit friends and family – not sure where it’s normal for a man to put his hands on a woman’s legs that’s a new one for me and sounds a little fishy like “Don’t worry, is custom in my country, just relax” fishy. I do know from experience that men in Italy not only cat call they can be grabby too.
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A really good point Anna–that the woman feels vulnerable/fearful because you never know to what extreme the advance will lead.
I thought about too–what sort of family life or culture does a man experience when growing up that would lead him to believe its okay to treat a woman that way.
Jessica was speaking about her experiences in Italy and I know it to be true in Spain as well.
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I completely agree with the post on The Clam. Several years ago, it occurred to me that most men don’t realize (and no reason they would) that these verbal assaults are a part of a woman’s experience in the world.
A lot of people revere Roy Orbison and his signature song “Pretty Woman,” but that gutteral sneer always creeps me out, and echoes these very base experiences.
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Catcalling and “hollering” is annoying at its most harmless, and terrifying at its most aggressive, but it’s not going away anytime soon. There would need to be a multigenerational overhaul and reconditioning of how men learn to treat women for this to cease being an issue.
Another thing…this woman seriously demerited her “cause” by excluding white males. As someone who lived in NYC for a few years, I received more unwanted attention from creepy white Polish dudes then I did anyone else. The one time I really feared for my safety was when a group of white, intoxicated Polish men followed me a few blocks in Greenpoint (a predominantly white, now mostly gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn).
You learn to put your blinders on and ignore it. Sad, but necessary.
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