The Pitt News: Pitt students condemn catcalling

https://pittnews.com/article/127683/arts-and-entertainment/pitt-students-condemn-catcalling/

Pitt students condemn catcalling
Joanna Li | Staff Writer
February 14, 2018

As a 12-year-old, Sophia Marshall stepped out of the house feeling confident in the
outfit she had picked out that morning. As she waited for a friend by the local high
school, she heard a sharp whistle from out of the window of a passing car — her
first experience with catcalling.

Marshall, now a junior business administration major at Pitt, recalled feeling conflicted at the time — a mix of validation and violation.  It wasn’t until she came to college that the instances of catcalling became more frequent for Marshall — happening on the bus, her nightly walk home in Central Oakland and during her summer abroad in Paris — causing her to feel fed up.
“I’m not your baby, I’m not your honey,” Marshall said. “You don’t know me.”
According to a Cornell study, 85 percent of women experience street harassment before age 17 — and some women in Oakland are in that majority. Walking in groups of three or more, carrying pepper spray at all times and knowing a few self-defense techniques are all tips in the back of the minds of some women who have experienced street harassment at Pitt.

Marie Skoczylas, a visiting instructor in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies
Program, offers a definition of catcalling and its effects.
“Catcalling is singling out a target for sexual objectification and commenting publicly on
that person’s appearance,” Skoczylas said. “It requires a sense of entitlement to pull a
stranger into that kind of situation, knowing the advance may well be unwelcome and
insulting.”

Catcalling is part of the larger issue of street harassment. According to “Stop Street
Harassment” — a nonprofit organization focusing on ending gender-based street
harassment — street harassment can range from unwanted whistling to sexual assault. As Skoczylas explains, there’s a fine line between a pleasant interaction with compliments and harassing words that are disrespectful in nature.
“Rather than taking the route of trying to criminalize behavior, I think we need to focus on a cultural shift, changing attitudes so that we see each other as individuals to be respected rather than objects to harass,” Skoczylas said.
Sophomore finance major Casey Maher experienced catcalling in Oakland one night in
August. She walked to upper campus to meet with friends to watch a movie, but a friend
made a last-minute cancellation. Maher found herself alone in an unfamiliar place.
“Some guys pulled up next to me in a car and started yelling things out the window, like,
‘hey girl, get in the car, let us give you a ride,’” Maher said. “It made me feel really
uncomfortable and I had my hand on my phone to call the police.”

Carolyn Helenski, a sophomore communication science and disorders major, has
experienced catcalling in multiple cities. She recalls an instance with her mom in
Philadelphia that was particularly memorable, saying it was very degrading.
“One time I was in Philly with my mom for the afternoon, and a young guy was with his
friends on the street,” Helenski said. “When my mom and I walked by he said, ‘look at that nice, tight pussy in those pants.’’’
In this uncomfortable position, Helenski had an urge to stand up to the man, but her mom told her to act as if nothing had happened and just continue walking.
“Catcalling isn’t pretty when someone is trying to embarrass or harass you,” Helenski said.
“I went to say something, but [my mom] told me to just keep walking — which frustrated
me because a woman I look up to more than anyone didn’t feel comfortable standing up for herself or me.”

Other women in Oakland have experienced harassment from older men, not just fellow
college students.  Close Morgan, a junior who asked her last name be omitted for privacy, was walking back from her class in the Chevron Science Center when she stumbled into one such case as she passed a few construction workers on the sidewalk.
“As I got closer to them, I noticed that the one guy was staring at me,” she said. “Right as I
walked by, the guy who had been looking at me a little too long turned his head and said
‘hey beautiful,’ and watched me as I kept walking down the street.”
Morgan said she didn’t think much of the situation — she just smiled and continued
walking down O’Hara Street to Fifth Avenue, enjoying the compliment she was given.
“What was initially nice became super creepy when I was stopped at the crosswalk by
Thackeray,” Morgan said. “The same man popped his head out of the passenger side of a
white pickup truck and said, for the second time, ‘hey beautiful’ as his buddy kept driving.”
To avoid another encounter with the man, Morgan ended up taking the longest route
possible to get to her destination — an inconvenience for her to feel safe.
While Marshall continues to take her chances striking up conversations with strangers, she said she draws the line between friendliness and street harassment at a stranger’s ability to read context clues on a situation.
“I’m not trying to say that no one should talk to anybody else,” Marshall said. “I am saying that you need to respect my privacy, and that includes no shouting, no name calling.”
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NEWS OPINION ARTICLE:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/27/catcall-street-harassment-misogyny-metoo-girls-women-misogyny

Oi you! Catcallers and street harassers – your time is nearly up                                November 27, 2017   Phoebe-Jane Boyd

It’s usually possible to tell when it’s about to happen. The signal could be a set of dull eyes staring out from the middle of a group of teenage boys. Or a brief smirk. Could be from a man in a suit, could be from someone looking like a grandad. Sometimes there’s no warning, just the prickling sixth sense of “I’m about to be told how my tits are looking today by a complete stranger”.

“Catcalling” is exasperating and humiliating, but something to be lived with if you’re female and you go outside a lot. Racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia often get mixed into the cocktail of abusive comments, too, and as Noa Jansma’s @dearcatcallers project showed, they come from all ages and all classes. We recipients live with it, because of course we do. There is far worse than words for us to live through out there – #MeToo can show you a sample (only from women of certain economic backgrounds lucky enough to have an internet connection of course). Yet, strangely, a peaceful acceptance of street harassment as “only words” is something I’m yet to feel.

Violence could follow any insult or sexual comment, yelled or whispered, from a stranger on the street

Instead, each unprompted “slut” or “ugly dyke” from people I’ve never met causes embarrassment, irritation, but mostly anger within me. And it’s an anger that doesn’t bleed out; it builds. Latest example (which I’ll forget as new ones replace it): last week in Houston, a man was offering his opinion on each woman who walked by him. One in front of me was told she had a “nice ass”, I was called a “bitch”. I turned around and advanced on him, startled he grabbed at my forearms and babbled excuses. I yelled for him to get his damn hands off of me, until he let go and swiftly left the area, visually resentful.

Despite enjoying humiliating people who try to do the same to me first (I’m a “bitch”, remember), it’s no real outlet for the humiliation of street harassment – it’s a stupid and reckless thing to do. I know that, because everyone who has been catcalled knows that. The words of street harassment fall on a spectrum of disrespect. Violence could follow any insult or sexual comment, yelled or whispered, from a stranger on the street. The words are merely an opening parry, or a hint of how little your rights, or very existence, are respected. Women are still being hurt by people who hate them, everywhere.

The words are nothing compared with what they could be, but are also a reminder of that. They’re intended that way: a smug reminder, a smirking warning – don’t get too comfortable in your life. Don’t think you’re entirely safe out here; you aren’t. The actual message, and motive, behind street harassment is quiet and assured, and that’s why it’s so grating and tiring. Because we already know.

#MeToo is still so dissonant. Is sexual assault, violence, rape culture and ingrained misogyny actually being recognised, openly and honestly, as wrong at last? Are missing stairs not being stepped around any more?

Documenting women’s stories of street harassment – in pictures

More familiar and less confusing is Bryan Cranston commenting that there’s “room down the road” for forgiveness of outed abusers like Harvey Weinstein; that’s to be expected. Also predictable – Jennifer Garner’s assertion that it’s women who need to be “more of a force” to stop assault. Saturday Night Live and Lena Dunham’s “but my friend wouldn’t do that”-style silencing statements aren’t surprising, either. Women are more used to excuses like this than to being listened to. They’re symptoms of a sexist status quo being protected – whether Bryan, Jennifer, Lena, and their cohorts realise that or not.

Catcallers and street harassers, however, know they’re maintaining a system of sexism – it’s the motive, and that’s why it angers me so much. In 2015 a survey by Cornell University and the anti-harassment campaign Hollaback! on street harassment found that an international average of 84% of women have been victims of street harassment between the ages of 11 and 17. The 2014 Stop Street Harassment survey also featured some scary (but unsurprising, if you’ve experienced it) statistics of women being “reminded”.

In light of #MeToo, will the upcoming US-based survey report lower numbers of street harassment? Probably not – not yet. I suspect harassers will be offering more messages of the misogyny that still exists in the world for a while. But that’s a signal too – that change is coming, and they know it.

*All Rights Reserved

Black Male Street Harassers are the Devil. PERIOD.

There are 1 billion people on the planet and for some reason in the Washington, D.C. metro area, especially Maryland, black male “Christians” will stalk, street harass, accost and assault decent women who are total strangers who reject their advances.   To the rational thinking person, it makes absolutely no sense why these black males take rejection so personally, only to solidify that they are insecure and have low-esteem despite the false over the top machismo they manufacture to perpetrate street harassment as a normal function of male genes. Normal, well-adjusted, and well-educated men do not street harass by the way.  So to recap, somehow out of a billion people on the planet, dark-skinned black males choose to attempt to humiliate, disrespect and assault women who had nothing to do with them and continue to not to have anything to do with them, and only by observation verify that they made the right decision in the first place.  These are the black so-called representatives of Christ of today, their logic being if you don’t let me hit on you, have my way with you or sexually assault you, I will disrespect you in the alternative by hurling verbal abuse, non-sensical defense of savage behavior aimed at women who are TOTAL STRANGERS.  The reason why this is normal is because today’s ghetto black “Christians” have no moral compass.  They are coddled by their single black “Christian”, democratic party voting mothers whose example is how to use the government system to their advantage and use men.  Thus, their example in life is to use people, when a discerning, decent woman can by observation detect the corrupted DNA sequence that comprise these low-level black “Christian” males and the same males are met with lack of access, this is when you see the apes in heat go bizerk.  They spiral into hysterical laughter, insults, “..didn’t want you anyway,” “you ain’t all that,” “f*@! you,” and all kinds of verbal drivel to divert the fact that they never had a chance and must now soothe the initially fragile ego. It is utterly fascinating and disturbing at the same time how these dark-skinned black “Christian” males attempt to defend their conduct, all the while the reasonable intelligent woman knows that they street harass because they assume 1) that you are easily accessible (quite satanic that they believe a covered, religious person actually is), 2) the woman that they are targeting is either unintelligent or vulnerable.  There is NO way a good, well-mannered, discerning woman could accept this as normal or flattering behavior.  Remember there are 1 billion people on the planet and some sadistic black male strangers see fit to stalk, harass, disrespect and humiliate a woman who by proper discernment seeks no interaction with these vagrants.  Yet, out of all the millions of people in the country, these black male vagabonds short-circuit and set forth plots to destroy these women who are total strangers.  You cannot tell me that course of behavior is not simply pure evil.

Just to be clear, these are the same types of black males who claim to be part of or support Black Lives Matter, which obviously does not apply to other blacks and focuses on the liberalization of criminal activity and ignores criminal conduct of ghetto blacks upon innocent Black Americans.  Then again, it makes sense they are supporters of such a movement, black women are not any type of beneficiary of it.  So now we venture into why black male street harassers are devils.

One of the non-theological definition of devil is:  ‘an atrociously wicked, cruel, or ill-tempered person.’ Another definition is ‘mischievous,’ this aptly describes black male street harassers.  Street harassers are troublemakers because they initiate conflict and originate situations of distress where none previously existed.  Trouble is a synonym for mischief, thus by any rational thinking person street harassers are mischief-makers, better known as devils.  So, why would a black “Christian” devil (oxymoron, but hey it’s logical to them) believe that they have the right to street harass a religious person? A covered Sunni Muslim black American woman?  It is easy, let us take a look at opposites, good v. bad, wicked v. righteous, devil (deceiver, peacemaker, someone who causes distress) v. someone at peace or minding their business or who would not even consider such a disrespectful beggar as worthy of their time.  Ill-tempered? Check. Please refer to this post:

https://blackmanleaveusalone.wordpress.com/tag/not-fooling-anyone/

 Since most street harassers are black males and street harassers are devils, thus most of today’s black males = devils, minions of Satan.

…at the Whole Foods in Columbia, Maryland (Howard County)

One morning at approximately 9:00 a.m.,  I was entering the Whole Foods grocer 10275 Little Patuxent Pkwy, Columbia, Maryland 21044 (Howard County), from my car in the designated parking lot.  I noticed a dark-skinned black “Christian” male approximately 5’9” in height who appeared to be from the City of Baltimore (unkempt, ignorant face, bubble eyes and a sneer).  There are two sets of doors from which you may enter. When I left my car, I noticed he was walking quickly from my left, where the actual exit door was to the right, where I needed to enter.

I proceed to walk to the far, right entry door closer to where the carts are kept outside as he appeared to walk to the left set. As soon as he saw me entering a separate set of doors, he did an about face and walked behind me and murmured something. I immediately zigged and went to the doors to the far left.  Apparently, this dark-skinned black “Christian” male was already harassing other patrons as I noticed a Caucasian female Howard County police officer in uniform standing alert in the eating area. I grabbed a handbasket and proceeded to the fresh food/self-service area.  The same dark-skinned black male “Christian” followed me, this time with Whole Foods employees noticing. I immediately proceeded to a different section and saw the police officer quickly move towards the black male to address his behavior.  After my purchase, I went to the eating area to obtain utensils and napkins and saw a black male eating, glance at me and then look down at his food.  I thought, ‘…must be quite embarrassing that a white woman in uniform have to monitor black males just so people can get groceries in peace.’  This is the so-called suburbs of Maryland.