Laura

So today I was catcalled by two pervs. That I know of, at least.

The first time was in the (very busy) train station when I was walking towards the ATM and a random guys that passed by me made those awful kissing sounds, to which I automatically responded with a Dutch word translating to “Pig” and I saw him looking back at me being very surprised that a woman actually critiqued him on it. Later on the train I noticed that I didn’t have my card in my wallet because I was so fuming because of that incident that I had forgotten to take my card out the ATM. So that’s awesome. Thanks for making the whole thing even more awful, creep.

The second time was around 9 pm when I met a friend on a busy square in Antwerp. When I passed a guy with my bike I heard him shout at me “Hi baby, everything alright?” I stopped and looked back at him, asking him “Why would you say that?” and he as well seemed to be surprised by my response. He made up the excuse that he had mistaken me for someone else and when I told him he obviously did not and asking him what his problem was he got verbally aggressive. Some quotes: “Are you going to hit me now? You going to touch me?” “Fuck off!” “Whore!” “Slut!”. All whilst he was walking away from me, by the way. It seemed he didn’t really like to be confronted with his own sexism or my responsiveness.

These situations have been non stop happening to me and basically every friend I have since our puberty and it needs to F-ing stop. I’m trying to force myself to respond to every catcall to my address, because I don’t want to ignore this shit anymore. It’s too important for that. Unfortunately sometimes I don’t find the courage to respond to catcallers, because I’m sensing a certain threat and danger, but seriously, to all girls an women: respond, react. Surprise them with us not taking this anymore. If we ignore it, then society will ignore it as well.