cat-call

Violet

I was on the underground, travelling home from work in the evening. It was fairly crowded, and there was a group of men standing nearby to where I was sitting. Suddenly, one of the men said “Joey has a perfect view of those tits”. Mortified, I didn’t take my eyes from my phone, hoping that “Joey” wouldn’t confront me directly. He didn’t and instead replied “what?” because he presumably didn’t hear what had been said. “I said, Look at her tits!” The initial person repeated, louder now. He then started chanting it so loudly that the entire carriage heard his shouts of “Look at those tits!” Again, I didn’t let my gaze move from my phone, as I didn’t want to escalate anything. I hoped one of his group would call him out for his behavior, but no luck. When I got off the train, I felt really paranoid because I had to walk through the group, and was fearful of being groped, etc. I kept close to an older lady, the only other female who was present, and that made me feel more reassured. I managed to escape without incident, and (rather rudely) barged a lot of people to get away from the platform as quickly as possible. I wish I could say that this kind of thing is rare, but its all too common, and other women are usually my only allies.

Leah

One time, I was walking through the town I used to live in (I was with a family member or a friend and their parents, I can’t remember). I was wearing boots with a small heel, I remember how happy I was to get these boots as they “made a clip clop sound” when I walked. I happened to walk past an over-middle-aged man sat on the floor against a wall smoking a cigarette. He proceeded to wolf whistle at me because I was wearing boots. I was 8 years old.

Candice

My Mom worked at our small town bar when i was about 12-14 years old. My friends and I would pop by the front of the bar to ask my Dad and her Uncle for money. I remember the men inside hooting and yelling about us being jailbait. It was confusing at the time. We didn’t know what it meant but we knew it made us uncomfortable.

Camilla

I was selling some things online, and a user of the sales portal used my contact information to text me very inappropriate stuff. At first I did not understand what he meant, because I was selling shoes, and he was asking about socks, and his grammar was inconsistent. So I asked him if he could clarify. After a couple confusing texts, he finally spoke his mind clearly: He asked me if I would wear pantyhose for a few days to make them smelly, and then send them to him. He offered to pay a little money for each pair. Then he started to send me kissing emojis. I immediately blocked his number without responding further. It made me feel scared, because this man had my phone number. I immediately deleted my number and other person-specific information from my profile on the sales portal and will take subsequent action of giving his number to the portal administrators, so they can block him as a user. It also made me feel really tired and frustrated, because I had to change my number last year because of another inappropriate man. This other man and I were dating for a couple of weeks. When I found out he was married, I broke it off (albeit a little later than I should have). Even after repeatedly being VERY CLEAR to him, that I no longer wanted to see him or have any contact with him, he would still call me non-stop for hours and hours. This happened every 3-4 months, and it kept me in a constant state of fear. Would he come seek me out? He knew where I lived at the time. After a year and a half of ignoring his sporadic call-frencies I finally changed my number. I felt defeated. Why must it be my burden to bear that these men have problems? Why am I the one who has to feel shitty, be genuinely scared, when I am not the one who is wrong? Why do I have to carry these men’s wrongdoings around with me? I am in a constant state of self-consciousness because of guys who act inappropriately: When I go out once in a while, I always make sure not to dress in a flattering way, so that I can mitigate the excessive amount of cat calls and but-groping. When I go to work, I am ashamed of myself for dressing nicely when colleagues ask why I am so dressed-up, just because I wore a skirt and mascara. It makes me feel uncomfortable that men are keeping an eye on me like that. Stop being inappropriate, guys, and be as nice as we all know you really can be!