Contrary to the popular belief of moronic men everywhere, most women don’t actually like cat-calling.
Contrary to the popular belief of moronic men everywhere, most women don’t actually like cat-calling. This issue affects many women, and can at times escalate to scenarios of harassment or even violence upon women ‘rejecting’ these men or not returning the ‘compliment.’
Admittedly, on an international scale, females in the UK have it pretty good. We thankfully do not face the daily terrors of rape such as those in India, for example. As humiliating and mortifying as a catcall can be, that’s usually all that it is.
In the majority of cases there’s no follow up, and the risk of the perpetrator actually having the audacity to get out of their car and chase you down the street when you salute your middle finger at their efforts is low. Only do the former if you’re wearing adequately flat shoes though. Just in case.
But even when it doesn’t escalate, catcalls are still downright annoying. Seriously guys, what are you playing at?
Unrealistic expectations
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being and/or knowing a teenage girl, you’d know that attendance to one’s aesthetics absorbs a large percentage of many of our lives. This unfortunate truth follows the premise that we are not the same breed of female as Beyoncé.
We’re not flawless, nor did we wake up like this, although for some reason society seems to expect us to. The majority of us in fact awoke this morning to the horror of a blotchy face and bloodshot-eyed reflection.
In an attempt to meet these unrealistic expectations, there’s a common protocol of scrubbing up in a certain way, so much so that when you see a fellow female an unspoken bond is formed, instantly informing you of the extent of her morning procedures.
Dressing up. Pulling up one’s socks. Straightening ones hair. Semi-blinding oneself in the vain attempt to achieve a perfectly symmetrical frame around one’s eyes, using eyeliner cheaper than your morning coffee.
These are all well-known routines to many modern women in this country, and I salute those who make the quotidian effort to carry them out. It’s not something that you should have to do, but if you do, then you deserve recognition for the amount of work you’ve put in.
The response that you do not expect or crave is a man you don’t know in a white van to honk his horn and shout passive aggressive slurs across the road in your general direction. This might be hard to believe, but we don’t actually do all this dressing up for the benefit of irritating strangers.
Normalisation of the catcall
When a young girl rides her bike instead of awaiting the green man, she knows there’s a chance that she’ll be graced with the unwanted attention of a man old enough to be her father. Honk.
She was right. It wasn’t so much a ‘what if’ question she asked herself, more of a ‘when.’ Apparently people think that’s okay. And why would they think any differently when at age eleven girls are given stranger danger seminars on how to respond?
This surely is a pre-emptive strike at the shoddy welcome these young girls will receive upon reaching womanhood.
What really vexes me is the assumption that women would be so flattered that they would swoon away and throw themselves at a cat-calling male. Who are they kidding? In reality females such as myself let out a short snort at their lame efforts and overconfidence whilst labelling them a prick under their breath.
Sheer ludicrousness
It’s pretty clear by now that I’m not such a fan of the cat-call; after all, we are women, not animals. However, one can appreciate the range of ‘compliments’ out there.
It’s apparent that the brains of men who engage in this behaviour follow trailing along behind their genitalia, their hormones obviously take precedence over their (consequently moronic) deliveries.
These range from crude, to awkward (a prime example of the latter being ‘nice legs.’ Cheers-I grew them myself), to just plain creepy attempts at conversation.
In April of this year, The Guardian made a video that went viral in which journalist Leah Green orchestrated an inverse situation of everyday sexism. She went around shouting pleasantries such as “get your ass out lads” at confused, if not bemused, civilians.
As Green herself wrote, it showed how ludicrous these situations are when the tables are turned on men. One thing is for sure: if you try to attract a woman as an animal, then you’re better off going to a pet store. They don’t have a choice there.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments section below.
Image: Eric Hood/Getty Images
