(Or, an Intersectional Pleasure-Positive
Defense of Catcalling)
Co-authored by Maggie FitzGerald.
Unpopular opinion: We love to be catcalled.
It can be friendly or flirtatious. Affirming or exciting. For some, a fleeting moment of eroticism. It can, perhaps, even lead to a not-so-fleeting moment of romantic connection (one of us has, in fact, dated someone met through a catcalling encounter). Yet in the circles we run in, to even utter this opinion is often cast as false consciousness, a betrayal to our gender, or an insult to the feminist struggle more broadly. “How can you defend – let alone enjoy – this harassment?” Condemnation of catcalling is growing. For instance, the popular website 'every day feminism' has numerous articles that argue catcalling is not a compliment, but rather, dehumanizing harassment. The women’s movement Ni Una Menos in Argentina has organized large-scale public protests against catcalling, positing the activity as gender-based violence. As a result, catcalling is now punishable by fine in Buenos Aires. The global NGO Hollaback!, which targets harassment in public spaces, has created an app that encourages people to report and track any unwanted street communications they have experienced or witnessed. Numerous videos now exist which follow women walking through urban centres, documenting catcalling and shaming the catcallers. On a more punitive side, Belgium passed legislation in April 2014 that effectively criminalized catcalling, defined as uttering a gender-based insult or making intimidating sexual remarks in the street. In 2015, Portugal followed suit by making ‘verbal sexual abuse’ a crime. Both laws are punishable by a fine or incarceration of up to one year. In the summer of 2016, the Nottinghamshire police in central England categorized street harassment as a ‘misogyny hate crime,’ defined as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behaviour targeted towards women by men simply because they are women.” In May 2018, France’s National Assembly passed a bill targeting a variety of forms of sexual violence, including catcalling. There are several aspects of these developments that trouble us. A central concern is that the discourse conflates catcalling and harassment. Catcalling, as we define it, is any remark made in public by an unknown person to another in which the literal connotation is positive or neutral. This includes greetings (‘hi,’ ‘good morning,’ ‘how ya doing?’); compliments (‘you’re beautiful!’, ‘nice smile’); addresses (‘Hey, Sexy!’, ‘Yo Honey’); solicitation (‘Can I have your number?’); admiring whistles and interjection; and exclamations and gestures of appreciation. It does not include any utterance that conveys, on a literal level, contempt, threat or insult, nor is it stalking or unwanted physical contact. Of course, we understand that the line between catcalling and harassment will not always be clear cut, and that people can interpret certain utterances differently. However, we believe that there is conceptual value in distinguishing between catcalling (as we define it above) and harassment. First, most of these types of stranger utterances fit comfortably into the category of catcalling or of insulting/threatening harassment. Second, it is only through such a conceptual distinction that we can we begin to think through the gray space between the categories, and acknowledge that some comments or some contexts are, in fact, ambiguous. In lumping stalking, physical violence, touching, threats and insults, together with catcalling, the anti-catcalling movement universally conflates unwanted harassment and violence with uncertain, and – for some – possibly mutually enjoyable, stranger interactions in public spaces. Separating catcalling from harassment conceptually, on the other hand, creates space for alternative interpretations and experiences of these stranger encounters. In addition, there is a body of research which indicates that the experience of catcalling as harmful – as opposed to welcome flirtation – can be dependent on numerous factors, most prominent of which is whether the catcaller is perceived to be attractive. The race of the catcaller also shapes whether the interaction is experienced as harmful or pleasurable (and of course, because beauty norms are grounded in white supremacy, the interplay of attractiveness and race is amplified). Significantly, Kimberly Fairchild’s study finds that 15% of women surveyed reported increased feelings of fear when the “harasser is a different race than me.” The sample used in this study consisted of 1,277 self-identified females; 87.2% identified as White. In other words, what we have here are white women acknowledging that they are more likely to view encounters with men of colour as more dangerous than similar encounters with white men. Presumably, the number is higher but because of social acceptance bias, white people know not to admit that they are more fearful of racialized individuals. The point of this is that the ways in which catcalling is experienced, perceived, and categorized as harassment are deeply shaped by racism. The anti-catcalling movement seems oblivious to this reality, and in fact, often reproduces problematic racist stereotypes. In their representations, street encounters with primarily poor men of colour are the ones deemed harmful and showcased as examples of harassment. This is perhaps most apparent in the recent trend of capturing catcalling on film for purposes of shaming catcallers and highlighting the ‘plight’ of women in the public space. Arguably the most famous of these videos is Hollaback!’s 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman. In 2014, Hollaback! hired a white actress who was filmed walking around New York City for ten hours. She was told to wear black pants and a black crewneck t-shirt and instructed to ignore any greetings or solicitations. The footage was then edited into a two-minute compilation, which has since gone viral with over 47 million views as of August 2018. The vast majority of the ‘verbal harassments’ depicted in the video would fall under our definition of catcalling. For instance, the video shows men addressing the woman with greetings such as ‘God Bless,’ and ‘Smile.’ Others ask her questions like ‘What’s up beautiful?’ and ‘You don’t wanna talk?’. The video ends with a note that over 100 instances of “verbal harassment” were captured during filming and encourages the viewer to consider donating to the organization’s fight to end street harassment. In other words, to raise funds, the video implicitly banks on the demonization of men of colour as sexual threats to white femininity.
This blog was first posted on the Centre for Free Expression website, here.