Catcalling is a Cross Cultural Annoyance

by Racialicious Special Correspondent Latoya Peterson

[Note: Please read this post after reading Racism as a Lifestyle Choice. While the two posts are independent, it helps to understand how this post started, and why it is on a race blog and not a gender blog.]

Men, please grab your pencils and take a few notes.

I am about to outline the reasons why women hate being catcalled – What Women Are Thinking 101.

I know that for many of you, this lecture does not apply. More than a few of you are respectful and polite. You might think of one drunken episode where you behaved like an ass, but for the most part you approach women in bars, at speed dating, at work, on CL, at concerts, and other appropriate venues. You leave women in public in relative peace, and we thank you for that.

But we know you have one or two (or a few) ignorant friends.

Please pass this information along to them.

In a post titled On Thursdays We Grab Titties, TAN attempts to call Kim Klinger to task.

The source material comes from Kimberly Klinger, racist, who has been keeping some sort of cat-call spreadsheet in the interest of launching a two-part attack on the neighborhood heterosexual immigrants who harass her with come-ons once or twice a week. First Kimberly confesses she’s a racist (agh, aren’t we all sista-girl?), and explains why sexism trumps racism in her Court of Minority Offenses. Her dilemma: Kimberly went to college, so she knows she shouldn’t hate brown (excluding the hunky UPS guy of course), but what’s a pretty white girl to do in the face of such aggressive misogyny? Just lay out her vagine in a chalupa or bucket of fried chicken? In part two of Kimberly’s Mein Kampf she lays down the gauntlet and shares her Top 15 Hollas, so that we can get a little glimpse into her personal Holla-Hell (hella?).

[...]

These aren’t f’ing gorillas on the discovery channel sparring for a mate. More often than not, these are guys hanging out cause they got nothing better to do. This is a citified version of fishing. Just casting out the net and seeing what gets stuck. Maybe have some beers while you do it. You don’t need a sociology degree to know this (congrats on that, btw!). Just pop your head out of your ass for ten seconds. They’re just saying hello (and also letting you know that if you wanted to have sex or something they wouldn’t necessarily disapprove).

As TAN has pointed out, yes, most you are guys hanging out and trying to have a good time. Unfortunately, men’s ideas of what “saying hello” constitutes vary widely. For TAN and other guys, hollering at girls is just recreation, sport, a little fun. For the most part, the worst you’ll get is a girl who decides to catch an attitude and curse you out. No real problem there, especially when the payoff is a cute girl’s phone number.

What men fail to see is that women do not see a group of men as people who just want to say hello. A group of leering men is a potential threat. Rebuffing just one guy’s advances is difficult enough – rebuffing a man in front of a group of his friends is going to cause a situation – the guy feels like he has to save face in front of his friends, which means embarrassing you.

Try thinking about it this way:

You are having a bad day. All you want to do is get to work quietly, do your work, and then go home. In the morning, at 7:30 AM, you put on your headphones, you start your day. At 7:35, 7:50, and 8:00, people tap you on the shoulder and tell you to smile, try to engage you in conversation, or ask you where you are going. They ignore the fact that you are giving one word answers and take every opportunity to turn your headphones up louder. You make it to work, deal with that, and start on your way back home, anticipating a nap. You are interrupted four times on your 30 minute trip home. None of these people knows that they are one of eight people to randomly harass you that day. If you tell them this, they will not care.

And tomorrow, you look forward to the same thing – hopefully with a better start.

How friendly would you be on a day to day basis?

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