Dear catcalled victims,
Below 30 degrees in Chicago makes you want to stay home, curl up in bed, read a good book, drink some hot chocolate and maybe catch a rerun of Sex and the City.
It’s the weekend. It’s 5 PM in December, which means it’s already dark outside. You just got off the bus, and you’re only a few blocks always from home. You decide to walk in the narrow street because the sidewalks are icy. Your face is frozen, the snow somehow managed to get inside your boots, and the jacket hood keeps flying off your head. A car pulls up and you assume that the driver is looking for a parking space but no, no, no, he’s just another one of them.
Ya’ll know who I’m talking about— he’s the jerk on street that said you have a nice ass, he’s the guy on the train who won’t stop talking to you, he’s the fool who asks for your number before he asks for your name…he’s the cat caller, and you are the victim.
They have some nerve speaking to us ladies! What is it about us that attracts the unwanted attention we receive from those sons of bastards? It’s the fact that we were born into female bodies, have bosoms, and uteruses. We’re the opposite sex, and our opposite sex—the ones who stand around on the street, many times jobless or homeless or just plain ignorant—feel they have the right to say whatever they want to us.
Ladies you may not know it, but catcalling has a sense of power. When one is catcalled, the catcaller is only catcalling to feel the power of control. Many times we turn our heads at their remarks, we jerk at the sight of them, we even flick them off or sometimes, when we’re really fed up, we tell them off.
We are referred to as “sexy mamas” and “pretty ladies”. They call us “baby” and “sunshine” as we walk by them. And every time we walk into a public place or stroll down the sidewalk we get catcalled. Some of us take it as a compliment, and others, like me, find it to be creepy and see it as a form of verbal harassment. These motherfuckers have nothing better to do than to stand around on the side of the street waiting for a female—any female—to walk by so they can “holler” at them.
“Damn girl you're so fine …” they might say. “Mmm can I get some of that?” they shout. Or they will roll down their windows to just say hellllooo in a very slow tone while driving along an empty street followed by a whistle and a perverted grin. What I just described can absolutely not be complimentary and if you catcalled victims think otherwise than there might be something wrong with you too. I guess this kind of violation is legal because they’re not using drugs or smoking pot, or killing anyone. They’re just telling us that we’re beautiful— but we don’t want to hear it from them… do we ladies? I think not.
Photography by Billy Montgomery.
