Twenty-year-old Noa Jansma from Eindhoven, Netherlands is tired of being shouted at and catcalled when walking outside the street. Now, she has come up with a month-long experiment to try to ward off the Unwanted Attention from Men.
Jansma has decided to take photographs of the men, along with the comments said to her. Everything is documented in an Instagram account, dearcatcallers.
Five days ago, her 30-day experiment concluded, with the account currently tallying a following of 123,000 people. Would you be brave enough to do the same?
Taking photographs of catcallers
According to BuzzFeed News, Jansma was initially scared of how the men would behave towards her if she took their photos, after their rude comments to her. However, it usually ended up that the men were happy, even giving a thumbs up sign because they thought the woman was approving of their behavior towards her and even considered their catcalling a compliment. Jansma added that the men didn't care about her and that she was unhappy about their behavior.
Most of the comments included often called her "sexy," and one even asked if she wanted to get in the car with him. The comment came from an old man.
Meanwhile, Jansma shared that she did not take a photo with every catcaller she came across with.
The Young Woman stressed that she was mainly concerned with her safety. In conclusion, New York Post reported that Jansma said that it is evident that "catcalling is still a common occurrence that many of us are dealing with.”
Why the need for catcalling, anyway?
It should be said that it is really baffling how many men still do this and think that they are doing their female counterparts a favor by "complimenting" them.
Obviously, it is a form of harassment. Who wants to be called random names by strangers while you're walking down the street - regardless of where you're going, right?
One disturbing part is, it doesn't matter what the woman is wearing. She could be conservatively dressed and still receive lewd comments.
What if she's confidently dressed in something a little more revealing?
One excuse given was that the catcaller was just pointing out a woman's outfit.
You can get help
It's a good thing that many are recognizing this as an issue worth being concerned about. If you are having trouble with catcalling and harassment, there are groups who are willing to help, like stopstreetharassment.org and ihollaback.org.
According to stopstreetharassment.org, Cornell University and Hollaback! shared findings from a 2015 survey in localized US sites in 2014, where more than 4,000 women below 40 years old participated. While the results are not nationally representative and discount the factors of men's race, sexual orientation, and their own experiences as catcallers, it provided a look into the impact that catcalling and street harassment has on women.
At the same time, a YouGov survey yielded results saying that 55 percent of Americans say that catcalling is harassment, while 24 percent are not sure, and 20 percent consider it as being given compliments.
