I am a strong woman. I am not your object to praise every time I walk by. I am not your “babe” or your “mami.” I do not need your compliments on how I look. I do not need you to tell me to have a good day. I do not choose to have my body look the way it does. I did not ask to be the nationality that I am.

In a recent study over 16,000 women were surveyed taken by Hollaback!, an anti-street harassment group, it found that most women experienced catcalling for the first time between ages 11 and 17. These girls are your daughters and your sisters. I do not want my daughter to live in a world where she will be harassed just by walking to her bus stop.

In the United States, catcalling led 72 percent of women to stop walking around just so they wouldn’t be harassed. In 2014, a youtube channel called “Rob Bliss Creative” posted a video called “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” where the video displayed a girl walking around while receiving 100+ situations of verbal street harassment. Catcalling makes a woman feel like she’s in danger. I cannot stress how many times I’ve been scared because of catcalling. The second a woman doesn’t reply to the man’s comment the guy gets rude and starts getting aggressive. If you do not believe me than you can read this article right here.

All men are doing when they catcall is prologuing the rape culture. Women are blamed for catcalling for wearing current clothing items. It’s not my fault that I like to eat and my butt can’t fit in jeans. Sometimes I just like to be comfortable and wear leggings. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to just not be harassed as I walk to class everyday.

Lastly if you do not know whether or not you should catcall a girl follow these steps below,

#firstharassed I remember walking around my neighborhood in 7^th grade and grown men hooking their horns and slowing down their cars to yell things at me. My mom used to yell to men saying “she’s only 13!” There’s a slaughterhouse five houses down from me where all men work. To this day I get comments, stares and never can be left alone. That was six years ago, and things have not changed.