Recently, I hit the streets with a folder full of resumes and fear in my heart in an attempt to find a summer job. The morning had been cool and overcast, but the afternoon sun was sweltering. It was hot, and I wore something seasonally appropriate but irrelevant.
When the first car full of men honked and hollered at me, I was prepared to ignore it, the way I’ve spent a decade learning to ignore such things. Keep your eyes forward (this time). Don’t engage (this time). Don’t give them the satisfaction (this time). (Not always; you learn that too.) But then one young man -- my age, probably -- leaned his head and arm out of his window. He smiled and waved at me, like we were friends.
It was such a familiar, friendly gesture that I stopped, genuinely confused. Maybe they were friends of mine. Maybe I hadn’t caught their faces in the glare of the sun. Maybe I was actually being rude. The young man continued to stare and smile and wave while the car moved forward. I hesitated, then finally waved back. The car was gone with the rest of traffic in another second, my halfhearted wave still hanging limply in the air.
As I started back on my way, I found myself more confused and increasingly pissed off. I felt stupid and paranoid, still not entirely sure if I had known those men in the car, angry at them for the catcall and that wave. It was the wave that made me the angriest: the benign familiarity of the gesture that had made me question my instincts. The manipulation of my confusion, whether purposeful or not.
I understand why I waved back. I know it stemmed from all the toxic ways I’ve internalized a message of smiling, docile femininity, of niceness. I know how and why niceness is expected of me as a woman. I’ve been dodging creeps on the street since I was eleven years old. There will never be a day that I’m not aware of the grip of patriarchy around my body, pushing the air out of my lungs.
Knowing these things does not erase the shame and disappointment in myself I felt that afternoon.
Did I make the wrong choice as a feminist? Did I make the right choice as a woman? I hate these questions, and yet I ask them. I don’t want to feel this shame every time my politics and my safety diverge. But I don’t want to be a statistic either, another woman murdered for not responding to a “Hey, baby” from a stranger. Every interaction with a man who harasses me is a tightrope walk where one misstep could quite literally kill me.
There were a few more catcalls as I went about my business that day -- whistles, comments, nothing too surprising, nothing I couldn’t ignore. Again, after a decade of this bulls**t, you learn how to shove down your discomfort to get back to your day. Then, on my way home, another car full of men drove past, whistling and waving. The wave, the wave, familiar and mocking all over again.
Why?
Why the wave? Why catcalling at all? To this day, I truly don’t understand the kind of arrogance and entitlement that could drive someone to shout at a stranger in the street. It is never a compliment to be turned from a person into a thing to be looked at.
And while the men honking and waving out their car windows at women are probably not the ones who give a lot of thought to think pieces about rape culture or feminism, it bears repeating anyway: don’t harass women, or anyone of any gender, on the street or otherwise. Be mindful of how your (even well-intentioned) friendliness might come across to people who have learned the hard way to be wary.
The conversation on street harassment has gotten louder and louder in the past few years. I want it to keep growing in volume until it’s louder than any catcaller could ever be.
