Thank you for addressing an issue that is SO overlooked and neglected. For the longest time, I thought I was the only one that thought this was wrong, but I feel so much better knowing there are other women out there fighting against this.
As a female, I don’t know how many times I have been walking down a street and been scared out of my mind by loud honks, whistles, yells, and screams. It is hard to explain the problems with this because people just think that you are “showing off”, being a “bitch” not accepting these “compliments”, or trying to make yourself appear like an attractive person, when that is NOT the issue at all.
I believe every girl has encountered this but we accept it because we see it in the movies, in reality, on tv, and it is positively reinforced as normal treatment and behaviour toward women.
For everyone who thinks that behaviour is a type of “compliment”, it’s not, its badgering and insulting. It is degrading, humiliating, frightening, angering, and incredibly deeply disrespectful. Every time a friend and I have this happen to us, it reminds me that we, as women, still have so far to go yet.
So many times, I want to yell, “what am I? A circus act?” These honkers and yellers all take something away from us when they do that – that being our dignity, our independence, and our right to walk down a street like any normal human being. We may not have stones thrown at us, but those honks, those screams are heckles, not compliments.
Thank you for recognizing this as an issue and informing the world that it needs to stop. No women deserves this treatment.
-Ally
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Golden Silence says
And thank you for writing this eloquent piece. Street harassment is about taking women’s dignity away, and we need to take a stand and get it back.