It was the first day of my research fellowship in Medellin, Colombia. The other fellows and I were walking to the first site visit when we passed a few construction workers. My command of Spanish is somewhat limited, but one of the guys I was with is Ecuadorian, so he is fluent. The construction workers said something in Spanish as we walked by and I could tell the guy I was with was visibly taken aback. I asked what he had said but he didn’t want to tell me. When I finally got him to tell me, he said when I walked by one of the workers said, “You look so good I would even eat your period blood.”
I have been catcalled before, but that felt like a deep violation of my personhood. It scared me because I thought that if someone would say something like that, what would they actually be willing to do.
– AS
Location: Medellin, Colombia
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