Recently, I was biking up my street, on my way home from a meeting.
About 50 feet from my house, which is just on a random street, in a sleepy section of the city, a guy catcalled at me. Some random guy, dressed in a shirt and tie, who was selling magazines in the neighborhood.
He hissed, clucked and said, “Mmm Pretty.” several times. And I could tell it was with malicious intent.
I don’t know about you, but when someone catcalls, I don’t feel “pretty.” I feel icky. I feel like it’s an invasion of my privacy, of my space, and sexist to boot. And I don’t care what you’re wearing. They have no right to talk to you that way.
So I ignored him, and went into my house and proceeded to get really mad.
The next week, another magazine salesman came to our house. And we did not answer the door. It’s one thing to be harassed in the street, another to be harassed in your own home.
To give you some context, last year, we had 5 people come to our house, all dressed the same way, selling the same scammy magazines. They said, “Just give us your credit card number, and we’ll get you these magazines. It’s for charity.” When we pressed for details, some of them said, “Well, it’s for kids in school.” and others said, “Well, it’s for the troops. If you don’t want the magazines, we send them to the troops.”
Now, not only am I a pacifist and do not want to send magazines to the troops, but through years of self-examination, I am also very aware of subtle emotional manipulations by others.
When some random stranger comes to your door and demands your credit card number, what would YOU do?
Well, since I’ve been a fundraiser for many years, I chose to give them the benefit of the doubt, and shook their hand, and said sweetly that I appreciated how difficult their job was, and that we weren’t interested. Then they sent someone back, again and again and again and each time I could tell they were sent back because I had been nice to them, and even though I had said no, I hadn’t been ANGRY enough for them to really go away.
Finally I got angry and screamed at them to go away, and we put a “No soliciting” sign on our door. But then I tore it down, because they had stopped coming.
And now they’re starting again! Now, not only do I associate these scammers with emotional manipulation, but with street harassment too.
If someone comes to your door trying to pretend they’re selling magazines for a charity, don’t even open your door. Tell them to GO AWAY. If someone harasses you on the street, see if you can film them with your cellphone camera and post it to youtube or to the website below.
Ever heard the term, there’s an app for that? Well, now when people tell me their stories about what’s wrong with the world, I often say, “There’s probably a nonprofit for that.”
If you’ve ever been harrassed on the street, there’s a nonprofit website where you can check in to tell people about your experience.
Here’s a map of street harassment all over the world.
Now, I don’t have an iPhone, but if you do, there’s an App for that too, which was just profiled on the Huffington Post.
If you’ve ever been harassed on the street, what did YOU do?
How did you make your harassers stop?
How did you feel?
What would you recommend other women do in that situation?
I read in The Gift of Fear that, deep down, the ultimate fear of women is that a man will kill her. And for men, deep down, their ultimate fear is that a woman will laugh at him.
Yes this is totally unfair. But now knowing this I have taken to responding to catcallers by laughing at them. The sort of derisive, eye-rolling snort. This is totally petty but it makes me feel in control of the situation.
(For your house, can you try a “Beware of Dog” sign? Doesn’t matter if you don’t actually have a dog.)
(And very sorry that this happened to you.)
Dear Brigid,
Thank you so much for responding!
I read the gift of fear too, many years ago, and it’s good to keep that in mind. I will have to try the eye-roll and the snort!
🙂
Mazarine
Always liked the response I saw on an episode of Designing Women. Tired of being harassed by catcalls, etc from workmen outside their place of business, Julia and the women invited the guys in only to have the men discover their wives, mothers and girlfriends had been privy to their show! Seriously – just ignore it. When I was younger and thinner, I distinctly remember making quite a few dramatic bows while saying “thank you very much!”