I am not an object

Today I went for a walk on my lunch break. A simple, normal, everyday thing.

I went to cross the major street and, while on the phone, realized that the two people in the truck waiting to turn left were staring at me. I instantly turned my gaze so I wouldn't notice them. My phone called, so I made another. The crosswalk became available, so I started to walk, all while listening to the voicemail message. I could tell they were following me, but I simply ignored them. I was not interested in anything they had to say. My fly was not down. I hadn't dropped anything. There should have been no need for them to talk to me.

When I got across the street, I heard one of them yell out "HELLOOOOO????" so I unfortunately turned to see them. They were trying to yell something to me, but with the roar of the street and the wind, I could not hear what they were saying. Part of me feared that they'd make a u-turn to come talk to me. Thank heavens they did not.

It was not a pleasant experience. It was creepy, it was mortifying and it was demeaning.

There are days where I feel like this. Other times, the feeling passes and I feel more like a person entitled to cross the street.

Lately, I've seen few videos of catcalling, mainly focusing on the ones where women's boyfriends and fathers see what they deal with. I've also seen the ones where women walk around New York and Comic Con. And here's one explaining what catcalling "really means." And another one explaining why it's a compliment. Here's a satire about how women want to be catcalled. I can't find it anymore, but I found a video once before of a woman walking up to men on the street and saying things that she thought they'd like to hear, like how much she wants his dick or how she wants him to take her. Men seemed to enjoy it.

Then there's this video. I usually like this company's videos, but this is on a different level. The fact that harassment is put in quotation marks makes me beyond uncomfortable. They seem to want to express that women who say they've been harassed are just too sensitive, that it's a complement, that it's something to shrug off.

I really like this group's reaction to the video, most specifically one guy's statement of "I don't wanna hear one more privileged person telling me how much harder they have it then the unprivileged." One of the women says that "at the root of feminism, is the fact that we want to feel as safe as men do and just comfortable, the same amount of comfort that you feel."

Some of the comments in the videos explain that if a woman does not want to be catcalled, she should not wear tight clothes. There is no damn way to express my rage for that statement. The next time someone says that to me as an explanation for why catcalling/rape/harassment/etc is okay, I'm going to Hulk out and destroy some people.

A lot of the videos are skewed, I will admit. The majority of catcallers are not white while the women are. And most men, when presented with the question "would you want someone to do this to your mother or your sister?" respond with "NO!"

So then why do they do it?

I don't know. I really wish I did.

There are some people who have figured out how to respectfully go up to the person they are attracted to on the street and have a lovely conversation which could possibly end up in a date.

I am curious, however, what a catcaller would do if one of the people who they gave their phone number to called? Or, even scarier, used the phone number to find out where they lived and, gasp, showed up at their doorstep.

I wish I had the guts to stand up to those men today. I wish I wasn't afraid to ask them why they thought this was appropriate. I wish I had gotten angry at the man who thanked me for running across the street so I didn't miss the very long light with my child in a stroller.

I am not an object.

I am a person.

And I have a right to feel safe, to feel comfortable and to feel like a human being.