But What Were You Wearing?

Was it an innocent complient or something more?

For many women, catcalling is an everyday reality rather than a rare experience. Often dismissed as harmless, it can undermine women's sense of safety and comfort in public spaces. This observation sparked a question within me, as to whether such a phenomenon is similarly understudied and undermined just like many other areas of the female experience.

In the present essay we are unfolding the issue of cat-calling through the lenses of the current literature.

What is cat-calling and how normalised is it?

Cat-calling is a form of unwanted sexual attention that more specifically manifests as one-sided and quick verbal or non verbal sexual harassment in public places (e.g., streets, public buses, trains and universities).

Catcalling can also get categorised as a type of stranger harassment, since there is no relation between the victim and the perpetrator and seems to have no other purpose, than to call attention to the targeted individual, more specifically her body or/and her sexuality (Fairchild and Rudman 2008; Saunders et al. 2016).

In the Canadian Violence Against Women Survey (VAWS; Johnson and Sacco 1995) an outstanding percentage of 85% of the participants, coming from a 12.000 participant female-based sample, admitted that they had endured catcalling at some point in their lives.

Another research highlights the frequency and thus underlying normalization of unwanted sexual attention, showing that 28 to 47% of women experience stranger harassment at least once every few days (Fairchild, 2010; Fairchild & Rudman, 2008; Saunders et al., 2016).

Why is cat-calling so prevalent globally?

Such high percentages could be attributed to a number of factors. Starting off, we sadly cannot deny the extend to which Sexual Violence Against Women is normalised in our societies. Esacove (1998) states that the normalisation of rape culture, deriving from the idea that men have uncontrollable desires to be fulfilled, has allowed men to openly enable harassing behaviours.

The criminal system is also one more to blame for the prevalence of such conditions. Given that there are usually no direct criminal consequences for the predators (Davis, 1994).

Why should we eradicate it?

A large body of literature has shown that different types of sexual harassment, including catcalling, could potentially lead to a range of negative psychological outcomes such as body image issues, reduced self-esteem, manifestations of stress and depression, lower levels of perceived safety and higher fear of rape (Davidson et al., 2015, 2016; Fairchild & Rudman, 2008; Koss et al., 1994; MacMillan et al., 2000; McCarty et al., 2014; Pina & Gannon, 2012; Schneider et al., 1997; Thompson et al., 1999).

Further supporting this argument, victims of street harassment do not only experience negative effects but also these effects seem to be long lasting. Few to name are prolonged guilt and shame regarding both their bodies and their general identity as women (Avezahra et al., 2023). Such procedures consequently lead to lower self-esteem and a sense of femininity and womanhood as something to be hidden, something rather shameful.

Targets of cat-calling seem to become more self-critical of their bodies and tend to self-blame thinking that their body shape was the provoking factor that led to their public harassment.

Now diving into more psychological waters and theories.

The Objectification theory as proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts in 1997, states that the rather repeated and culturally induced reduction of the female humanhood only to the dimension of physical appearance, reinforces women to internalize such mechanisms and hence leads to their further self-objectification.

In addition, Fairchild and Rudman (2008) found that female individuals who perceived cat-calling as something normal or of flattering nature, showcased lower fear of rape and behavioural adjustments such as restrictive strategies, however, these women were more prone to self-objectify.

Therefore, self objectification sadly seems to go hand in hand with cat-calling. Women do not only face the immediate negative effects of cat-calling but also internalize the feeling of such unwanted interactions considering themselves as entities prone to constant evaluation by their surroundings.

Women themselves also tend to make sense of their harassment while justifying the system, something described as System Justification Theory in the literature (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Saunders et al., 2016).

Some women may dismiss catcalling as harmless, viewing it as "just a compliment" or believing that "men have always behaved this way." Such interpretations can normalize street harassment and reinforce the perception that existing gender relations are fair justifying the current societal framework.

A paradox of this process is that, although minimizing or normalizing catcalling may reinforce existing gender norms, it can also provide women with temporary relief from the immediate negative consequences associated with these experiences.

Do all women cope the same way?

Following the Justification Theory narrative, in relation to how unfair or fair women view the current gender dynamics, they seem to exhibit different coping reactions to cat-calling.

More specifically, women who view gender relations as unfair tend to self-blame more, whereas women who view them as equal, generally dismiss the harassment as an occurring of minimal importance, therefore actively normalise it themselves.

It is important to state that even though women carry different system beliefs and interpretations, they are nonetheless all affected by the negative outcomes of cat-calling. 

According to Farmer and Smock Jordan (2017) women use 3 different coping methods after a street harassment incident. Blaming one’s self seems to be the first pattern according to which women tend to internalise the experience and question whether they played a part in causing their own harassment.

The second observation was the questioning of general societal norms. Women seemed to question gender dynamics in society partially attributing cat-calling behaviours to the current structuring of our societies.

Lastly, the third pattern was questioning the validity of the harassment itself. More specifically, individuals in this study were unsure of whether they were victims of cat-calling and were second guessing themselves.

Once more, we get to see how women internalize such interactions gash-lighting and even putting the blame on themselves.

What about avoiding the incidents before they happen?

It is also worth noting that women often tend to follow certain strategies so as to avoid cat-calling from recurring, few of them to name according to Kearl (2009) are adjustment of clothing, higher alertness in relation to their surroundings, wearing headphones, following safer routes and restricting their work out routines to safer spaces like their own houses.

Consistent with these findings are the previously published observations of Esacove (1998), who states that out of fear of getting harassed, women would even avoid hanging out or alter the way they socialize, with all these restrictions mentioned above consequently worsening their quality of lives (Livingston, 2015).

In that sense, women use mostly passive behaviours such of avoidance of eye contact or walking away from their cat-callers in case of an incident (Fairchild & Rudman, 2008; Folkman et al., 1986; Magley, 2002).

Other examples of passive behaviors were observed in the findings of Farmer and Smock Jordan (2017), where victims of catcalling followed appearance adjustment strategies like changing their clothing to less feminine or gender neutral ones and avoiding visual engagement or using their headphones and bags as distractions.

These passive interactions seem to further enable self-blaming mechanisms such as appearance related shaming, body self-monitoring and objectification of the self (Calogero & Jost, 2011; Fairchild & Rudman, 2008).

Is it really the revealing clothing​?

As Ramadhania (2021) states, it seems that women who wear hijab and generally women dressed in more conservative clothing are also being targetted in Indonesia. Meaning that cat-calling doesn’t necessarily happen demanded the presence of revealing clothes.

This comes as no surprise following the sharing of personal information regarding cases of sexual assault through social media, where victims self-reporting seem to share what they wore the day of their assault. In certain cases we get to see long sleeved shirts, male clothing, even hijabs displayed. As triggering such content is, it brings us closer to the realization that it’s not about the clothing rather than the attitudes and societal norms enabling the harassment.

As we sadly all share similar negative experiences regarding street harassment, never forget that it was definitely not your fault or something to internalize. Women have the right to exist and move publicly however they wish to, such as every living creature of this world. This should not be a right given to us but an applied and non-negotiable reality instead.

Citations:

Avezahra, M. H., Kamila, A. A. N., Maulana, N. A., Kravvariti, V., Sa’id, M., & Noorrizki, R. D. (2023). Catcalling victims’ long-term psychological impacts: A qualitative study. Psikohumaniora: Jurnal Penelitian Psikologi, 8(2), 329–348. https://doi.org/10.21580/pjpp.v8i2.18287

Calogero, R. M., & Jost, J. T. (2011). Self-subjugation among women: Exposure to sexist ideology, self-objectification, and the protective function of the need to avoid closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 211–228. doi:10.1037/a0021864

Davidson, M. M., Gervais, S. J., & Sherd, L. W. (2015). The ripple effects of stranger harassment on objectification of self and others. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39(1), 53–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684313514371

Davis, D. E. (1994). The harm that has no name: Street harassment, embodiment, and African American women. UCLA Women’s Law Journal, 4(2), 133–178. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83b9f21g

Esacove, A. W. (1998). A diminishing of self: Women’s experiences of unwanted sexual attention. Health Care for Women International, 19(3), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/073993398246359

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