In some of the photos, the men are grinning, giving the thumbs up, waving at the camera. In others they are blowing kisses, draping an arm around her shoulder, staring into the camera with defiance, with flattery, with bluster.
They are all catcallers, documented on Instagram account @dearcatcallers by 20-year-old Amsterdam student Noa Jansma. Her intention was to snap a selfie with every one of her sexual harassers during the month of September in order to raise awareness about the frequency of this unsolicited attention. What she found was a little more disturbing.
#DearCatcallers, it’s not a compliment,” Jansma writes. “Since many people still don’t know how often and in whatever context ‘catcalling’ happens, I’ll be showing my catcallers within the period of one month.”
She told BuzzFeed News the idea for the project first struck her during a class discussion.
Classic 2.0 “psssst, whoooooop, Can he have your number?” #dearcatcallers
A post shared by dearcatcallers (@dearcatcallers) on
“I realized that half of the class, the women, knew what I was talking about and lived it on a daily basis. And the other half, the men, didn’t even think that this is still happening. They were really surprised and curious. Some of them even did not believe me.”
To be clear, Jansma did not select only men for the pictures– Her catcallers juts happened to be confined to that gender. When she first started snapping selfies with these dudes, she was nervous the men would be suspicious of her motives. “I was kind of fearful,” she said. Turns out, she needn’t have worried.
“Most of the time they have their thumbs up, they’re happy because they honestly think that they’re complimenting me. They really didn’t care about me. They never realized that I was unhappy.”
And perhaps here is where we’ve really hit at the crux of this disturbing matter. These catcallers don’t realize how unwanted their attention is, could never comprehend even after having been ignored that their behavior is not registered as a compliment. They are not embarrassed to have their pictures taken and do not question motive because their heads are so far up their asses it’s like their bad hairdos are stroking their own gd egos from within.
“They’re not at all suspicious because they find what they do completely normal,” she told Dutch newspaper Het Parool, then translated via the Independent.
Jansma’s unsmiling, unaffected face juxtaposed with the toothy grins of her harassers is symbolic of the universality of these behaviors. What woman hasn’t experienced this? By blasting them on her Instagram, often with their own jeers as the caption, she is reclaiming her power as a woman and independent human worthy of respect.
slowly following me 2 streets shouting “sexy!” and “wanna come in my car?” #dearcatcallers
A post shared by dearcatcallers (@dearcatcallers) on
Some of these creeps follow her, call her baby, sexy, sweet, blow kisses, touch her.
Although her project is over, Jansma plans to pass her account on to different girls around the world to show that “it’s a global phenomenon and that this art-project is not only about me.” She thanks everyone for the support (the account garnered nearly 160,000 followers in less than a months time!) and ends her message by saying how the account ” has made it clear that catcalling is still a common occurrence that many of us are dealing with.”
#dearcatcallers “baby! Baby! *whisting*”
A post shared by dearcatcallers (@dearcatcallers) on
Starting January 1, 2018, catcalling will be punishable by law in Netherlands and violators will be subject to fines of up to 190 Euros (~$220). Hopefully more countries will take a page out of their book.
source: pizzabottle.com
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