Street harassment, often referred to as catcalling, is something most of us have watched happen on New York City streets, and a great deal of people experience it themselves on a daily basis. A study commissioned by L’Oreal Paris and One Poll found that 46% of those who have experienced public harassment, say they’ve gone through more of it in the past five years than at any other time in their lives.
Sophie Sandberg co-founded Catcalls of NYC, and Emily May co-founded Right to Be, formally known as Hollaback!, an organization that helps people take action against harassment. They both joined WNYC’s Morning Edition to discuss the issue.
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Michael Hill : Sophie, you founded Catcalls of NYC, which solicits stories of harassment someone has experienced, then writes the comment or experience in chalk, word for word, with the hashtag #stopstreetharassment on the sidewalk, right where the harassment happened. You then post pictures of this on social media, what’s the goal there?
Sophie Sandberg: In public space, we really want to draw attention to the word for word phrases of sexual harassment. A lot of people ignore harassment, say it’s not a big deal, say catcalling is a compliment. So we really want to draw in passers by and make them see that these words are in no way a compliment, are extremely vulgar, they’re extremely explicit, threatening. And then beyond that, when we post on social media, we want to educate people about the range of comments of sexual harassment of cat calling.
And what kind of reaction does that receive?
Sandberg: In public space, the reactions are really varied. Sometimes people are angry, upset, shocked, you know, they’ll splash it with water, because they’re just so upset and angry about the vulgarity of the words. And then oftentimes, people are really, really grateful to see stories of sexual harassment talked about and shared.
What’s the impact of this catcalling, this harassment?…
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