Catcalling obnoxious, harmful to both genders

It's breezy, my footsteps pit-pattered along the sidewalk and cars were lining both Claflin Road and Denison Avenue; it was the night of the K-State-Texas A&M football game and I was on my way to my friend's apartment. As I walk along, I see some girls that I nod and shyly smirk at if we meet eyes, but there are those also those out and about who are dumbly daring.

As I trotted along, various car and truck windows are rolling down to shout at girls walking by. They shouted things like, "Hey girl," and, "Why don't you come over here?" and even, "You look cold, come sit in my car." Of course, there are the occasional high-pitched whistles as well. To those brazen and seemingly brain-dead guys, I ask you: Did you honestly think verbally pursuing a woman you know nothing about would have convinced her to just hop in your car?

Now we have to really look at catcalling in a lens removed from my personal experience. In a CNN article, Anna Jane Grossman asks an important question in the title, "Catcalling: creepy or compliment?" Grossman reports on Holly Kearl, a woman researching her master's thesis on street harassment in 2007. Kearl conducted an anonymous, informal email survey of 225 women on the subject. Out of the 225, 98 percent had experienced some form of street harassment.

I took the time to ask a handful of female friends about their thoughts on the matter and a general consensus was that being called out at while out in public is "unnerving," "kind of scary" and "degrading." Can you really blame them for feeling this way? They're trying to walk somewhere when a car with, most likely, more than one guy comes by and starts shouting aggressive, "persuasive" and, at times, sexual phrases.

When it comes to catcalling and women feeling objectified for simply wanting to walk to their destination while wearing something that fits their style and/or the season, it's not only women that are harmed. No, the other thing harmed is the reputation of males as a whole. In an article published by Reuters, writer Miral Fahmy reports on a study done by Stephenie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn where they had 114 female undergrads watch videos, imagining themselves as bystanders, where a man made a sexist remark against a woman or simply greeted her.

In the end, the study showed that women took remarks against them as against their gender and made them want to take action against men in general. It suffices to say that when some guys are with their friends and get the gumption to go touting off to a girl minding her own business, they ruin it for all the other guys who interact normally with females.

Just to show that I'm not some sanctimonious bookworm, I do have friends and know that everybody jokes with theirs and yes, catcalling in a sarcastic or comedic and awkward manner can be funny. I also realize that there is a percentage of women out there who can find it complimentary. However, it's when one guy, or a group of them, start catcalling a woman and assume she'll take it as a compliment that they could be actually affecting her emotionally to the point that she starts to take offense to the male gender as a whole.

Tyler Brown is a senior in English. Please send all comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.