Catcalling - Why Women Don't Retaliate

Warning - Strong Language Used

This past weekend I was out with my mother-in-law and husband. We were walking the 15 yards from the front door of one of our favorite restaurants to the parking garage chatting. As we were chatting I heard a “Hey! Hey! Hey there! You!”

The restaurant sits on a fairly busy road in a neighborhood of Atlanta. Traffic tends to get backed up at that stoplight fairly frequently. We were the only people on the sidewalk. I was walking the closest to the traffic so I assumed that I was the one being yelled at.

The yelling started about 30 seconds after we left the restaurant. I heard it, but tried to ignore it as I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law and husband. I kept trying to ignore it and didn’t even bother looking where it was coming from in hopes that it would stop.

Finally, I got tired of the incessant yelling and ended up flipping the car off. I didn’t look but I did hear very clearly yelled at me “Fuck you bitch.”

We finally got to the parking garage and my mother-in-law and I started laughing. Nate asked what was so funny and we asked him if he heard any of the exchange. He hadn’t.

I’ve gotten catcalled and yelled at quite a few times. Usually it’s when I am running, walking on the sidewalk or trying to mind my own business in a store. More often than not, it the yelling comes from guys in passing cars or at stoplights.

I always ignore them because what if I piss them off and they decide to get out of their car or follow me or something else equally scary.

Of course, this never happens when I am with Nate. At least, it hadn’t happened when I was with Nate before this one time.

I will never understand that. I think, and I might be wrong, but I think the reason women don’t get catcalled when they are with other men is because for some reason, men seems to respect what appears to be another man’s “property” (gross…) more than they respect women as individuals.

When I have told Nate about incidents like this in the past, he has asked me why I haven’t retaliated or said anything like “Yo. Cut that shit out.” It’s because I am genuinely scared to.

It’s not safe for women to do that when they are alone. What if you do that to the one guy who actually does follow you home? What happens then?

For the people saying “Oh…that would never happen.” Well, then how do you explain the “Fuck you bitch” I got the other night. How am I supposed to hear that and not think that some other guy is going to be crazy enough to follow me and try to rape me or something?

That type of outright anger and animosity towards be being pissed off at being accosted from a car window and then rejecting the advance makes me scared to do anything like that without Nate there.

Most of the time, things like this are isolated incidents. It’ll happen once every two to three months to me. BUT, yesterday I was walking to my car after work and some guy whistled at me from his car as he passed.

Two incidents in four days.

Aside from the just gross and sexist nature of this behavior, I genuinely don’t understand the end game. Are there women out there (not prostitutes) who walk up to cars after a guy has started yelling at them like “hey there, you seem like a great guy. Wanna go back to my place?” Like….it HAS TO have worked at least once for these men to think that yelling at random women from cars is a viable way to meet people…

Seriously, if anyone has any insight on that to enlighten me…please. Help me understand. I don’t get it.

At any rate, for all those people who think that catcalling is an innocent thing and think that people have no right to get pissed off about it or be scared of calling people out on it, I hope that this helped you understand a little of the internal monologue that’s going on when it happens.

Bottom line. Don’t do it. It’s gross.