“It’s so sad how most of these are ‘not catcalls’ but actual actions of harassment.” – Chelsea K., Her Campus UConn writer.
Preach girl.
If you saw the title of this article and clicked, you were probably thinking, “Oh yeah. Been there,” and could probably guess what you’d find while reading. As most, if not all, of our wonderful HC UConn members identify as female, it was no surprise that when I polled girls asking about their personal experiences with catcalling, the responses started pouring in.
In 2014, a national U.S. survey was conducted which found that 65% of the 2,000 women polled had been sexually harassed while on the street. “Among all women, 23% had been sexually touched, 20% had been followed, and 9% had been forced to do something sexual. Among men, 25% had been street harassed (a higher percentage of LGBT-identified men than heterosexual men reported this) and their most common form of harassment was homophobic or transphobic slurs (9%).”
Needless to say, catcalling and sexual harassment is extremely prevalent—probably more so today than ever—and if you’re not sure what qualifies, educate yourself. It happens on the street, in the workplace, and basically in any environment where there’s a struggle for power at the expense of someone else’s vulnerability.
The women of HC UConn want to tell it like it is. These anecdotes are real, personal, and for some, difficult to relive. Sexual harassment is real and can have painful, lasting impressions, and we’re here to let you in on what women experience daily—at UConn and elsewhere.
“When I was abroad men yelled, ‘Lady Gaga’ at me—more than once. Also, men who couldn’t speak English literally would just say ‘I f**k p***y now?’”
“I was in Boston once and a guy literally followed me for like six blocks and kept calling out from behind me every single part of my outfit, from my eyes (which he never saw because he was behind me), down to the shoes I was wearing.”
“One time, this guy stopped me to ask for directions and I was like, ‘Uh okay where are you trying to go?’ and it was super awkward because we were in a DRUG STORE (like, where are you trying to go sir?), but whatever. He continues to go, ‘I need directions because I’m lost in your eyes,’ and I proceeded to tell him to ‘get the f*** outta here’ in true New York fashion.”
“One time I was walking to the bank to drop off a business check for my boss and I had this guy walk backwards in front of me telling me, ‘Come here for a minute, let me talk to you for a minute,’ like ugh, stop.”
“A 50+ year-old man once was flirting with me at my job when I was 16. He mentioned marriage, and I laughed it off. I couldn’t be rude since I was working; I simply pretended like I was busy until he left.”
“A young man asked me if I had a Valentine and I said ‘No, I don’t.’ I was taking orders and he proceeded to keep asking me if I could be his Valentine. Yet again I didn’t want to be rude, so I ignore the question. Finally, another woman in line said, ‘Leave her alone she’s working.’”
“Not catcalling, but at work I’ve had a guy reach over the counter and try to grab me.”
“When I was in 8th grade, I was alone walking home from school (in my Catholic school girl uniform) listening to music. I could hear someone behind me but I was too afraid to turn around so I just walked faster. Then all of the sudden I felt him tap my shoulder. I kinda jumped and turned around and he goes ‘Can I get your number?’ This technically isn’t a catcall, BUT I WAS FOURTEEN.”
“Not exactly a catcall, but a homeless man told me he wanted to sh*t in my mouth.”
“One of my friends was in an elevator in the library with these two guys who were both friends, and one of them was literally standing on top of her so his friend was like, ‘Dude move over you’re, like, on her,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the point.'”
“When I was interviewing for a job, my interviewer, after the actual interview was done, asked if I was single or not.”
“Once pumping gas, boys drove by, rolled down the window and all yelled, ‘I LIKE YOUR PANTS.’ I’ve gotten ‘Wanna smash?’ before. Like I’m sorry, what?”
“This isn’t really a catcall as much as a weirdo, but a guy came into the store I worked at and asked ‘How you doing?’ and then 20 minutes later, when I was walking through the dark parking lot at 10 p.m., he followed me in his truck until I got to my car and asked me for my phone number. He ended up being a criminal five years older than me. I had given him my number ’cause at the time I thought he was kinda cute, but then I realized it was weird he followed me in the parking lot so I never texted him back. He would come to my store and be texting me like, “Where are you; I need help finding stuff,” and eventually he found me and I had a big male coworker help him instead. The coworker later came to me saying the guy asked for help finding (I kid you not) candles, duct tape, rope, condoms, and lube. He knew what I drive, where I work and stuff, so I ended up filing a police report in case he abducted me so that the police would know who to suspect.”
“Once pumping my gas, I had a guy ask for my number. I said ‘No thanks.’ He replied saying I had no need to be afraid. I told him, ‘I’m just trying to pump gas, man.’”
“Omg—once a man who could not have been less than 36 came up to me and said, ‘I really think you should get to know me better.’ GET OVER YOURSELF???”
“I live on kind of a main road and there’s a rest area near my house, and when I was little I used to play in my front yard (like a lot of kids do). One summer day I was playing around in the sprinkler (I was at most, 10 years old), and so many truckers and men driving by beeped at me that I only played in the backyard from then on.”
“Not really a catcall but a guy yelled, ‘You’re a boujee a** white girl,’ at my friend (I was in the passenger seat) and when she didn’t respond he said, ‘You p***y a** b*tch aren’t going to respond to me?’ Needless to say we just drove away. Also this was at a gas station in New Jersey so we had to wait ’til the person finished pumping our gas was done to leave and it was incredibly uncomfortable.”
“I was at a bar and a random guy came up to me and my friend and said, ‘I know you want to have sex with me.’ We said no and he legitimately got pissed and called us bitches.”
“I’m not sure if this counts as a catcall, but I was on a date with this guy, and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and I’m gonna say he had word vomit, but he told me he loved that fact that my boobs were really big compared to my body.”
“One time this guy yelled to me across the street when I was walking into work and was like, ‘Hey can you give me a back massage?’ And I was like uh…. and then he yelled, ‘Except my back is my c*ck.’”
“I was riding a bike on vacation and a guy yelled off a balcony, ‘Come ride me like that bicycle, baby.’”
“I had a line at work and a customer told me he could get me a better job. I said no and he insisted, so I gave him a fake number because I was panicking. He came back a few days later, and asked me if I was the girl he talked to. I said no and quickly walked away.”
“One time I was driving with my sister and we were stopped at a red light in the right lane. A guy in the left lane stopped next to us started blowing kisses at us and we looked at each other and went, ‘Ewwww’ which probably only made things worse. Anyways, the light turned green and we go to turn right and he legit cut off the cars behind us to turn right and follow us and he continued to flash his lights and honk at us and we didn’t go home so he wouldn’t know where we lived and we drove around for ten minutes until finally my sister put on her right blinker when we came to a stop sign, then as soon as he was close behind us we floored it to the left and he didn’t have time to follow us and we lost him.”
“A manager (who no longer works at my store) told me that he likes that I’m ‘hard to get’ when I refused his invitation to ‘hang out.’”
“I work in Hartford, kind of on the line separating the quiet streets from the not-so-quiet. One day around the holidays I was the last one to leave the office and a guy walking by along the sidewalk made noises at me and told me, ‘You don’t need to be afraid of me, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.'”
“Over break, a 75+ year-old man made kissing noises at me as I walked past him.”
“I get told to smile by middle-aged men in CVS at least once a month.”
“When I put blonde in my hair a few years ago, my manager told me ‘being blonde makes you look more spontaneous,’ and proceeded to follow me around for the remainder of my shift.”
“When I used to work at this sandwich place, sometimes I’d lean over the sandwich making station to hand someone their food because I’m short and these two f***ing guys that worked with me at the time would always laugh and stare and make a joke about seeing how much my boobs weighed when I’d lean across the station and they’d hit the meat weighing scale. Kill me.”
“Someone asked me one time, ‘What dat mouf do tho?’ spelled exactly like that. Nothing. It does nothing.”
“I was walking to Mirror Lake to study on a beautiful day during Spring Weekend freshman year and a nice, very polite boy decided to yell, ‘Sit on my face!’ out of his car at me.”
“Some guy followed me around Costco once singing ‘Sexy Can I.’ Like, I’m just tryna get my free samples, back up.”
“I was walking to an apartment at Hilltop when a group of guys in the parking lot yelled, ‘Bring that ass over here!’ and when I proceeded to ignore them, their petty selves tried to boost their self-esteem by calling me a bitch!”
“I got, ‘Damn look at that cake!’ when I was a freshman in high school. I didn’t know what “cake” was so until I told my friend two classes later some guy was yelling about a cake in the hall, I didn’t understand what had happened.”
“I worked in an office in downtown Norwich which has a lot of homeless, druggies, and just kinda messed up people and one time, while walking across the street some old man yelled, ‘Can I get a smile?’ and I just ignored him and went inside, but we have all glass windows so my bosses saw and heard it and made fun of me…”
Cover Image Source – “My Body Is Not For You”