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cover of episode The Sunday Story: This is what it feels like to be catcalled

The Sunday Story: This is what it feels like to be catcalled

2023/10/29
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Anna
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Terra Lopez
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Anna: 我在怀孕期间经历了街头骚扰,三个白人男子用威胁性的言语骚扰我,让我感到非常愤怒和脆弱。这并非个例,猫叫现象普遍存在,严重程度从轻微的言语骚扰到威胁,甚至可能升级为暴力和死亡。社会常常将猫叫视为无害的玩笑,但对受害者来说,这是一种严重的伤害。 Terra Lopez: 我在一次女性朋友间的读书会上,发现我们都有过类似的猫叫经历,这促使我关注这个议题。有些经历从猫叫开始,迅速升级为危险情况,例如跟踪、袭击和威胁。女性在遭遇猫叫时,总是伴随危险感,因为她们不知道情况会如何升级。我创作了一个艺术展览,让男性体验女性日常遭受的猫叫骚扰,展览引起广泛关注,许多男性参与者感到震惊并反思自身行为。展览也让许多女性感到被理解和认同。猫叫远不止是赞美,它可能迅速升级为暴力和危险。 我制作播客的目的是通过分享真实故事,提升人们的同情心和同理心,从而改善人际关系。播客中,许多女性分享了她们的经历,从轻微的不适到严重的性侵犯。猫叫对女性的心理健康造成严重损害,降低她们的生活质量。改变猫叫等现象需要全社会的共同努力,而不是仅仅依靠女性自身。我们需要从改变社会对男性的教育入手,打破不良的男性气质模式。 Terra Lopez: 我的播客探讨了多个社会议题,包括生命意义、堕胎和失去亲人等。通过分享这些真实故事,我希望能够引发更多人的思考和共鸣,最终改善人际关系,让社会变得更加安全和包容。

Deep Dive

Chapters
The episode starts with a personal story of the host, Anna, who was catcalled when she was pregnant. Catcalling is a common issue that can range from harmless remarks to threats and violence. The host discusses the impact of catcalling and how it makes women feel vulnerable and unsafe.
  • Catcalling can escalate into violence and even death.
  • Women feel vulnerable and unsafe when catcalled.
  • Catcalling is often dismissed as harmless, but it has serious consequences.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Am a sarasi. And this is a sunday story, a warning that today's episode deals with issues of sexual harassment and assault. I, anna, start with a personal story. It's a story that's hard for me to even think about and to have to tell IT, but i'm doing IT because I feel like it's important. A few years ago, when I was pregnant with my Youngest child, i'm walking to the doctor's office in my business and these three, like college ed men approached me. When they get close to me, IT seemed like maybe they were gona ask me a question.

Ultimately they did ask me a question but I was very vocal um I should note um these were three White men and one of them asked me if I wanted um there and this is there was their quote White male part but they asked in a much more graphing way they did not laugh when this happened. They didn't smile um IT didn't sound like a joke IT IT really sounded IT like a threat another woman said at who was walking by and he was like, oh my goodness, like, I can't believe they said that to you. Like, what jerks at the time I was just so angry and but also like just really vulnerable because, you know, I felt like if I of my brother and my cousin's or a man had been with me, they'd never say that.

But these men felt comfortable basically threatening me on the street because I was all by my south and i'm a muscle prag nant. So like I I can't really fight or I can't fight. Um my experience that day is not unique.

If IT happens all the time, cat calling is common, and I can range from telling the woman to smile to something more threatening. And in while cat calling is often dismissed by society at large as mostly harmless, there have been countless stories of unreciprocated cat calls in harassment that have escalates into violence and even death. When we come back, we're going to take a deep dive in the cat calling and the impact stay with us.

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Today we're back with a sunday story, and we're going deep into the subject of cat calling. Most of us probably know the trope of cat calling, some guys playfully whistling at women walking by a construction site saturday night live even makes jokes. About hard to work.

I got a lot of complaints. You guys are hacked women on the look here, apparently when he is real bad at IT. But the idea that this is just mean being playful IT is far from what's really happening for those on the receiving in the story is a different one.

Musician, artist and now podcast. Tera Lopez has been expLoring the darker truth of cat calling her show. This is what IT feels like from cap radio. And sacramental puts listeners in the shoes of everyday people at the center of issues, often overlooked or politicize by society, had to arrow welcomed to the sundays story.

Hi you. Thank you so much for .

having me so, you know, I want, I want na know what inspired you to focus on this topic, like what made you want to look at you cat calling in street harassment? Well, I was .

sitting in on my partner's book club one night, and IT was primarily a room fall of female identifying folks, non binary folks. And we were reading Rebecca le nette men explain things to me, which is a book of essays on women's rights, the silence, cent of women through harassment, abuse and the conversation quickly LED to sharing our own cat, all experiences. And I realized very quickly that we all had multiple stories to share.

And were they sharing those kind of like stereotypical stories of cat calling, like the west? Hey, good. Look, something like that.

You know, sometimes I can be those annoying whistles and those unwanted reMarks. But some of the people in the book group also spoke of events that started as cat calling and escalated really quickly into really scary situations. Women being followed, stocked, assaulted.

threatened by men yeah I mean, that's that's a thing about these issues that there I feel like there's always as as a woman, there are always feeling there's a feeling of danger in this situation because it's like one wrong move and you don't know what could happen.

right? These situations can escalate. Ate so quickly um one person from the book club was chased and followed on the freeway another was physically attacked in her own front yard while he was watering the lawn.

And you know as I was listening to everyone try me in, what was really sad to me is that we all have these stories. We were sharing these stories like we, their book recommendations. I mean, they were just so prevalent, so common.

And so I got inspired to sketch an idea on an up in right in there. And IT was an idea for an art exhibit where gender man would be cat, called by other men. And the next year, in early twenty seventeen, I debuted that exhibited my hometown of schmo.

So tell me a little bit about the exhibit. Like, so how did IT work? You said that men would cat call other men.

yes. So for me, what was driving this exhibit idea was this question, if men could experience what female presenting folks experience on a daily basis, would that change their behavior? So we ask women from the region to send their call experiences to us, and we then went into a recording studio with men to record those cocles.

And that was such a heavy experience. Men were crying in the studio, apologizing for their past actions. And I knew right then in there that the exhibit was going to have an impact. And so the actual exhibit was a long, dark hallway with a mirror in the center of the space, with headphone hinging ing directly from the ceiling. And the idea was that men would walk into the space, put those head vote down and hear real cat calls and harassment from other men as they looked at themselves in the mirror.

Someone's acknowledge in you.

you beautiful. Hey baby, great food has going.

How are you your problem?

Don't you like being complimented? You should smile more. I guess you're not that. How are you sweet?

Hey, hey, excuse me. Hey, sweet heart.

we can be friends, you being friends.

Okay, you don't speaking english. And wow, I mean, it's joined. Even hear IT. Like what was the response of those who experience the exhibit?

Well, and I just have to press that and say, those were the tamer cat calls we had we had a wide range that were A A lot a lot more graphic um than those but the the response was overwhelming. The exhibit went viral. We had national international press lines were forming out the door every single day to experience six habit.

People were really intrigued um a lot of the men were astonished. Some came out crime. They wanted to apologize for their past actions.

They wanted to admit that they needed to make a change. Some men acknowledge that they didn't even know what a cal was before experiencing this, which I thought was was very daring. Lots of women also went into the exhibit.

Many said that they felt validated. One story that really sick with me as a woman and her seventies came out and tears and thinking us as IT was the first time he said she's ever felt seen in her in her life. So IT was powerful and IT was clear that IT resonated .

with people. I mean, it's it's interesting to me that mean we in and heard IT and IT and IT click for them at least in that moment because i'm like I haven't job been around you never heard cake. I haven't heard this before. Maybe IT was the context that they need IT or they just never thought that women or maybe they just saw, oh, they are just complimenting you doesn't maybe that feels good. I don't know.

right? And I think, again, that's where we get in trouble with just viewing cat calls as innocent or as compliments because as we've seen and as we've heard, the situation can escalate very quickly. You can get scary IT can get violent female identifying folks have died from simply not reciprocating these cat calls and so IT is so much more then just about a cat call .

or a compliment and so now you're a pod caster um i'm sure slan artist but your podcasting as well was IT this art installation that got you into the yeah kind of I was trying to .

figure out away as to how we could continue this work and build upon IT even more. As I saw how much I was resonating, I wanted to explore other topics such as trans rights, abortion stories, mental health. And my thought process was that if people could experience and hear these real stories from actual people that have been going through these experiences, maybe IT would create space for compassion and empathy, and ultimately, we would treat one another Better.

Okay, so I mean, this this took a while for you to get IT together, but now you've got this podcast call. This is what IT feels like and in the the podcast you take up the topic of cat calling again. Uh, it's been like seven years since the art exhibit. Do you feel like there's more recognition now, even an in mental of this as a real issue that affects people.

sadly? No um we put another call out to women to send their experiences and we were overwhelmed with the amount of voice memo who received dozens and dozens stories for arranging from you uncomfortable reMarks to very explicit comments to the scary situations like we were mentioning. Can I play you some of those voice meals?

Yeah yeah let let me hear. I'm i'm sure they're na be very disturbing, but I do want to hear IT okay.

So IT starts with a voice memo from a non binary female presenting individual .

on top of just feeling gross and humanized. IT makes me feel sexualized the way that I didn't consent to. And IT makes me feel like everybody around me is just gonna ck me as a woman and as someone feminine, and because of that, as a target.

And that's just endlessly frustrating. I took IT as I could compliment until I actually got sexy sault by one of the guys on diversity boys truck team. I remember thinking about how that person was not trying to, you know, fert with me, connect with me, even hook up with me. They weren't attempting any sort of connection or didn't have any idea in their mind. IT didn't seem that there could ever actually be like a favorable result from that.

They were literally violating me was the way that I felt was that they were saying i'm using your body against you ah that that last one really stood out to me because like I like was been saying is about so much more than compliments because like the men who a cost at me, who I talked about the beginning, they weren't trying to make a connection. They weren't like i'm gonna that was they were trying to get with me um that wasn't the intention that was i'm going to you know make you feel bad essentially a sexual way just because you're walk on the street. It's drawing but very powerful to hear you know obviously you heard from a lot of people who send these voice messages for the podcast, but you are your original inspiration for the art became from that bookstores that you were in and I guess you went back that same group to record another conversation uh, kind of a follow up, right?

That's right. Their story stuck with me um and they have for the last seven years and I feel like as a community we really need to talk more about this because we all have these stories you know where all holding onto these were expected to Carry these stories with us every day and so I wanted to have a chance to talk to these folks and hear hear them will this listen .

to that part of the episode? And that starts with you asking a question.

what is the mental toll of experiencing there's on the data day basis for each of you. Clear how you sell here. Yeah nodding your head.

It's diminishes our quality of life. And I was saying to a friend, I don't know, a few months goes, I am so angry because i'm paying for a therapy. I'm paying for therapy, but of a therapy for two years and you there there are other things, anything there before but it's sexual assault and harassment and low self a steam anxious all of those things like are a byproduct of a society in which for not value as much as men, I guess.

But what i'm trying to say is that part of male and tiny and violence, and all of that being so pervasive IT makes me feel like a responsibility to change that norm. And so IT yeah puts so much pressure on us, on folks we shouted, have more the responsibility we shouldn't have to pave the way. That should be a collective effort. Every single person working, you know, to fight IT for all of us to be safe.

Do you think men think about these things?

My partner, because I talk about these things all the time, I think that there is someone who do. But I definitely think that a lot of I move through the world in a different way than my three brothers do. For instance, you know, I don't know if.

Men get IT. I don't know if men have the opportunity to get IT, should they be sult for that? no. But can we have conversations and can we start to shift our society and away where we have empathy and you know accountability and these things, I think that's so necessary.

Kevin tells us about a time SHE travelled ed to egypt with her husband, which is where he was born. Her husband was shocked to see how SHE was being. And there were a couple of times where he, like, did check people.

He was just like a man, like what was that and they'd be like, you're right, i'm sorry. He says that mean, they're interact with each other differently. They're able to hold one another accountable.

They cross a boundary. I cannot even imagine a scenario that happening like IT would turn into a fight. I thought, like we have to wait for something traumatic to happen to hold people accountable for a little bit of behavior.

In our conversation, all three said that they were children, six, eleven, five years old, when they first realized that they weren't safe. And I realized that I was around, that is too, when I understood that I couldn't move around the world like my brother could. Things were different. For me, the stakes .

are higher. Five years old. I mean, that is so so. Is a baby. I have my my little girl just turned six, so she's a baby. You know, eleven years old, that these are babies. Do you remember the first time you were catcalls or or saw someone being catcalls?

Yeah, I remember watching my mother being constantly harassed when I was a kid at my bus ball games, at school, at the bus stop. I mean, IT seem like everywhere we went, there was always a comment or an an attempt to get her attention. And one night the Caroline turned into something really violent.

My mother told me a story of one situation where he was grabbing dinner at a talk bell drive through, and a carroll of man started yelling at her, trying to get her attention, and SHE ruled her window down. SHE told them to stop. I mean, he was just trying to order dinner. And the next thing he knew, they were bashing her windows, attacking her and her friend with baseball ads. And all of this escalated because SHE didn't respond to them in the way that they wanted her.

To me that, I mean, that is beyond like terrifying like what I mean what first month? So sorry that this happened to your mom was SHE OK after I mean baseball SHE was hurt .

um SHE tells me, of course he was pretty bruised up but more so than that he was really shake IT up to not be safe in a drive through kind of changes their whole perspective on on how you move through out the world.

I think I mean, I mean, IT seems like what this of like it's such a fine line between like annoying behavior and like violence. I'm sure some people listening will be like, well, I wouldn't hit anyone with a baseball, but I I might just say you look nice, but the person who is interacting with you has no idea what you're going to do. We don't know wanted the ones with the baseball bat or that we don't know.

I mean, at any moment, if you make the wrong call or they decide that you did not give them a sufficient answer or even if you did in is not what they want, they could just be violent. I mean that that I think a lot of men may not understand what that means to be that vulnerable. And it's like i'm just walking around. I'm just living my life. You you know i'm not trying to get into a fight today.

We're just trying to live right. And I think most men don't understand IT because they haven't had to. To me, IT does seem like at all about power and trying to silent to women through those intimidation tactics. And to go back to Rebecca, the author of men explain things to me, he says that we have an abundance of rape and violence in this country against women, but it's never treated as a civil right tissue, or even as a human right tissue, a crisis or even a pattern. SHE says that violence doesn't have a class, a race or religion or nationality, but IT does have a gender.

You know, I I wonder, like after spending so much time thinking about cat calling, like what do you think needs to happen to to bring about change?

I think that you know, first of there are many issues that need to change, I think, but first and foremost as how we raise our boys in the society needs to evolve. We need to have that conversation. We need to teach boys at a very early age what behaviors are acceptable, how to regulate their emotions, how to treat female presenting individuals. We have to break the cycle of toxic masculinity and the violence that is attached to IT. Otherwise, I don't know if we will ever see the change that is really needed.

Well, thank you so much. Um before we go, I am curious like what else are you expLoring your podcast? Because this is just one of the issues, right?

right? So I sit down with one hundred and six year old piano player name, glenn, about the meaning of life and how music and keeping things simple are the keys to living a long, meaningful life. We also speak to foreign visuals about their abortion experiences and what some of the long term impacts can look like. And for our season, finally, we talk about what it's like to lose a parent to suicide and how children and siblings ans can open hill through that loss. So we cover A A large range of topics here.

Well, thank you so much to you. I really appreciate you, john in us.

Thank you so much for having me.

That was terre Lopez, the host and producer of this is what IT feels like a podcast from cap radio. You can find more of terrorist episodes wherever you get your podcast. This is what IT feels like.

Is edited by jan pocard, Sally long neck, or is the shows executive producer? This episode of the sunday story was produced by Andrew mumbo and edited by jim mt. Our engineer was mag lutha, our team closely on a sim strom.

And just in and I read a gucci is our executive producer. We'd love to hear from you cinda email at the sunday story at epr dot org. M. I shark go up first is back tomorrow with all the news, you need to start a week. Until then, have a great rest year weekend.