Catcalling

How Sexual Harassment Slaughtered, Then Saved Me written by Kiini Ibura Salaam was very interesting. The writer writes about what it was like growing up an African American girl in New Orleans. She refers to always being self-conscious while walking down the street. She had a system for walking down the street to avoid as many comments as possible from guys she would pass. These catcalls make women anxious, fearful and uncomfortable. She describes something called catcalling as sexual harassment, verbal assaults, invitations and compliments that give men the opportunity to play predator to women and girls making them their prey. Catcalling whether it is acknowledged by the prey or not still gets to their conscious and can make them believe that they are what these men say. She talks about how she went to the Dominican Republic and was molested in the crowded streets just because she was a woman. Men would grab and grope her and her friend in their private areas as they would walk through crowds of people. Since she had experienced some sort of sexual attacks her whole life she thought that the whole world was like this until she went to Brazil. In Brazil women wore little shirts, short shorts and often when bra less. She expressed her shock and awe as she walked down the streets dressed like this without comments coming from the men she passed. For her this was freeing in a way. This is when she realizes that she is not the reason men do this to her. She realized that these men that catcall do this to all women and that she is not herself at fault for anything, she doesn’t deserve this as well as the other women that experience this. This chapter actually opened my own eyes to see that these people that do this have the problem not the woman walking down the street.

#catcalling #molestation #DominicanRepublic #SexualHarrassment