I hate being cat-called. So why do I miss it when it’s gone?
I’m ashamed to admit that I feel somewhat dejected if I get through the week without being cat called.
It’s not that I get a masochistic kick out of being harassed on the street. Being cat called is fucking horrible, it’s invasive, degrading, and like having someone verbally grope you. But when I don’t receive an unsolicited comment, or a toot of a horn, something deep inside me decides to nag away, “Oh my god you’re not even worth objectifying, you must be really fucking ugly…”
I had an experience a few weeks ago, that got me thinking about all this. A boy I had never met before, approached me at an event and asked me what I would rate myself out of 10. I was taken aback and unsure of how to react. I should just turn away and ignore him, because a boy who asks women to rate themselves out of 10 doesn’t deserve a response. However, given my #crippling #insecurity, (which I can partially attribute to my body dysmorphia and eating disorder history) I regretfully played along, awarding myself a self-deprecatingly low score. After (stupidly) laying my low self-esteem bare, the boy looked me up and down and replied, “Ah, don’t worry, you’re a solid 7”.
Oh dear. I’m a feminist, but I will seemingly reduce myself to a fucking rating out of 10 to humour some guy I don’t even know…God, I really wish that I was deeply offended by the question in and of itself, that I was purely disgusted by this guy’s behaviour, but alas, the rather depressing truth, is that I was more upset by the fact I was awarded a “solid 7”.
For days afterward, my brain was firing on all cylinders:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so one man’s 7 could be another man’s 2, which could be another man’s 9! But then why aren’t you beautiful enough to be an objective 10/10?
There’s no standardised scale of female attractiveness from 1-10, it’s so arbitrary! Well I’m clearly so bog-standard that if there was a standardised ‘point-system’, I would get an even lower score.
You didn’t even want to get with this guy in the first place, so why does his opinion matter? Because I want everyone to want me regardless of whether I want them!!!!
I was tying myself up into a jumble of knots.
The truth is, no amount of mental gymnastics or rationalisation was going to make me feel better about the situation. And isn’t it so sad that I automatically felt the need to waste precious time, forensically analysing and justifying my appearance, rather than just disregarding the guy as a wanker?
As sad as it is, it’s easy to understand why my head takes me there. Women have been taught to prioritise the male gaze all our lives. We’ve been taught that it’s our job to make people (especially men) attracted to us, and that our bodies are tools to help us do our job well. So, when we aren’t approached on the street, or when we are given a lower “rating” than we would hope for, we feel as though we aren’t fulfilling our role correctly; that we aren’t good enough. Our internalised misogyny has literally framed harassment from men on the street as confirmation of our desirability. In the words of a young woman I recently heard on a podcast, “I used to think that, surely if they can’t keep their hands off of me, I must be doing something right”…(I know)
It’s uncomfortable to admit that I crave objectification. I mean it goes against everything I preach about, so I naturally feel like a fucking hypocrite, and the patriarchal world obviously takes delight in the fact that our self-worth often heavily relies on being sexually appealing in the eyes of men. I also fear that admitting this need for external validation could provide ignorant men with the perfect ammunition to defend their borderline, (or sometimes very much past borderline) behaviour towards women and girls. “See! Girls love it when we stare, and grab and wolf whistle!”…
Well, no. Funnily enough, we don’t. But unfortunately, the dark consequence of women’s chronic low self-esteem, is that part of us feels that we have to be grateful for any attention we receive, and that we mustn’t take it for granted, regardless of whether it’s wanted or not.
We are conditioned to feel that all kinds of sexual attention is simply a welcome confidence boost, an antidote to how shit we are made to feel about our appearance. However, in the current climate, with the likes of David Carrick and Andrew Tate infecting society, it is more important than ever to highlight that harassment from men has very little to do with how beautiful we are or not. It’s all about maintaining power.
When a man reduces us to objects, numbers and body parts, either in a club, out on the street or in the classroom, he is asserting his authority over us. David Carrick didn’t abuse and rape those women simply because he admired their beauty (which, I hope it goes without saying would make no difference to how sickening his crimes were), he abused them because he got a kick out of making women feel powerless. Whilst, obviously, the vast majority of men are not Carrick-level abusers, all forms of harassment have this sinister undertone.
Why do cat-callers hate being ignored so much? Why do they say, “Are you not going to thank me for the compliment?”, when we scurry away from them as fast as we can? Why do they laugh hysterically when we hold up the middle finger at them? Why do they raise their eyebrows, hold their hands up and claim, “I was just trying to be nice!”, when we scowl? Because they want a reaction. A reaction makes them feel like they have power over us, they have the power to successfully affect us.
Before anyone pipes up, I am not saying men can never compliment women, of course they fucking can, it’s just about the intention behind it. There’s a very big difference between a compliment and a power-trip, but I think you already knew that.
So, ladies (and of course any non-binary readers out there), enjoy your body and your sexuality, go fucking wild! But remember that your body is not for display, it is for living, you’re worth far more than your appearance, and always hold onto your power.
