Cat·call /ˈkatˌkôl/ verb. Make a whistle, shout, or comment of a sexual nature to a woman passing by.

Cat-calling has been around for ages, it goes all the way back to the 19th century before the women’s rights movement began in 1848. Women have always been seen as less than men, not able to perform as well as men, not as smart as men, and not as strong as men. Just one hundred years ago, women were expected to find a rich man to marry, raise kids on her own, she was not expected to attend school, and if she did, she had high chances of not doing anything with that degree. All over the world women are still degraded and objectified, and not held at the high standard they should.

According to author Gabriel Samuels, author of “Straight women in Tanzania marry each other in order to keep their houses,” 45% of women in the Kurya tribe in Tanzania, Africa, aged 15 to 49 had experienced sexual or or physical violence in their home.

The majority of catcalling will happen in larger cities like Los Angeles and New York City, but that doesn’t stop the degrading comments to happen in a town like Marion, Iowa. Catcalling is a problem, it is degrading, objectifying, and frightening to a woman walking alone. Women can start to get publicly harassed by the age of 10 years old.

Most people assume women will get catcalled based on what they are wearing, however that is false. Men, a lot of times, will do it more to prove dominance than to actually compliment a girl. There has been a rise in self-defense classes being taught around the nation due to girls that are too scared to walk alone  and feel they need to have protection.

People assume that women are flattered, or that men are just complimenting the females when this action is performed. However, women are put in a place of fear and discomfort when something like this happens. The problem is that men assume they can do this because they see women as an object, and if they notice a woman is powerful, they want to make her feel cowardly and prove dominance.

Catcalling has always been a problem and needs to end now. Women need to take action and fight back, while proving to men that women are more than objects. This problem is serious and threatening to women across the world.

to read the article of the study done on the women of the Kurya tribe in Tanzania, click the link posted below.

Seventy-eight percent of MHS students polled said cat-calling is an issue, whereas 24 percent do not think it’s a problem.