Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: This is what it feels like to be catcalled

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

Catcalling can be often thought of as playful and harmless, a classic case of boys will be boys. But the reality is anything but harmless. The interactions often leave predominantly women and girls feeling vulnerable and fearful that if they don't respond correctly they can be in danger. Today on The Sunday Story, artist, musician and podcast host Terra Lopez discusses her new podcast series This Is What It Feels Like from CapRadio. The series puts its audience in the shoes of people dealing with overlooked issues.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. A warning that today's episode deals with issues of sexual harassment and assault. I want to 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, minding my business, and these three college-age men approached me.

When they got close to me, it seemed like maybe they were going to ask me a question. Ultimately, they did ask me a question, but it was very vulgar. I should note, these were three white men. And one of them asked me if I wanted their, and this is their words, their quote, white male part, but they asked it in a much more graphic way. They did not laugh when this happened. They didn't smile. It didn't sound like a joke. It really sounded like a threat. Another woman saw it and who was walking by and she was like, oh my goodness, like, I can't believe they and but also like just really vulnerable because, you know, I felt like if I if my brother or my cousins 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 myself. And I'm also pregnant. So like, I can't really fight or I can't fight. My experience that day is not unique. It happens

all the time. Catcalling is common and it can range from telling a woman to smile to something more threatening. And while catcalling is often dismissed by society at large as mostly harmless, there have been countless stories of unreciprocated catcalls and harassment that have escalated into violence and even death. When we come back, we're going to take a deep dive into catcalling and its impact. Stay with us. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future.

Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. We're back with a Sunday story and we're going deep into the subject of catcalling. Most of us probably know the trope of catcalling. Some guys playfully whistling at women walking by a construction site. Saturday Night Live even makes jokes about it. Hey, what in God's name is going on over here, huh? Nothing, boss. Just hard at work. Oh, yeah? Because I got a lot of complaints that

you guys are heckling women on the sidewalk here. Apparently, one of you is real bad at it. But the idea that this is just men being playful is far from what's really happening. For those on the receiving end, the story is a different one. Musician, artist, and now podcaster Tara Lopez has been exploring the darker truth of catcalling. Her show, This Is What It Feels Like from Cap Radio in Sacramento, puts listeners in the shoes of everyday people at the center of issues often overlooked or politicized by society. Hi, Tara. Welcome to The Sunday Story. Hi, Aisha. Thank you so much for having me. So, you know, I want to know what inspired you to focus on this topic. Like, what made you want to look at, you know, catcalling and street harassment? Well, I was sitting in on my

partner's book club one night, and it was primarily a room full of female identifying folks, non-binary folks. And we were reading Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me, which is a book of essays on women's rights, the silencing of women through harassment, abuse. And the conversation quickly led to sharing our own catcall 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 catcalling, like the whistles and yelling like, hey, good looking or something like that? You know, sometimes it 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 catcalling and escalated really quickly into really scary situations. Women being followed, stalked, assaulted, threatened by men. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about these issues is that there, I feel like there's always, as a woman, there always feels like there's a feeling of danger in these situations because it's like one wrong move and you don't know what could happen. Right. These situations can escalate so quickly. One person from the book club was chased and followed on the freeway. Another was physically attacked in her own front yard while she was watering the lawn

and you know as I was listening to everyone chiming in what was really sad to me is that we all had these stories we were sharing these stories like we'd share book recommendations I mean they were just so prevalent so common and so I got inspired to sketch an idea on a napkin right then and there and it was an idea for an art exhibit where cisgender men would be catcalled by other men. And the next year, in early 2017, I debuted that exhibit in my hometown of Sacramento. So tell me a little bit about the exhibit. Like, so how did it work? You said that men would catcall other men?

Yeah, 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 asked women from the region to send their catcall experiences to us, and we then went into a recording studio with men to record those catcalls. And that was such a heavy experience. Men were crying in the studio, apologizing for their past actions. And I knew right then and 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 headphones hanging directly from the ceiling.

And the idea was that men would walk into the space, put those headphones on, and hear real catcalls and harassment from other men as they looked at themselves in the mirror. Hey, someone's acknowledging you. You look beautiful. Hey, baby. Be grateful.

How's it going? How are you? What's your problem? Don't you like being complimented? You should smile more. I guess you're not that beautiful. How's it going? How are you? What's your problem? Don't you like being complimented? You should smile more. I guess you're not that beautiful. How are you, sweetie? Hey.

Hey, excuse me. Hey, sweetheart. Hey, babe. What? What, we can't be friends? What, you don't speak? Don't you like being complimented? Oh, okay, you don't speak English.

Hey, what's up? How are you, sweetie? Wow. I mean, it's jarring to even hear it um like like what was the response of those who experienced the exhibit well and i just have to preface that and say those were the tamer cat calls we had we had a wide range that were a lot more graphic than those. But the response was overwhelming. The exhibit went viral. We had national, international press. Lines were forming out the door every single day to experience the exhibit. People were really intrigued. A lot of the men were astonished. Some came out crying. They wanted to apologize for their past

actions. They wanted to admit that they needed to make a change. Some men acknowledged that they didn't even know what a catcall was before experiencing this, which I thought was very jarring. Lots of women also went into the exhibit. Many said that they felt validated. One story that really sticks with me is a woman in her 70s came out in tears and thanking us as it was the first time she said she's ever felt seen and heard in her life. So it was powerful and it was clear that it resonated with people. I mean, it's interesting to me that men went in and heard it and it and it clicked for them at least in that moment because I'm like haven't y'all been around y'all ain't never heard cat y'all haven't heard this before maybe it was the context that they needed or they just never thought that women or maybe they just

thought oh they're just complimenting you doesn't maybe that feels good i don't know right and and i think again that's where we get in trouble with just viewing catcalls as innocent or as compliments because as we've seen and as we've heard the situation can escalate very quickly it can get scary it can get violent um female identifying folks have died from simply not reciprocating these catcalls. And so it is so much more than just about a catcall or a compliment. And so now you're a podcaster. I'm sure you're still an artist, but you're podcasting as well. Was it this art installation that got you into the podcasting? Yeah, kind of.

I was trying to figure out a way as to how we could continue this work and build upon it even more. As I saw how much it 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 took a while for you to get it together, but now you've got this podcast called This Is What It Feels Like. And in the podcast, you take up the topic of catcalling again. It's been like seven years

since the art exhibit. Do you feel like there's more recognition now, even in Sacramento, of this as a real issue that affects people? Sadly, no. We put another call out to women to send their experiences, and we were overwhelmed with the amount of voice memos we received. Dozens and dozens of stories ranging from uncomfortable remarks to very explicit comments to these scary situations like we were mentioning. Can I play you some of those voice memos? Yeah, yeah. Let me hear them. I'm sure they're going to 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 dehumanized, it makes me feel sexualized in a way that I didn't consent to.

And it makes me feel like everybody around me is just going to clock 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 like a compliment until I actually got sexually assaulted by one of the guys on the varsity boys track team. I remember thinking about how that person was not trying to flirt 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 a favorable result from that. They were literally violating me was the way that it felt, was that they were saying, I'm using your body

against you. Yeah. That, that last one really stood out to me because like I, like we've been saying, it's about so much more than compliments. Cause like the men who accosted me, who I talked about in the beginning, they weren't trying to make a connection. They weren't like to get with me. That wasn't the intention. It was, I'm going to make you You know, obviously you heard from a lot of people who sent these voice messages for the podcast, but your original inspiration for the art exhibit came from that book club that you were in. And I guess you went back to that same group to record another conversation, kind of a follow-up, right? That's right. Their stories stuck with me, 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, we're all holding onto

these. We're expected to carry these stories with us every day. And so I wanted to have a chance to talk to these folks and hear them. Well, let's listen to that part of the episode. And that starts with you asking a question. What is the mental toll of experiencing this on a day-to-day basis for each of you? Claire, how are you feeling? You're nodding your head. Well, it diminishes our quality of life. And I was saying to a friend, I don't know, a few months ago, I was like, I'm so angry because I'm paying for therapy. I'm paying for therapy. I've been in therapy for two years. And there are other things I need therapy for, but it's sexual assault and harassment and low self-esteem, anxiety, all of those things like are a by-product of a society in which we're not valued as much as men. I guess what I'm trying to

say is that part of male entitlement and violence and all of that being so pervasive, it makes me feel like a responsibility to change that norm. And so it puts so much pressure on us, on folks who we shouldn't have all the responsibility. We shouldn't have to pave the way. It should be a collective effort, every single person working to fight for all of us to be saved. Do you think men think about these things? My partner does because I talk about these things all the time. I think that there are some men who do, but I definitely think that a lot don't. I move through the world in a different way than my three brothers do, for instance. I don't know

if men get it. I don't know if men have the opportunity to get it. Should they be faulted for that? No. But can we have conversations and can we start to shift our society in a way where we have empathy and, you know, accountability in these things? I think that's so necessary. Kaylin tells us about a time she traveled to Egypt with her husband, which is where he was born. Her husband was shocked to see how she was being harassed. And there were a couple of times where he like did check people where he was just like, hey man, like what was that? And they'd be like, you're right, I'm sorry. She says that men there interact with each other differently. They're able to hold one another accountable if they cross a boundary. I couldn't even imagine a scenario of that happening here. Like, it would turn into a fight.

I feel like we have to wait for something traumatic to happen to hold people accountable for little bits of behavior. In our conversation, all three said that they were children. Six, 11, five years old, when they first realized that they weren't safe. And I realized that I was around that age too, when I understood that I couldn't move around the world like my brother could. Things were different for me. The stakes were higher. Five years old, I mean, that is so, so young. It's a baby. I my my little girl just turned six and she's a baby um you know 11 years old that's these are babies do you remember the first time you were cat called or or saw someone

being cat called yeah I remember watching my mother be constantly harassed when I was a kid at my basketball games, at school, at the bus stop. I mean,-thru and a car full of men started yelling at her, trying to get her attention. And she rolled her window down. She told them to stop. I mean, she was just trying to order dinner. And the next thing she knew, they were bashing her windows, attacking her and her friend with baseball bats. And all of this escalated because she didn't respond to them in the way that they wanted her to. I mean, that's, I mean, that is beyond, like, terrifying. I mean, well, first of all, I'm so sorry that this happened to your mom. Was she okay after that? I

mean, baseball bats. She was hurt. She tells me, of course course she was pretty bruised up but more so than that she was really shaken up to not be safe in a drive-through kind of changes your whole perspective on on how you move throughout the world I think I mean I mean it it seems like with this stuff 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 bat. I might just say you look nice. But the person who's interacting with you has no idea what you're going to do. We don't know whether you're one of the ones with the baseball bats or not.

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, and it's 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 know, I'm not trying to get into a fight today. Right. 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 it's all about power and trying to silence women through those intimidation tactics. And to go back to Rebecca Solnit, the author of Men Explain Things to Me,

she says that we have an abundance of rape and violence in this country against women, but it's never treated as a civil rights issue or even as a human rights issue, a crisis, or even a pattern. She says that violence doesn't have a class, a race, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender. You know, I wonder, like, after spending so much time thinking about catcalling, like, what do you think needs to happen to bring about change? I think that, you know, first off, there are many issues that need to change, I think. But first and foremost, how we raise our boys in this 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. Before we go, I'm a little curious, like, what else are you exploring on your podcast? Because this is just one of the issues, right? Right. So I sit down with a 106-year-old piano player named Glenna 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 four individuals about their abortion experiences and what some of the long-term impacts can look like. And for our season finale, we talk about what it's like to lose a parent to suicide and how children and siblings can cope and heal through that loss.

So we cover a large range of topics here. Well, thank you so much, Tara. I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. That was Tara Lopez, the host and producer of This Is What It Feels Like, a podcast from Cap Radio. You can find more of Tara's episodes wherever you get your podcasts. This Is What It Feels Like is edited by Jen Picard. Sally Longnecker is the show's executive producer. This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Andrew Mambo and edited by Jenny Schmidt. Our engineer was Maggie Luthar. Our team includes Liana Simstrom and Justine Yan. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. We'd love to hear from you.

Send us an email at thesundaystoryatnpr.org. I'm Aisha Roscoe. Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.