Now, I’ll start this by saying no man has ever said, “Here kitty, kitty” at me. But I thought it would get your attention.
I went for a walk yesterday in the park. I walked 3.43 miles yesterday on my walk (a total of 6.34 for my entire day). While I was there for a little over an hour, I was catcalled twice.
I almost took some selfies last night when I got home. To prove that I looked like I was hit by a bus and didn’t imagine why anyone would wanna yell, “Hey girl!” across the park, but I didn’t. I thought about it. But I realized I didn’t need to. What I was wearing was irrelevant.
Could I wear a dress and heels to the park? Sure. Would the volume of catcalls increase? Likely. But can I wear a potato sack to the park and still get catcalled? Probably so, because what I was wearing yesterday was only a step above. I even had on a fanny pack for Christ’s sake.
The point of this is that what you are wearing doesn’t matter. Never has and never will.
But it’s sad I can’t go out of my house without someone trying to “holla atcha girl”. It’s sad that I’m stuck in this world where I can’ t even go about my business without someone trying to bark up my tree. I just wanted a peaceful walk. Little do they know they spurred extra laps so I could do more thinking. I wanted to type this up when I came home, but I got distracted by my roommate’s cooking and a bath.
I hope that if I am blessed with a husband and children, he doesn’t catcall other women while our children are in the car. I hope the father of my children (whether we are together or not) teaches our children to respect women more than that.
I’ve never had someone nicely approach me in public and ask me for my name or number. I’ve only ever had people hollering out car windows or yelling across the street. It would be interesting to see how it unfolds if someone approached me in a way that didn’t make me recoil.