I had a burning question pop into my head this morning for some reason, and thought maybe a general thread for troubleshooting baffling behaviors in other people might be useful.
Spoiler: discussion of what might be classified as street harrassment so I'm putting it under a cut Ok, the question I had was...I was unfortunately thinking on the subject of catcalling for some reason (probably one of those clickbait Facebook articles) and I was trying to figure out whether or not I have actually been catcalled. for the record: AFAB, have had a short haircut since age 16, tall and would be fairly androgynous if not for the boobs. As in, people frequently mistake me for male if they are not visible. I have been sexually harrassed before, unfortunately, but I've never really been approached on the street out of the blue like a lot of women (and other AFAB ppl) describe. I've always wondered if it had to do with the area I grew up in, or if the fact that I'm taller than most men intimidates people. I certainly don't actually want to experience this behavior, but. Rambling! I realized that starting in high school people would scream at me from cars as they drove past. The thing is, I don't know if it was catcalling per se, because it was usually not intelligible. By which I mean they would just. Scream. No words, just noise. Or if there were words they were lost with the volume and speed of the car. This would happen usually when I was walking home from school or to the library as a teenager, so in the afternoon. It was mostly men (I didn't usually see the perpetrators because I walk looking down so I'm guessing from voice pitch) though I'm not sure of the age range. It happened most often on the street leading up to my school so I wonder if it was older high school kids being dumb teenagers, but I'm sure there was at least one truck full of grown men. It still happens occasionally in random places even though I'm 26. In guess my question is, what compels people to scream at other people from cars if not road rage? Is it sexism? Me being visibly queer? Teenagers being stupid? Has this ever happened to anyone else?
That happened to me all the time and it was so weird. i always figured it was like really weird catcalls but I'm interested to see what others think of the subject.
Sometimes I think the wordless yelling is just an attempt to startle someone, rather than catcalling? I've had it happen to me before, sometimes by teen girls rather than men, and I think they just wanted to see me jump or flinch.
This happened to me a lot, too, as a teenager. I think they just wanted to make me flinch. Cis woman, fat now, was a chubby teenager, bookish, didn't pay a lot of attention to my looks. EDIT: I remember them as mostly cars full of college-aged dudes, so.
I have this happen, yeah. Mostly from college-aged or older dudes. I generally presume it's catcalling or some sorta gendered thing because it generally only happens when I'm alone (or very occasionally when I'm walking with my wife, but well, queer people stuff) and only ever from dudes, but it may well also be wanting to see people flinch. (though I'd imagine that's also kinda gendered)
Pretty much everyday I waited for the bus home from school, at least one carload of tradies who knocked off around the end of school time would shout at us. I'm guessing they liked watching a bunch of young girls jump in shock? Idk, man. It disturbed me as I got older because it was 17 year old me standing there with a bunch of 12-year-olds, who were being shouted at by adult men. It made me really mad, but I could never do anything. Aussie translation: Tradie is short for tradesperson. We also mostly all wear school uniforms in Australia, so it's easy to identify school kids. So shouting a bunch of school-aged girls is even skeevier bc you definitely know they're school-aged.
street harrassment is pretty much always a power play. whether it's scary yelling or "hey nice tits!" even when it's something that might be seen as a compliment (if it wasn't yelled across a street by a stranger, that is) they don't actually expect to ever successfully make a connection with someone that way, they just want to strut around. you'll notice it borderline never happens when the guy is alone. they're showing off for their buddies, the people they're targeting are incidental. (there is indeed an aspect of lesser status due to gender and sometimes age as well that makes some people "okay" to target.) i read an article once about workers catcalling and someone got one of the guys' mothers to dress up nice, and when the guy catcalled her she was all like WRATH!! did you just catcall your mother and is this how i raised you, which was fairly satisfying. idk that it taught him or his buddies jack shit, tho, apart from choosing their targets better. (one time when i was thirteen at the bus stop this guy slowed down and tried to ask me how much i was asking for to hint hint nudge nudge. thirteen year old kid in potato sack clothes in the middle of a residential area at noon, a prostitute. yep. that wasn't street harrassment though, just straight up pedo creeping.)
