If you’re the owner of breasts and a vagina, there’s a 99.9% chance you’ve copped catcalling at some point in your life. You know, that passing comment from a creepy old dude, a guy beeping his horn and shouting something hugely intelligent like “SHOW US YA TITS” out the window, or a group of tradies not-so-quietly appraising you as you stroll past.
It’s unwanted and uncomfortable and often threatening, so when we hear stories about women turning the tables on these gronks, we’ve gotta give them props.
Living legend Noa Jansma, a 20-year-old Uni student from Amsterdam, started a project called #DearCatcallers in an effort to bring awareness to just how often this kind of shit happens to the average gal.
On August 29, Noa set up an Instagram account, explaining in her first post that she aimed to “create awareness about the objectification of women in daily life”, pointing out that “many people still don’t know how often and in [what] context ‘catcalling’ happens”.
Each time she was catcalled, she asked the offending douche-nozzle to pose for a selfie with her. In the captions, she detailed what exactly each totally charming dude had said.
Noa found that the pics were a simple way to take back control of the situation. “By making the selfie, both the objectifier and the object are assembled in one composition,” she told Dutch paper Het Parool. “Myself, as the object, standing in front of the catcallers represents the reversed power ratio which is caused by this project.”
It is genius on so many levels, showing how frequently this kind of crap happens, and also that it’s not just one type of guy who does it. Creeps come in many forms, clearly.
Noa’s permanently unimpressed face is all of us, no?
Although the project only went for a month, Noa posted 24 incidents of catcalling, which is pretty bloody disturbing when you think about it. That’s nearly one dickhead for every day.
She told Het Parool that only one guy asked her why she was taking a photo. “They’re not at all suspicious because they find what they do completely normal.” Eye roll.
She managed to rack up almost 100k Instagram followers during the month, with scores of women commenting to share their own stories of catcalling using the hashtag #DearCatcallers.
Inspired by their tales, Noa’s last post is a passing of the torch, as she writes: “To show that it’s a global phenomenon and that this art-project is not only about me, I’ll pass on the account to different girls around the world. This will be a process and it will take time, so please stay tuned.”
Exposing gronks around the globe? We can’t wait.
