How Catcalling Messed Up my Weekend

I am so sick and tired of this issue of catcalling. I hate that as girls, we are no longer liable to feeling safe in our most pretty and ugliest moments when walking down the streets. Lord knows how many girls have created a “rape schedule” in their minds and actions because they cannot be in certain places, at certain times without being catcalled. Even the morning hours on open roads are no longer safe for our bodies to exist in the street.

I was going to make my hair on Friday morning at around 8:45am and as I got out of the train station which was close to the hairdresser’s shop (about 5 minutes’ walk), I was catcalled. I was so irritated and at the same time scared, so I just hurriedly walked to the hairdresser’s shop. When I finished with my hair at around 5:00pm, I was walking towards the same train station, and almost exactly the same spot where I was catcalled in the morning, someone that knew me was saying hi. It was an older man from church. Based on my experience that morning, I had confused the innocent man that I knew but did not quickly recognize with the one who catcalled me in the morning. So I just dismissed him and again terrified, I walked hurriedly to the train station.

At church today, I met the man whom I had dismissed and you could guess what happened. In his face, I must have looked like a devil in sheep’s clothing. He recalled that he saw me and I dismissed him. I immediately recognized him and I had to keep apologizing as I did not have the chance to explain.

Please, I have just had enough of that bullshit and I know that many other girls can relate to being catcalled at one point or another. Grown men will literally stop in the middle of the road to hiss their teeth at someone and say “Hey sexy, can I have your number?” It just has to stop! I’ll soon start wearing a shirt that says “DON’T CATCALL ME!” And to those that will be saying that girls dress seductively to ask for it, you just never know how it feels. I have been catcalled wearing a maxi gown and I have been catcalled wearing a proper business attire. This Friday, I wore the ugliest piece of clothing I had; a faded ¾ length jeans and a big shirt with some ugly black suede shoes. The colors did not match and it was nothing close to being seductive, yet I was catcalled. It is not the females; men should talk to themselves. It is just not fair that we are constantly made to feel unsafe.