Student gets cat-called outside uni, calls out the "absolute knobs"
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A student who got sick of being cat-called decided to call out the "absolute knobs" online when she got home.
Emma Spore, who attends Royal Holloway, walked from campus to the nearby Egham train station to pick up a friend.
On the eight-minute walk, she was cat-called by people in four separate cars, in some pretty creepy encounters. Upon returning home, Emma wrote a Facebook post about her experience, which has been shared by over 3,000 people (many of whom said they'd experienced similar encounters).
"I'm not usually one to post statuses so I suppose you could say this is a pretty big deal. I wanted to address something that I can say with utmost certainty that every girl has experienced.
Let me set the scene for you. On Thursday at 3pm, the sun was shining and I was walking alone from my university campus to Egham train station to pick up the wonderful Katie Rumsey who was coming to visit. Please note that this route is utterly "safe", residential, and only an 8 to 12 minute walk (depending on your level of sluginess) in a nice town. At 3pm. I was wearing high waisted jeans and a black top.
Right. Now it seriously concerns me that I couldn't walk for 8 minutes without getting beeped at and shouted at by THREE separate cars driven by teenage boys, yelling the usual "Oi oi"'s "Nice ass" "Corr I would" "Show us some more gorgeous".
But they're pretty standard, right? We accept these comments because it means we're attractive and it's nice to get attention.
Yeah. Well alongside this, one car actually slowed down behind me, to which the male passenger shouted "Oi oi miss do you need a ride" and the boy driving the car continued with, "On me??" Wow, did I feel flattered. That really made me want to hop in your 2002 plate VW Golf and be anywhere near your greasy face. But hey, just young lads having a laugh, not respectable men yet, clearly.
However, the final thing which contradicted any hope I had in those boys occurred when I got to the train tracks and had to wait for the barrier.
Surprise surprise, I heard a beep from behind me.
Turned around, a white van with three greasy, nasty MIDDLE-AGED men sitting in the seats and making hand gestures. Seems like this is a joke which isn't defined by young lads or age at all.
Therefore I am here to simply ask, what do you boys or men actually gain from this? Do you get lad points? A laugh from the chavs in your back seat banging out some mainstream Stormzy from your 99p aux cord? It's not funny. It's not clever. It's intimidating, dumb and quite frankly, in day time, makes you look like an absolute knob.
The thing that frightens me most is, in a woman's mind, how are we to know what draws the line between a car slowing down to shout at you, or pulling you in and committing much worse.
Please teach your boys not to objectify a girl simply because she squats and has a nice ass, or nice anything. Not your ass to comment on. Never will be. Be a man and get your own ass.
Thanks for reading."
Common experience
Emma Spore's post has been shared and liked a lot of times on Facebook, by people who have said they've had the same experience.
I've got to admit, I hadn't realised how commonplace catcalling still is in 2016. I asked a colleague if she'd ever been catcalled, and she told me it happened "all the time", mainly from people in cars going past her in the street.
Some people have even got out of their cars and followed her down the street. When this happens, she runs.
Doing a quick twitter search of "catcall" quickly brings up a lot of other people, from today, who have just been catcalled.
It also brings up people sharing their experience of the first time they were catcalled. It makes for extremely terrifying reading.
I don't remember #thefirsttimeiwascatcalled because it became a terrible "norm" I anticipated after age 13. Its depressing to realize this.
— Chanel (@chanelcaulfield) April 27, 2016
#TheFirstTimeIWasCatcalled I was 10, getting into my mom's minivan. He was over 20, working on my mom's roof.
— Kimberly Turner (@heylovekat) April 7, 2016
I was 11. And it sucked, because I distinctly remember it making me nervous about my body for the first time. #FirstTimeIWasCatcalled
— Rebecca Winson (@rebeccawinson) March 30, 2016
#FirstTimeIWasCatcalled there's no longer a 'first time' that i remember. it feels like a secret you have to keep -- it's that disgusting.
— Δ (@etherealdad) March 30, 2016
i was 13 and walking with a friend. we were scared and began to act like a "couple" hoping to be left alone. #FirstTimeIWasCatcalled
— kleigh (@girlmeetsmendes) March 30, 2016
Someone who was catcalled today shared their experience on Twitter.
seriously don't like being catcalled... it makes me feel very uncomfortable
— janely (@reginathefairy) June 17, 2016
Fortunately, occasionally, it turns out to just be sheep.
I thought I was being catcalled : ) it was a sheep in a passing truck : )
— Meg (@megfrxnces) June 13, 2016
Mainly it seems that people are sick of being catcalled.
But seriously it's ridiculous that I say I get lucky when I'm not catcalled one freaking day
— ☽☆彡 (@xibladde) June 8, 2016
The creepiest thing I found on my short Twitter search? This tweet from Louis H. Guinez.
Girls pls dress appropriately if you dont want to be catcalled/wolfwhistled and bashed.
— Louis H. Guinez (@louishguinez) June 17, 2016
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