When Temperatures Rise…

One of the surest signs of spring in NY is not the return of chirping birds or the blossoming of the cherry trees, but the reappearance of women’s legs on city sidewalks. And with the short skirts and sundresses come the catcalls.

I got my first one of the season today. I vacillate between eye-rolling, bird-flipping and ignoring. Some days, I have to restrain myself from launching mid-stride into a lecture about women in society and why it is that men feel like they have a right to address (or should I say undress) and evaluate women on the street. Usually, though, I stew in fast-walking silence.

I’m not sure if stories like this one should make me speak up more or be more wary to open my mouth: recently, a teenaged Florida woman was shot through a car door after rebuffing the catcalls from a neighboring car when the woman and her friends stopped to get gas. The woman, Mildred Beaubrun, remains in the hospital in a coma and it’s unclear whether, when she wakes up, she’ll ever walk again.

Maybe to most men catcalling is just a game. But to many women, the calculus is, as Racialicious suggests, entirely different.