(Image and poster created by Finley Martin, recent Skidmore graduate)
Hey Baby, give me a smile. Oh, so you’re gonna ignore me? Hey, turn around and show me your face. If these sound familiar, then you’ve maybe been catcalled — whatever your age, the setting, or time of day. Catcalls occur in those transient moments when someone is just trying to get from one place to another. On Feb. 25, Eve Gertzman ‘20 officially launched her website and film project, (Cat)Call and Response with the hopes to empower victims of street harassment.
Gertzman grew up in New York City, and about three or four years ago she began writing down all the catcalls she experienced. She quickly discovered that it didn’t matter whether she was wearing a short dress walking down the street, or a hoodie pulled fully over her head, curled into a ball on the subway; she still heard the remarks.
By definition, catcalls are verbal remarks that have sexual undertones to them. But, as Gertzman acknowledges, that’s quite a broad explanation. In her extensive research, she found that other intersections of identity besides gender come into play. While cisgender white women may receive the most media coverage, there are many factors that can contribute to a non-cis, non-white person’s experience of street harassment. According to Gertzman’s research, “if you’re transgender, black, or Latinx, there’s going to be different nuances that the catcalls have, that get shoved into the remark.”
According to the research she has done, 99% of women across the globe experience catcalling, and 75% of that number experience it for the first time in puberty. But during the time Gertzman spent pouring over scholarship, she noticed there really wasn’t any research conducted prior to the 1990s, and that even now, voices were missing.
“When it comes to anyone beyond a cis-white woman, there’s no research on catcalling and the experience of women who fall outside the gender binary barriers or women of color,” she says.
For her thesis in American Studies, Gertzman took this information and looked at the effect of catcalling on trans women and adolescent girls. As a result of the available research and its limitations, Gertzman turned to popular culture. Think anecdotal evidence from YouTube videos, blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets, and even memes and Reddit threads.
Essentially, she was studying public discourse and how people speak to each other. After finishing the physical paper last semester, Gertzman began her honors thesis in American Studies, which resulted in (Cat)Call and Response as a creative concept and website.
Gertzman is hoping to gather 100 submissions which she will compile into a short three to five-minute film (“Something you can’t skip on Facebook,” she explains). Though she may not have much experience in film editing, Gertzman plans on “learning as she goes.” Though the task may seem daunting, her website www.catcallandresponse.com — with its bubblegum pink background and candy-red text — came about in a very similar way.
“[The website] is a place where victims of street harassment can film themselves saying a catcall they’ve received on the street, and then how they wish they could respond,” Gertzman explains. While she is asking for people to empower themselves, she is in no way encouraging people to respond directly to catcalls in the moment, as that can cause retaliation or aggression.
Her hope is to give female and non-binary identifying people a place to take a moment to respond, to take that fleeting, transient moment and speak back.
Currently, Gertzman has not identified a line that the video submissions are not allowed to cross. She’s “left it very freeform. The only requirement that I have is that they be one to two minutes long.” She hopes the video of her catcall and response available on the website will serve as a guideline for everyone else.
And the website has had a lot of traffic, with about 30 submissions so far – one of which belongs to her mother who is able to come from a different lens being in her 50s but still experiencing catcalling. And like any other intersection of identity, age is one that might influence the remarks.
When asked what it was like to watch her mother’s video, Gertzman says that “In my mind, I know that she’s been catcalled — I’ve stood next to her when it happens — but it’s the notion that our parents are untouchable, that this could never happen to my mom.”
The project as a whole will be completed by late-April, with Gertzman hoping to screen it or possibly even do something in collaboration with the Tang Teaching Museum. At the moment, her wildest dream is to simply get more submissions. But beyond that, Gertzman would love to see the video go viral in some sense and be used by other victims of catcalling to mobilize and generate a sense of urgency.
To anyone still on the fence about making a video, let Gertzman’s words serve as one final push: “Go make a video. See what it feels like to actually say a catcall out-loud and have time to respond.”