Lindsey, a 28-year-old Minneapolis resident, is on a mission to expose cat-callers and secretly record their degrading comments for all the world to see.
Lindsey told Buzzfeed that several weeks ago, she was standing on an escalator when a stranger began touching her hair and calling her “blondie.” When she told the man he “could just say ‘hi’ next time,” she said, he began screaming at her and calling her ugly.
That experience gave her the idea to launch Cards Against Street Harassment: pocket-size cards women could download, print, and hand out to their catcallers, explaining why the attention was unwanted without even speaking.
“When you walk down the street do random strangers comment on how you look?” one card asks. “No? Wow. That must be nice.”
She is building a collection of videos where she confronts men who think yelling at women on the street is justified. They explain to her that she should like it and that it is clear to them women want this kind of attention because they wear make-up and fix their hair. “When you’re dressed the way you are…”
“The theme I hear the most often is that they truly, genuinely think it’s a compliment, and they are shocked,” Lindsey told Buzzfeed. “If that is true, then simply telling people it’s not a compliment may go a long way.”
These men appear to come from different socio-economic backgrounds. Some are black, some are white and some are unidentifiable (because their faces have been blurred). When she makes it clear she does not like it when they shout sexist or demeaning comments to her, some of these men accuse her of racism. She explains that she is not interested in hearing these comments from any man of any color.
In this clip, a man says to Lindsey, “I’m from Ohio. Where I come from we holler at women. I’m sorry (inaudible) you shouldn’t feel that way, because you know, women are put on this earth to satisfy a man so if she feels offended, she shouldn’t have never been born.” She asked this man if he really believed that and he insisted that he does and referenced the Bible, “That’s why Eve was born – to satisfy a man.”
In this video another man says, “What’s the purpose for a woman to be on this earth [if not] for a man?” Adds his friend, “God made woman for man.”
See all the videos HERE and follow on Twitter @CardsAgstHrsmt
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