20-year-old student takes selfies with her catcallers

Catcalling is not cool. It leaves a woman feeling commodified and uncomfortable.

This is the message Noa Jansma wanted to drive home when she took selfies with her street harassers and made an Instagram account, @dearcatcallers, in August this year to post those photos. It was an ingenious and novel way to object to the objectification of women on the roads, without engaging with the eve-teasers directly.

In just a month and 30 posts, the account has amassed over 45,000 followers.

Passing lewd comments is not flattering, says the 20-year-old student from Netherlands. By taking a selfie, Jansma points out, the objectifier and the object are assembled in one composition. The woman, as the object, standing in front of the catcallers represents the reversed power ratio.

"We were talking about this topic in class," Jansma told BuzzFeed News. "I realised half of the class, the women, knew what I was talking about and lived it on a daily basis. And the other half, the men, didn't even think that this is still happening. They were really surprised and curious. Some of them even did not believe me."

While posting the selfies, Jansma asked others to share their pictures with the hashtag #dearcatcallers or send them to her in a message.

In every picture, Jansma can be seen straight-faced, and the grinning men in the backdrop, too happy to be clicked.

"I thought men would be suspicious of me, that they would understand my motives when I was taking selfies with them. So I was kind of fearful," the lady told the BuzzFeed. "But most of the time they have their thumbs up, they're happy because they honestly think that they're complimenting me. They really didn't care about me. They never realized that I was unhappy."
Each image is captioned with the line she has been eve-teased by.

From January 1, 2018, street harassers will be fined £170 in Amsterdam. Jansma says the law is "symbolic, and I think that's good".

Source: Khaleej Times