For those who have never endured the demeaning experience of catcalling, this video is for you.
Hollaback, an anti-street harassment organization, teamed up with videographer Rob Bliss to show what it’s like to endure street harassment as a woman.
In the short video, 24-year-old actress Shoshana B. Roberts took part in the social experiment as she walked the streets of New York City for 10 hours in total. While walking, Roberts is met with sometimes friendly, sometimes aggressive, and always completely entitled comments courtesy of strange men.
One guy even walks next to her for over five minutes.
During filming, Bliss attached a GoPro camera to his back with a chest strap; he wore a yellow backpack, sunglasses and earbuds to look unassuming while walking five to 10 feet ahead of Roberts, who held two microphones in her hands. The actress wore simple clothes for the shoot: jeans and a black, crew-neck T-shirt.
“I felt like no one had ever really shown what it’s like to experience street harassment, more or less,” Bliss told The Huffington Post. “No one has — from a third-party perspective, on the outside looking in — been able to step back and look at it and watch it happen in front of them.”
His intent, he said, was to offer an “unbiased” look at what many women experience on a daily basis. “No messaging. No judgement. Let people view it as it is and talk about,” he added.
Gaining over a million views in just one day, critics of Bliss’ PSA believe that the woman wasn’t being “harassed,” while others considered the sly remarks and tone behind the “friendly” greetings she received blatant harassment.
Bliss defended the video, explaining that harassment comes in various forms. He even pointed out that the actress brought no attention to herself with her attire.
“It was completely intentional that she wore what she wore,” Bliss said. “I wanted to fight back against the ‘Oh, she’s wearing blah blah blah.’ I didn’t want to give ammunition to anyone who may detract from this video. If she wanted to wear something that showed more skin, I definitely think that guys would have been louder and more vocal about this.”
“I was going in blind without expectations, especially as a guy,” Bliss told HuffPost. “I was very surprised that we had so much interaction, some of it being as aggressive as it was, [like] the stalking that was involved repeatedly from different groups. That blew my mind. It made me sick to my stomach. I felt something I had never really felt before, almost feeling as if I were in her shoes. I didn’t experience it personally, but I was in such close proximity to it.”
Catcalling can and does represent a threat to women’s safety. Just last week, one woman was left injured and another fatally shot after she refused to talk to a man hitting on her.
SOURCE: Huffington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: YouTube
