Shoshana B. Roberts was not a well-known name two weeks ago, but thanks to 10 hours of walking, over 100 catcalls and one viral video, she’s now the face of feminism.
Roberts, an actress, partnered with Rob Bliss of Rob Bliss Creative and Hollaback, a nonprofit movement to end street harassment, to shed light on street harassment, which affects females across the world.
Wearing a yellow backpack, sunglasses and earbuds, Bliss attached a GoPro camera to his backpack and stood five to 10 feet in front of Roberts, who wore jeans and a black, crew-neck T-shirt.
Roberts walked the streets of New York City for 10 hours, during which she received a handful of catcalls along with harassing comments like “beautiful,” “sexy,” and “God bless you.”
When Roberts ignored the comments, she would receive additional harassment like “Somebody’s acknowledging you for being beautiful. You should say thank you more.” Another man said, “You don’t wanna talk? Because I’m ugly? We can’t be friends, nothing? You don’t speak?”
One man remained silently at Roberts’ side for five minutes.
As a man of God, it is not my duty to let a woman know that she is beautiful by dishing out disrespectful comments and the infamous catcall.
If a guy is genuinely interested in a girl, the best thing to do is just start a conversation with her. A man should acknowledge a woman as a human being instead of a sex object. You don’t make her feel uncomfortable. You don’t disrespect her. You don’t make her feel unsafe to leave her room each morning.
Roberts told Hollaback, “I’m harassed when I smile and I’m harassed when I don’t. I’m harassed by white men, black men, Latino men. Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this.”
Being on the campus of a Christian university, we don’t typically experience this type of atmosphere every day when walking to class. But it happens. It happens over the weekends, it happens when a group of guys are gathered in their dorm rooms and are talking about girls, it happens over text messages.
Take a stand, men. Respect women. Remember that every time you catcall a girl or say something disrespectful to her, you’re disrespecting some other guys’ future wife.
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