It’s not exactly the first place you turn to for genius feminist advice, but Playboy has designed a new chart for men who think yelling at women on the street is not only OK, but a compliment.
The culture of catcalling has long been associated with construction workers who think ‘Hey, gorgeous’ or ‘Wow, that arse is incredible’ or ‘Give us a smile, love’ should make women happy. Happy to be noticed. Happy to have one’s behind considered ‘incredible’. Happy that a red-faced, obnoxious, sweaty man in a hi-vis vest and hard hat thinks we’re beautiful.
It doesn’t work like that, as we all know. Comments like these are more likely to make us at best want to cross the street and, at worse, feel violated and threatened. Not to mention absolutely seething with rage when we are berated for ignoring the catcalls.
The chart asks when it’s OK to catcall and all arrows point to no, apart from once when it asks: ‘Do you know her, and have you both consensually agreed to shout sexually suggestive comments to each other in public?’ If the answer is yes, by all means, it says, shout whatever you like. Otherwise, just NO. There's one other situation when catcalling is OK, and that is if you are calling an actual cat.
The best part about this chart is not that it’s really well put-together and gets the point across in a smart and to-the-point way, using scenarios and language that even a caveman could understand, it’s that it was created by Playboy. Where men will see it. It’s not on some ‘feminist’ site where many guys assume only man-haters hang out and come up with ways to diss male culture.
So, while we love a good feminist conversation in our female-centric circles, we really, really appreciate it when it’s put smack-dab in the middle of what has widely been considered a misogynist environment. Women have long known that catcalling sucks, now men are going to read about why. It’s a huge step towards getting to the root of the problem, and for that we applaud you, Playboy.
Picture: Playboy
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.