On Catcalling and The Need To Stop Objectification of Women

I am a firm believer in women living away from family members and fully experiencing adulthood before they get married if marriage is what they want. It teaches you to stand up for yourself, prioritise and manage finances and jobs.

Living away from family in a hostel or in a shared flat or even in your own apartment as a woman, is the first step to building the needed confidence that is dealing with human characters and complexities. 

In living away from family even from your days as a university student or secondary school boarder, as tough as it can get, you get exposed to viewpoints you thought could not exist. You also get to realise through interacting with other girls that you also have areas you need to work on to improve yourself.

Speaking of things that surprised me when I was a university student living in a dorm room, I had a roommate who continually mentioned how she felt happy that guys essentially catcalled her on the road and made comments about her body or asked unrelentingly for her number.

What struck me about this particular babe, was that each time she had an argument or quarrel with someone else in the room who she considered as “local” or not “tush” or sophisticated enough, she would always mention how each time she was on the road she received “compliments” about her body unlike the babe she was arguing with.

I have often thought about her statements directed to other girls each time I get catcalled on the streets of Yaba and each time I get pestered by random men in restaurants and bars for my number when all I want to be is to be left alone.

Some people may say that it is a woman’s “choice” to see catcalling as compliments and to interprete it however way she deems fit. I wholeheartedly disagree. Most women if they are honest with themselves, do not like the unwanted attention of random men on the street who demand our numbers. Most women would rather not have a random man making comments about our bodies in a way that reduces us to pieces of meat. Again, most women will rather not have random men leave all the available seats in a restaurant to come eat with them and then insist on us giving them our numbers. 

If women give random men made up numbers or even our real phone numbers, it hardly ever is because we valued the interruption of our time by men. Some of whom are so audacious that sometimes they send their drivers to collect our numbers and toast us on their behalf. If we give, it is due to the very real fear of dying and the need to be temporarily left alone.

That some women see the twisted attention from random men who catcall as “great”, should not be seen as okay for all men to catcall most women who don’t like it. 

Even more, feminism is not about “choice” if those choices harm the good of women as a collective; it is about encouraging women to make choices that are free of sexist influence and choices that uphold the integrity and personhood of women as a group.

Speaking with Rieme, a skincare enthusiast in Omose Skin, she explained that catcalling is wrong to her because it’s essentially men saying that women are objects who must give them our attention to further objectify us. 

She went further to say that catcalling is rarely ever an attempt to say hello but is usually a way to be vulgar and loud and say that women are pieces of meat and a way for men to put women in our place and remind us that we exist for their pleasure. For her, she said that due to the catcalling she has received, she deals with it by ignoring it and putting on headphones.

For Okeoghene, a writer and podcaster, she shared her story with catcalling and explained that men who catcall should be punished with the full length of the law.

In her words: “I hate catcalling. It is traumatic. Growing up I got a lot of catcalls and when I refused to respond, I was threatened. There was a time in my teenage years when I got catcalled by a guy. He was so persistent even with my incessant turndowns. 

This guy threatened me, and had the audacity to come to my house to woo me. I was livid. I reported to my father and he got arrested with a lot of charges placed on him. After he was released from cell, it was fun to see fear in his eyes anytime he passed beside me.

Men are not used to turndowns so when they get it, they get angry. The reason might be to annoy the woman and get the attention they crave.

The version of women who take it as compliments are the ones who fancy them and think it’s a cool thing. Men who catcall should be jailed without fines for a year; it will serve as a lesson to others.”

For Aduke, a writer, she says that it is wrong to her because it is disrespectful and done sometimes because men see it as them doing women a favour.

In her words: “I think it’s wrong because it’s disrespectful. How can you see a grown up woman and as another grown up man who’s attracted to that woman, you can’t walk to them and speak properly? I mean if you can’t, then just keep quiet instead of whistling. Men probably do it because they feel they’re doing a favor for the woman by catcalling or something. They do like women should feel grateful for being cat called which is just rubbish. I don’t know why some women would take it as compliments, probably a desperate need for attention or the need to be seen?”

She went on to say: “From that yeye thing they do as if they’re calling dogs, to someone sitting in his car and pressing the horn and expecting me to walk to him. How do I handle it? Honestly I just pretend I can’t hear and walk past them. If it annoys me too much, I’ll mutter: ‘It’s your father you’re calling like that. ????’.

And it makes me feel better. Lastly, I can’t take a man serious if he catcalls me. It’s just spelling: ‘I am not a sensible man.’ And sense is super important to me where men are concerned.”

The effects of catcalling go a long way in how women perceive ourselves and our bodies.

Some women have been killed because men felt entitled to their time and attention.

Or to put it in the words of Kehinde, a writer and teacher: “Catcalling is wrong because it always puts women in danger. Men see it as them doing women a favor but alas this usually causes a lot of traumatic experiences for women. 

Where we no longer feel comfortable walking alone, we can’t dress how we want because of fear of being “catcalled”. We’ve heard stories of women who wear killed simply for saying “no”. Men should stop catcalling women it doesn’t make us safe and we will most definitely want to be safe in our own society.”

Catcalling sends a message to women that we must hide ourselves and that? That is the definition of ridiculous.