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So instead of frustratingly muttering under her breath while avoiding all eye-contact with her verbal harassers, this 20-year-old lass decided to take pictures with them.
Why? To show men that catcalling is a thing – and it’s a woman’s daily struggle.
Noa Jansma, a design student who lives in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, became annoyed and disheartened by catcalls from men while she walked the streets of her local city.
This prompted her to spend a month taking pictures with men who’d throw a ‘psst’ or ‘hey, sexy’ her way.
Talking to Buzzfeed of how her idea came about, Noa said: “We were talking about this topic in class.
“I realised that 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.”
She took it upon herself to show her male counterparts just what being on the receiving end of unwanted attention felt and looked like.
For a month, she took pictures with 24 men who had catcalled her and uploaded it to her Instagram page @dearcatcallers.
"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,” she says of her initial trepidation.
She also added that the men didn’t even suspect that she was doing anything sinister but basked in the attention, with some even giving her a ‘thumbs up’.
She would then upload the picture and insert the man’s vile comments as caption.
According to Noa the response to the Instagram page and the experiment has been quite good, aside from some men calling her ‘an attention seeking wh***’.
The shocking part? Noa says she didn’t even take pictures with all the catcalling culprits, meaning her tally would’ve been even higher!
Sources: Buzzfeed, Instagram, IHeartRadio
