This ‘Daily Show’ Segment Perfecting Describes Why Cat-Calling Women Is ALWAYS Wrong

The big thing to hit the Internet yesterday was a viral video of an actress walking around New York City getting cat-called by men over 100 times. It was a candid look at the type of harassment the women of New York City have to endure while walking to work or class or home. One creeper is extremely aggressive, accosting her for almost five minutes. He doesn’t seem to understand that she’s ignoring him for a reason, which is her right when strolling in public. After all, she owes his sorry ass nothing.

The video kicked a hornets nest on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where neanderthal men defended their fellow neanderthals doing the cat-calling. Take a look at some of the comments on our own Faecebook blast of the video.

The most baffling ones to me are the ones that make it a “conservative vs liberal” issue, when clearly it’s just a jackass vs. human decency issue. New York City is a big place with a lot of people. The gut instinct is to *not* trust the strangers that come up to you on the street. Call it self-preservation, but it’s a place where people deserve to keep their guard up, even when a someone you don’t know walks up to you and asks “how you doing?” Very few people do such a thing without some sort of scummy intent in self-interest. How are women supposed to know that a “how you doing” or “smile beautiful!” isn’t going to turn into some more heinous, given the track record of shit that goes down here? No one — male or female — deserves to be accosted for whatever reason. The actress has every right to treat the scumbag catcallers in the same way I treat the “aspiring rappers” who try to sell me their shitty, scam CDs outside our office: By ignoring them and/or telling them to fuck off. Our own Stef Williams summed it up quite nicely:

When you cat-call women, you’re making an ass out of yourself and setting mankind back a few steps every single time. I thought we settled this a few weeks ago with a handy flowchart that Playboy made? Apparently not. Since some people *still* don’t get why this is so messed up, Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams so perfectly explained it back in September:

“If she doesn’t smile, he might tell her to smile. If she tells you to leave her alone, you’ll probably call her a b—-, and I know he thinks he’s different, that he’s classy, that he’s charming, but since going to work isn’t a performance, we’re not looking for applause. And what he’s doing is basically just a high-minded, Lincoln Center version of, ‘Hey, Sweet Tits!’”

Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com