An Ethnographic Study of Catcalling on Both Men and Women around

Area C, Dasmariñas, Cavite

Submitted by:

Cagatin, Feirybelle Chen

Delos Santos, Frances Anne

Estrella, Jesha Nicole

Mendoza, Danica May

Patenio, Anne Ellaine

Tabong, Yreah Nicole

Velasquez, Neve-Nineveeh

Submitted to:

Prof. Madison Valera, PhD

 CHAPTER I

Theoretical Framework

In analyzing what catcall really means, the researchers will use a two different dualism

which were derived from previous studies.

This framework by Gardner (1995) aims to discuss the issue of being Sexually Harassed from

two different point of views; being a romanticized traditionalist or a politicized feminist.

Romanticized Traditionalist

This is the belief that it is natural for men to 'compliment' a woman because they are built

that way. The framework suggests that women almost expect men to give her compliments when

she's dressed as somewhat 'inviting'. The typical romanticized traditional woman perceives

catcalling, whistling and leering as compliment. On the other hand, a man, from a traditional

point of view, would think that they are obliged to make a woman feel appreciated and beautiful

by whistling and such.

Politicized Feminist

On the contrary, a politicized feminist strongly fights for what she believes is right and

just. According to Gardner (1995), a politicized feminist woman can come to an agreement that

society looks a certain way, but will never accept that it is the only way society has to be.

Enjoyable or Frightening?

To enjoy a catcall or to be frightened by it is the third response (beside active and passive

actions) that were explored by Fairchild and Rudman (2008). Since catcalling is an experience
that is so sudden, our reactions are automatic. Women who are grounded in a strong

romanticized traditional concept would enjoy being catcalled since it makes her feel appreciated

thus boosting her self-confidence. On the other hand, if you are more of a politicized feminist,

then you'll probably be terrified and offended by it.

Statement of the Problem

Catcalling is a widespread issue among men and women worldwide and this paper aims

to examine the causes and effects as well as its nature. It is a common knowledge for every

individual that when it comes to sexual harassment such as catcalling, women are more prone

than men, which the researchers seek to clear and determine. Furthermore, this study aims to

know the perspectives of men and women in harassment and how do different gender deals with

it. It is unconceivably true that men also experience this kind of harassment especially in the

Filipino culture for they are usually the suspects for this. With a just and fair prospect, the

researchers seek to bestow an equal judgment. Specifically, this study is designed to determine

the answers to the following questions:

1. What are the effects of Catcalling on both men and women?

2. What situational and contextual factors contribute to catcalling?

3. How do men and women perceive their catcalling experience?

Assumptions of the Study

1. Everyone, both male and female, have experienced catcalling at least once in

their lifetime.
 2. Catcalling requires no proper place to execute; it may be on the streets or

different public places.

Scope and delimitations

This study mainly focuses on both men and women who have been catcalled around

Area-C of Dasmarinas City, Cavite. Researchers’ goals are to know “how do men and women

perceive their catcalling experience?”. Moreover, to fully understand the situational and

contextual factors that contribute to catcalling. Lastly, to know the effects of catcalling on both

men and women. The study will concentrate in Area-C of Dasmarinas City, Cavite and will

cater the objectives of the study mainly on men and women with no certain age group that

experienced catcalling.

Significance of the Study

The study will be significant to the students for they would be informed about the causes

and effects of being catcalled. It will also benefit the women because this study will contribute to

their knowledge about how catcalling may cause them. Men will also benefit from this, since

there are too many researches about catcalling that only focuses on women, this study will

enlighten people on how male population can also be victims of this harassment. To non-profit

organization focusing on this issue, this will serve as another source of information for them to

continue their advocacy. To the government, for them to have an idea on how this issue is a

serious matter and may cause psychological harm to the victims, programs and acts should be

establish so that the issue will be addressed. For the future researchers interested in conducting a

study about catcalling, this will serve as another source of information.

Definition of terms

Catcalling/Street Harassment - Stop Street Harassment Organization defines street

harassment as unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place

without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender,

gender expression, or sexual orientation.

Harassment - According to Canadian Human Rights Commision, 2013 is a form of

discrimination. It involves any unwanted physical or verbal behaviour that offends or humiliates

an individual.

Sexual Harassment - It is an act or a series of acts involving any unwelcome sexual

advance, request or demand for a sexual favor, or other verbal or physical behavior of a sexual

nature, committed by a government employee or official in a work-related, training- or

education- related environment. (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2008)

 CHAPTER II

Nowadays, large number of individuals is prone to being harassed in different places.

They receive numerous verbal attacks that most of the time causes them to feel uncomfortable

and may lead to the destruction of their self-image.

Sexual harassment has been described in variety of forms such as catcalling. According to

Brainchild and Madman (2008), catcalling is practiced by men and younger women which

mostly happens in bigger cities. This practice has not been given much attention since it is

difficult to rebuke harassers. It can be experienced in many forms such as people whistling and

commenting on the physical characteristics of the person. They also added that sexual

harassment such as catcalling is not just experienced by women, men also face this kind of issue.

Flores N.M (2014) stated that, catcalling often happens in public places such as

streets,sidewalks, parks and it can happen in different modes of transportation. Weiss (2008)

added that, the violators regardless of sex, safety, well-being and dignity of the victims have no

consideration in doing this kind of harassment. Macmillan ET AL (2000) argued that one of its

effects includes limiting the person’s liberty of movement. Catcalling induces fear on the victims

and make them feel that they should be on edge when they are out and about. Nielsen (2014) said

that, catcalling is done to induce fear and dominate the victim.

In accordance to Stop Street Harassment Organization, harassment ca be utilized as an

instrument to intimidate people. Previous study "National Stop Street Harassment Report, 2014"

have shown that Street harassment is one of the primary issues in United States. The survey has

shown that 65% of the women are being harassed on the streets which often starts at the early

age of 17. As for the women in India "The Guardian" said that Sexual harassment or street
harassment such as catcalling is common in their experience which complements 15 recent

studies conducted by the NGO Action Acid 79% of women have been a victim of a harassment

or also known as public violence (2016). Research also uttered that media often describe a

narrow standard of women's beauty in physical aspect (APA, 2007b). Exposure to sexually

objectifying media has been related to greater importance of beauty and appearance in defining

an individual’s own self-worth as well as in defining the value of females in general among

African American adolescent girls (Gordon, 2008). Several films and short videos arose

regarding street harassment. 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, a Youtube video with 43

million hits as of October 2016, depicted the harassment a woman goes through on the streets of

New York City. She reportedly received 108 catcalls from different men (Bliss, 2014).

Linday (2017) stated that women who are experiencing catcalling or objectifying is like

treating them like an object not a human. Sexual objectification or catcalling is connected to

negative attitudes and outcomes, including rape proclivity, and reduced moral concerns which

lead to aggression.

An individual could, more or less, experience street harassment in his/her lifetime.

Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a

stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or

perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation. It is evident in the society that

everybody is a target for sexual harassment. This form of harassment requires no proper venue to

execute. The streets, most especially in the Philippines, bear witness to different scenes of

catcalling. This abuse is not only limited to the streets but also in and around public

transportation, schools and workplaces, public washrooms, and other public spaces. It comes in

different forms like unwanted whistling, leering, sexist, homophobic or transphobic slurs,
persistent requests for someone’s name, number or destination after they’ve said no, sexual

names, comments and demands, following, flashing, public masturbation, groping, sexual

assault, and rape (Kearl, 2015).

United Nations conducted a survey in the Philippines and the result was 60% of the

respondents have experienced being catcalled. Another survey was commissioned by Stop

Harassment a non-profit organization in United states, it was found out that 25% of men and

65% of women gathered from 2000 respondents have been catcalled.

According to ABS CBN News (2014), in the list of capitals that have the most dangerous

public transport systems for women, the city of Manila ranked 10th in the survey of Thomson

Reuters Foundation. The pollster YouGov conducted the poll online 10 in 15 of the world’s

largest capitals and the most populous city in the United States, the New York. In the

Philippines, physical forms of sexual harassment occur mostly in and around public transport

wherein 58% of the incidents happen on the streets, major roads, and eskinitas. Such events

mostly occur in schools, public washrooms and other public spaces according to the survey

conducted by the Social Weather Station. (Rodriguez, 2016)

In a city here in the Philippines, namely Quezon City, the Social Weather Stations (SWS)

reported that 3 in 5 women were sexually harassed at least once in their lifetime. In a study, they

discovered that men who were younger and had more education were likelier to harass women

than older men with less education. But not only women experience these harassments, men, too,

are experiencing these. On a study with 4,830 men and 4,937 women surveyed, it showed that 31

to 64 percent of men have engaged in street harassment.

 Even with the presence of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act, which penalizes against

sexual harassment in schools and workplaces, but our policies have yet to catch up to a kind of

problem that encroaches every corner of the country, and even, the world. Though perpetrators

have this victim-blaming mentality, catcalling has nothing to do with how one looks or dresses.

Individuals who are fully covered have been harassed. It’s sad that once a person becomes a

victim in these situations, she/he is suddenly made to think about her/his looks or choice of

clothes, and as an effect chooses to fully cover up their body as preventive measure against the

harasser who thinks that a show of skin is an open invite. It’s even saddening to think that these

perpetrators are aware that what they’re doing or have done is wrong, and is an act of

harassment.

According to a report from a survey, 88% of the respondents who are women whose age

ranges from 18 to 24, experienced sexual harassment at least once. 34% of these women

experienced flashing, public masturbation and groping, which are considered as the worst forms

of sexual harassment.

According to a survey conducted, 1 in 2 women confessed that after being harassed they

"did nothing". Most victims think that they would be in greater danger if they take any action and

nothing would happen anyway if they did something. Some of them also said that what happened

was just minor or negligible. Moreover, the victims are usually stunned and overcome by fear

that's why they remain silent.

A study shows that victim blaming is also one of the problems experienced by women

after being harassed. Sadly, according to Social Weather Stations (SWS), more women than men

think that it is the woman's fault why she gets harassed.

 There are several struggles that the victims have to deal with each day and these are

catcalls, whistles, stalking, groping, assault and offensive verbal comments (Thirsk, 2012). Little

did we know that these actions are already considered as harassment and should not be labelled

as something natural. In line with this, according to Osmond & Woodcock (2015), the most

ignored form of sexual harassment is street harassment. A survey commissioned by the United

Nations was done in the Philippines last 2016 and it was found that 60% of Filipino women had

been victimized (Terrazola, 2016).

According to Valencia & Bullecer's (2017) study, anyone can be an abuser and anyone

can be abused on the streets. Harassment chooses no gender. In their study, 5 out of 5 male

participants reported that similar reports of women who were harassed were also done to them.

These experiences changed them socially and emotionally. They became more aware of their

surroundings and they also said that exposing their bodies publicly is harder now. Furthermore,

they became more emphatic towards female victims.

 CHAPTER III

Research Design

This study used a qualitative design. Qualitative studies involve systematic subjective

approach that is used to obtain life experiences and give meaning to the information that was

gathered. Specifically, this research is an ethnographic study. Ethnographic study relates the

social interactions, behaviors, and views that take place in a group and communities. The main

objective of ethnographic research is to be able to identify the insight about the people’s view

and thoughts and also the nature of the issue being discussed.

The research study seeks to answer the questions that will guide the researchers

throughout the study and aims to understand more about the variables of the research. This

research design is applicable to the study because of the selection of a small group to be

interviewed to gather data.

Population and Sampling

The population of the study consists of both men and women of the community of Area C

of Dasmariñas. During the time of this research, both male and female were included, and both

of them will have five representatives.

The technique used in this research is Purposive sampling. Purposive sampling targets a

particular group of people. It is the process of taking a subset of subjects that is a representative

of a population.This technique uses different stages in getting the respondents however; selection

of the respondents is still done randomly. Purposive sampling is also known as judgmental,

selective or subjective sampling, this type of sampling can be very useful when there is a limit in
the primary data source that can contribute to the study. It will be use so that the researchers

could make use of all the data effectively.

Data gathering procedure

In this study, a semi-structured interview will be used crafted to answer the questions that

the researchers seek to answer. Having this type of interview, there is a flexibility to add

questions based on the interviewees responses. The present study seeks to determine the effects

brought by catcalling on both men and women, to identify what are the situational and contextual

factors that contribute to catcalling, and to be able to know how men and women perceive their

catcalling experience. Through the interviews, the researchers will have the chance to explore

their personal experiences regarding catcalling and be able to ask them how would they define

catcalling. Prior to the interview, all the participants will be given an informed consent for them

to have knowledge what the research is about and for the researchers to ask if the participant is

willing to take part or not.

Analysis of data

Interview of each participants will be audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim to ensure

the accuracy of responses. All details about the participants will be kept confidentially and they

will remain anonymous to protect their identities. As for the data, a thematic analysis which is

one of the widely-used qualitative data analysis method will be used to understand participants’

experiences as well as to describe the data in rich detail. Thematic analysis is defined as “a

method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun & Clarke,

2006, p. 79). With this, the researchers believe that they will gain information about the different

point of views about catcalling and successfully answer the questions they developed.
References:

Flores, N. M. (May 2014) “Street Harassment: Old Issue, Ongoing Struggle, New Movement.”

Manalo J.G. ,Mercado I. U., Perez A. , Rivera M.C.C , Salangsang S. 2016 "Street harassment as

a determinant of Self-Objectification among selected female students"

Rodriguez, Fritzie (2016), The Streets That Haunt Filipino Women. Retrieved from:

https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/124993-sexual-harassment-women-streets

Valencia, Trisia Jeun G. & Bullecer, Ma. Fatima V. (2017). The Experiences of Young

Heterosexual Men as Victims of Street Harassment. The Bedan Journal of Psychology 2017.

Bartolome J. (2016). The numbers are alarming: Sexual harassment vs women in PHL. Retrieved

from, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/healthandwellness/558251/the-numbers-are-

alarming-sexual-harassment-vs-women-in-phl/story/

Brainchild, K., & Madman, L. A. (2008). Everyday stranger harassment and women

objectification. Social Justice Research

Macmillan, R., Frobisher, A., & Welsh, S. (2000). Experiencing the streets: Harassment and

perceptions of safety among women. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency

Dawn M. Szymanski, Lauren B. Mauffitt and Erika R. Carr "Sexual Objectification of Women:

Advances to theory and Researches"

Kearl, Holly (2015), What Is Street Harassment? Retrieved from:

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/what-is-street-harassment/
Buck, Stephanie (2014), What Do Men Think Of Catcalling? A Men's Rights Activist and A

Feminist Debate. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2014/11/15/catcalling-

debate/#vFIzznK6Kgqu

Herman, Lily (2017), A New Study Attempts to Explain Why Some Men Harass Women.

Retrieved from: https://www.allure.com/story/mens-catcalling-street-harassment-reasons-study

O’Leary, C. (2016) “Catcalling as a “Doubled Edged Sword”: Midwestern Women, Their

Experiences and the Implications of Men’s Catcalling Behaviors, Theses and Dissertations,

retrieved from http://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu

What Is Street Harassment? .(n.d.). Retrieved from,

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/what-is-street-harassment/

Largest-Ever Study On Catcalls Shows Street Harassment Starts For Women At Puberty. (2015).

Retrieved from, http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/05/28/street-harassment-catcalls-study/

Emily Smith. (2012). Hey baby! Women speak out against street harassment. Retrieved from,

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/06/living/street-harassment/index.html

Kathryn Lindsay, (January 2017) “Here’s exactly why catcalling can be so dangerous”.

Retrieved from: http://www.refinery29.com/2017/01/137846/catcalling-dangerous-aggression-

research