Harassment is not a compliment.
Harassment is not a compliment.
The statistic that 3 out of 4 women have already experienced sexual harassment in their lives is shocking to me. I also can’t think of any of my feminine friends who aren’t afraid to walk home alone in the dark. However, it happens not only at night, when it would be considered more uncomfortable and scarier, it happens no matter the time of day. When I walk out of the house in the morning, I almost know for sure I’m going to be stared at, uncomfortably approached, or honked at more than once. When I ask friends, every single one of them can tell me a story about sexual harassment, stemming from their own experiences or from the experiences of others. People are cat called every day no matter the space, place, or time. With this project, I would like to continue exposing the sexual violence against feminine people, which is mainly perpetrated by toxic masculinity.
For this, I came up with a concept in which the women* symbolically reverse the situation. The woman looks down on the small masculine silhouettes from above. She is much more powerful in this circumstance, making the masculine figures look weak and small. Together, with the ironic caption “Take your Cat Calling for today”, the print raises attention to the daily unpleasant situations experienced by almost all women. The concept also includes small snippets with phrases that can be torn off the print. Every time someone tears off a piece of the paper, a man is removed. I want to identify with all the people who have experienced sexual harassment, in proving that they are not alone. And in general, of course, to point out the major problem within our society that men harass women every day on the open street. For this reason, the picture is made digitally. I want to hang this concept not only here in Toronto, but also at home in Germany. Using the streetlamps and walls of busy pedestrianized areas to provoke attention. My further idea is to spread this print as far as possible, reaching different cities and countries. So, my decision to create the work digitally was to allow me to send it to as many people as possible. The drawing, as well as the font, is kept black and white. This keeps the focus of the work on the activism and message, rather than the piece as an art object itself.
Toronto, 2022