I’ve Always Liked Being Catcalled

Before you head to the comments and tell me there’s something wrong with me for liking it when I’m objectified and harassed: I already know. I wouldn’t be writing this if there wasn’t. Hell, I probably wouldn’t be a writer if there wasn’t something wrong with me, period.

But hear me out first.

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Born and raised in a small town in Finland, on the northern edge of Europe and the world, I could never get enough attention from boys. It was in part because of a combination of my insecurities and my completely common physical appearance. I was a little round in my preteen years and skinny as a teen, but nothing that would stand out. My awkward phase with bad hair and questionable clothing was definitely about a decade long. I would have loved to be sexually objectified by somebody. Anybody.

But not getting much attention from the male of the species was also due to the fact that Finnish men don’t really give women, in general, any attention.

Men in my country hardly even speak to each other. The only way two straight cis Finnish people can start a relationship is by both of them getting so drunk that the woman ends up falling in the man’s arms. If both of them are still interested when they wake up sober, they’ll walk into the sunset together, still not speaking. Cue church bells.

Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration.

But seriously, the first time a man told me I was beautiful, or even pretty, was when I was 21 and met an Argentinian.

I had had boyfriends in the past, both Finnish and Spanish, but none of them ever felt the need to tell me I was pretty. Then, I moved to Barcelona and became a blonde for the first time since middle school, and suddenly men started noticing me. But the ones who really paid attention to me were Argentinians, both strangers and boyfriends. They showered me with compliments everywhere I went. I guess the reason why I ended up moving to Buenos Aires is pretty clear.

An insecure woman who craves male attention, and men who are culturally predisposed to give her exactly what she needs. A match made in heaven.

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On any normal day in Buenos Aires, I will hear several comments from strangers when I go out, even though I’m usually dressed in leggings or sweatpants. Drivers honk when I’m waiting for a green light, other times they’ll let me cross the street first only to yell something after I’ve walked past.

And I don’t hate it. I’m 36, little kids have started calling me señora, and I’ll probably never look substantially better than I now do. To be honest, I’m already falling apart, and I plan to make the most out of the “sort of hot” years I still have left.

But it’s not without issues.

Life as a woman in a big city does get scary. I’ve had to run from unknown men a couple of times, even during the day. I’ve taken taxis from the bus stop to my home, four blocks away, because someone was following me. I always have a plan for getting home safely at night, and usually, that involves a cab or a male friend’s company, or both.

Violence against women is rampant in Argentina, and the pandemic did nothing to help the situation. The efforts to stop street harassment with laws and fines have done nothing to prevent it. There’s still a long way to go. Most men I know are still far away from accepting that machismo culture is a problem, and sexist jokes are still surprisingly accepted in society.

As far as catcalling goes, though, the younger generations are definitely more aware. Most men who say something to me are somewhere between their 50s and 70s. They still live in a world before #MeToo, and they think it’s their obligation to give a woman a piropo, tell her she looks good. That’s what everybody did in their day.

I didn’t feel bad about it, and I often still don’t. The truth is I only started feeling uncomfortable with catcalling when I changed my hair color.

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I arrived in Buenos Aires as a blonde, and I stayed that way for about nine years. I never heard the really dirty comments when I went out, though. You know what I mean, the “what I’d like to do to you”-realm.

No, I usually heard I was beautiful, sweet, the most beautiful girl they’d ever seen. I’m obviously not, it’s just the cultural bias that tells them blonde hair is desirable and angelic. It feels like a combination of Catholicism, Evita Perón, porn and just plain racism.

Then, I dyed my hair red for a couple of years and immediately turned into a sexual object.

I was a putita instead of an angel, and men suddenly thought it was fine to find sexual innuendos in everything I did, even if they didn’t know me. And not just on the street. Even buying a cucumber somehow became an invitation for dirty looks or comments. Getting new glasses prompted the optician to tell me about his sex life. Was he trying to make me a part of it? How the hell was this suddenly okay?

Not to mention the local superstition, according to which redheads are bad luck, and men need to touch their left testicle when they see one. I swear. I don’t know what it is, but it definitely feels like a remainder of the Spanish Inquisition.

I’ve never seen so much public ball-grabbing as I did in those two years.

But most importantly, as a redhead, I finally started seeing what other women see. Catcalling wasn’t as frequent, but it acquired an aggressively sexual undertone. There was a clear energy shift, and I didn’t love getting a taste of what other women in this city go through.

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When I dyed my hair blonde again after lockdowns ended, I immediately went back to being an angelic figure. And it felt good, but disturbing. I suddenly realized that the social construct of what is considered beautiful even impacts how safe I feel.

I know that because I’m a woman I’ll never be protected from all the physical threats I’m exposed to every time I go out. I’ll have to be just as careful when I come home at night. But not feeling the oppressive sexualization anymore, even when catcalled, now makes me feel incredibly privileged.

Noticing and acknowledging privilege never feels good. It shows you a part of your existence where you’ve been deeply ignorant, and that’s why people reject it. Living abroad for 15 years, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that racism—just as common in Latin America as it is in Europe or the US — has benefited me on numerous occasions.

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I do love living here, even if this city can sometimes get dangerous.

I still welcome the catcalling. I know this opinion makes me a bad feminist, and I’ll be the first one to admit it owes to my insecurity.

But to me, hearing I’m beautiful every time I step out in sweatpants is better than trying to make sense of a culture in which men don’t speak at all.

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This story was originally published by me, on Medium.