An Annual Record of the Most Memorable Cat-Calls Directed Toward Me, Starting With the First and Ending Without.
Iris Park
1. 11 or 12
I was young. I’m young for my grade, and my face is young for my age. I was 11, maybe. Or 12, 11 seems too young. So does 12, but that’s just the way things go and that’s the way things have been. I ran cross country, and I was quite shit at it. I continued for six years after, though. I was 11 or 12 and at cross country practice, and I didn’t look that good in my leggings and long sleeve t-shirt that my mom got at a discount at Old Navy. I didn’t think anyone else would think I looked good either, but the 50 year old man on the street apparently thought so. I ran up and down the streets, slowly behind everyone else. He whistled wee wooooo. I whistled a tune back at him from a song I liked. I wondered what song he was whistling at me.
2. 13
Hannah had really big boobs, and Irwin who played the clarinet and did math problems for fun had a really big crush on me. I wondered if maybe I had big boobs like Hannah, someone less annoying than Irwin would like me. Irwin would walk me home and, in retrospect, he was a really nice guy. I just really did not like how he would stare at me whenever I answered a question in class, and I liked guys who wore jeans. He wore Adidas track pants. Hannah used to brag about how older men asked for her number and told her that she looked like she could be on the cover of Cosmo. I would say “ewww” along with everyone else, but secretly I was jealous. An older man yelled something at me one day when I was with Irwin, and Irwin yelled back in some foreign language. He said that the old man was a creep who said I looked sexy in Russian. I said “ewww,” but as I turned my head away from him, I smiled. Later that night I learned how to say “hello” in the old man’s tongue. Привет.
3. 14
I still went on runs and I still did not have big boobs. A man touched me on my run and I froze and started crying in the middle of the sidewalk. I walked home and didn’t tell my parents what happened until a few weeks later when I needed their pity in the middle of an argument. I don’t remember what the argument was about, but leggings were now deemed unwearable. It’s not your fault that you can’t wear leggings outside, my parents said, it’s theirs.
4. 15
Not really a cat call because I didn’t go outside much, but neither did anyone. I would say hello to my friends in a double layered face mask from a six-foot distance, so they couldn’t really hear my hi. It was easier to sit inside on my bed all day and say hi through my laptop screen. One of the recipients of my salutations was Alex. We had mutual friends, and I was excited to meet him after the shutters on shops were lifted and I could cough in public without getting glared at. He said I was pretty, and then he said I was hot, and then I would viscerally cringe every time he opened his mouth. The final straw was when he asked if I would “send pics.” I sent a selfie, and he responded with “lower.” I almost gagged, and then I hit the “block” button next to his contact name. I wished every shutdown of gross social interactions was as easy as blocking horny teenage boys.
5. 16
Back outside. The vendor selling probably stolen iPhones on the corner of 23rd and Madison shouted “come over after you’re done with your homework, baby.” I wondered what makes people say such stupid things. I also wondered if I really had such a bad case of baby face that it awakened some pedophilic instinct in him. I tried to convince myself that it was the backpack that tipped the vendor off and not my round cheeks that I’ve always hated. My mom always tells me to savor my youthful look before my cheeks sink in. I thought it made me look like a baby, but apparently men liked that. I spitefully became a lesbian for about 3 months.
6. 17
The year of the dog call. I lost all regard for my safety whatsoever and relied on pure instinct only. My parents told me not to engage with people who could put me in danger, but boy was I engaged. I realized that if I started to act weirder than the man who whistled at me, the man who asked me to come home with him, the man who tried to grab my waist, he would usually shut up. 17 was the age when I realized that barking at people was the remedy for the cat-call. Except for when I released a guttural growl at the feline offender in the Times Square 42nd Street subway station. He barked back and arose from his cardboard box abode, and I ran. There’s a running motif here. I ran until I was out of breath and speed-walked the rest of the way home.
7. 18
I walk around with my boyfriend and no one bothers me when I’m with him. I’m grateful, but it bothers me that I can only walk around unbothered when he’s next to me. I’d make a feminist argument, but I’ve been making them for years, and frankly, I’m too tired of arguing to make one now. I’ll just walk around on his arm and hope that this is the last paragraph I’ll need to write on the subject.
Iris Park (Class of 2026) is from Manhattan, New York, and is currently majoring in Philosophy at Rutgers University. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys taking quiet, unbothered walks.
Iris wrote this piece in a course taught by Paul Blaney, who selected it for inclusion in WHR.