He videotaped her walking around Manhattan. This many men harassed her
A video taken by a hidden camera documents the catcalling – and other "friendly" interactions initiated by men – a woman walking through the streets of Manhattan encountered in a single day. The final tally? 108.
And that doesn't include winks and whistles.
The video, recorded by a camera tucked into a videographer's bookbag, shows dozens of men staring, asking for the woman's number, telling her to smile, and calling her beautiful. One man greets her then walks beside her for a full five minutes.
"I’m harassed when I smile and I’m harassed when I don’t," Shoshana Roberts, the woman who volunteered to be filmed for Hollaback!, a nonprofit working to end street harassment, told NBC New York. "Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this."
Roberts sports jeans, a T shirt (crew neck), sneakers, and a backpack in the video.
Rob Bliss, the videographer who walked in front of Roberts throughout the day, told NBC New York he volunteered to shoot the video because he doesn’t think men see the cumulative effects of catcalling.
"They see it as just an innocent compliment but are missing the forest for the trees," he said. "I intentionally left out any messaging and just laid bare what it's like, so that everyone could objectively see the reality of this problem."
People who don't experience harassment or the threat of sexual violence often don't realize it happens at all, Kate Ziegler, one of the founders of “Hollaback! Boston,” a blog that collects stories of street harassment in Boston, told the Monitor.
"As we more readily acknowledge the realities of gender-based violence, we broaden the conversation," she said. "More people feel compelled to act and to discuss solutions, communities are more able to hold their members accountable, and societal norms begin to change."
Hollaback! reports between 70 and 99 percent of women are catcalled or harassed while walking down the street at some point in their lives.