Oi oi! Get your tits out for the lads and other stories

Look out ladies, there’s a new movement in town. Hollaback encourages women to make a stand against (I can barely bring myself to utter the horrors subjected to us poor women folk; it’s really quite upsetting): wolf-whistling, cat-calls, honking car horns and the like.

Stats show that 95 per cent of British women have been the target of such ‘leering’. Apparently we should be fighting back and standing up for ourselves. Really? In 2005, New Yorker Emily May founded Hollaback – a movement dedicated to ending such ‘street harassment’. It’s since gone global, with spin-off sites popping up in France, India and Argentina (where, incidentally, Lycra is the official uniform of women folk there and they consequently parade around in body con and crop tops all day long. The poor loves). And now, of course, a similar movement has hit the UK. Hollaback hopes to give *Jesus Christ do I really have to type this* ‘women a voice’. Says Emily:

‘My friends and I were fed up with the constant harassment. We felt weak when we walked on. [But] when we yelled at guys, the situation just escalated.’

However, the name Hollaback is quite misleading. I thought we were actually being encouraged to give as good as we get straight back at menacing mouthy males. So, last week, when I was implored to ‘get my tits out for the lads’, I cheerily bellowed, ‘only if you get your cock out first!’ Such japes.

Seems I got it wrong. Hollaback is more about embarrassing the outspoken offender, a bit like this:

Man: Look at the arse on that!

Woman: Excuse me but that comment is highly inappropriate. Please refrain from staring at my bottom, it’s sexual harassment and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Oh, puh-lease.

You can also name and shame on the website by posting your incident and location. There’s even an iPhone app, the motto being, ‘if you can’t slap ’em, snap ’em’. Oh my god, what’s the fucking point?

Personally I think these girls a) have FAR too much time on their hands and b) are frigid. The latter point was a joke, obviously. But I do think they’re being ridiculously uptight.

I don’t mind admitting that a well-timed wolf whistle from a band of merry builders can easily put a spring in my step for the day. And if I’m being REALLY truthful, if I were to pass by a waggle of workmen (look, I don’t know my contractor collectives, ok?) and I didn’t get a high-pitched swit-swoo from the scaffolding summit, I’d wonder what the chuff was wrong with my look.

And I’d never be so bad-mannered as to tell a bolshy builder to ‘eff off, oh no. Call it good manners, call it taking a compliment and running with it, but I’ll usually respond to a cheeky, ‘awight tweacle?’ with a wink of my own. Backatcha builder sorts.

This sounds awful, but I dread the day that I become *gasp* invisible to the Male Eye. I’ve often heard this mentioned by middle-aged women. That they walk down the street now and don’t get so much as a second glance from young gents – only perhaps when the chap in question is offering his seat on the bus for them to sit down and rest their weary, puffy cankles. Oof.

Then there’s the summertime (when the weather is fine). Girls get their legs out, boys get the tongues (amongst other things) out. You’ll be strolling down the high street when all of a sudden, your ears are assaulted with a beep as loud as a war siren and the obligatory accompanying ‘OI OIIIIII!’

But then, doesn’t the sunshine make us all a bit randy? A bit sexual? I remember one blazing hot summer driving along with a couple of girlfriends in my car, windows down, Take That’s ‘Pray’ blaring from the stereo and us leering at anything male with a pulse, basically. We’d toot the horn appreciatively at buff boys with their tops off and give ’em marks out of ten.

I’d love to explain that away as hormone-raddled teenage activity during my yoof… but it took place last year. And what?

By way of a disclaimer, I’m certainly not belittling serious and/or violent sexual harassment, of course not. No way. I just can’t help but think, if you’re wearing a minuscule mini skirt and a chirpy chap comments, ‘nice legs love – what time are they open?’ (actual line that’s been used on me more than once in the past), then you haven’t got a finely honed limb to stand on, frankly. As Gwen Stefani, once said: I just ain’t no Hollaback girl…

– Natalie Wall