Shoshana Roberts
Image by Courtesy of Shoshana Roberts
One hundred and eight. That’s how many catcalls 25-year-old Shoshana Roberts received during a 10-hour walk around New York City.
Forty-one million. That’s how many views her video documenting said catcalls garnered after it went up on YouTube.
Roberts, a Jewish actress who has been sexually assaulted in the past, made the two-minute hidden-camera video to shine a light on the problem of street harassment.
As she walks through Manhattan, men hurl various comments at her, like “Smile!” “What’s up, girl?” and “Somebody’s acknowledging you for being beautiful — you should say ‘thank you’ more!”
Perhaps most disturbingly, one man just walks silently alongside her — for more than five minutes.
The video’s reception was mixed and intense. Many praised Roberts for highlighting street harassment, which a whopping 66% of women try to avoid by changing the way they dress, according to research conducted by Hollaback! the not-for-profit organization behind the video.
Others doubted that “Good morning” or “Have a good day” count as harassment, and accused Roberts of asking for trouble by wearing tight clothes (she wore casual jeans and a black T-shirt).
Still others took the opportunity to send Roberts threatening emails, including rape threats.
Roberts filed a $500,000 lawsuit against Hollaback! and the director for not getting her written permission to air the video. The suit also names Google, YouTube and TGI Friday’s, which made a parody of the viral hit.
While not everyone agreed, one thing is clear: Roberts succeeded in sparking a national conversation about street harassment. Which, unlike all that unwanted male attention, should be enough to make her — and us — “smile.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
