Question: Is catcalling harassment?

Is catcalling a form of harassment or harmless attention? This entry sets out the two positions on the question — that catcalling is harassment, and that it is not — and the reasoning behind each view.

Position 1 of 2

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Yes, catcalling is harassment

This position holds that unsolicited remarks about a stranger's body in public are harassment because of their effect on the person addressed: unwanted, unavoidable, and carrying an unknown risk, whatever the speaker meant by them.

Harassment is defined by its effect on the person addressed, not by the speaker's intent
The remark carries an implicit threat because the person addressed cannot know what follows it

Position 2 of 2

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No, catcalling is not harassment

This position holds that an unsolicited remark in the street, however unwelcome or crude, is not harassment. On this view harassment requires persistence, targeting or power over the person, and stretching the term leaves nothing for the serious cases.

Harassment requires persistence or power, and a passing remark in the street has neither
An effect-based test makes the same words an offence or a compliment depending on who hears them