Reading Group Discussion Week 8

Reading Assignment: 6
Group: 13
Article: Benjamin Bailey (2017) Greetings and compliments or street harassment? Competing
evaluations of street remarks in a recorded collection.
Passage Master: Rachida Al Fakir

“In this article I explore two competing discourses about the meaning of street remarks – the
remarks men make to unacquainted women passing on the street – based on comments
posted to a viral YouTube video. The video ‘10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A) was published on YouTube on 28
October 2014. In the video, 23-year-old Shoshanna Roberts is shown walking through
various neighborhoods of New York City carrying a microphone in each hand and recording
remarks directed at her while she is video-recorded by Robert Bliss, who ran a small video-
marketing agency. He had been commissioned by Hollaback!, a non-profit movement
dedicated to combating street harassment, to record a video. The video he produced is a 1-
minute 56-second compilation that documents 20 encounters with street remarks. The posted
video went viral with over 1 million views in 24 hours. As of December 2016, it had been
viewed over 43 million times and generated over 153,000 comments on YouTube.”
Page 1-2

Bailey started his article with the introduction of the viral video, posted a few years ago,
showing a woman walking on the streets of New York. Throughout the whole video, multiple
remarks were thrown at her, catcalling her and even following her, since she was not
responding to any remarks. During this whole video, that same woman was only walking, in
her normal-everyday clothes, not “provoking” anyone. The reason why I believe this passage
is important is because, not only does it portray the issue in a very simple way, it makes it
easy for us to understand, but the video was so disturbing to watch and listen, it really
highlights the issue of street harrassment. The content of that video went viral online and it
was talked upon a lot. I remember when it was posted. People were debating on the subject
and most people were also surprised that it was a reccurent thing for women. In that same
context, another video was also posted, in the same subject. It was the reaction of fathers
watching their daughters walk around NYC and getting harrassed by multiple
men,while,again, not doing anything but walking. The fathers were, understandubly,
incredibly mad and never thought that their daughters would experience this, in broad
daylight. It shows that this practice was simply accepted in society and wasnt seen as a
problem, it was not even a problematic.
“The majority of the 1000 comments did not argue whether the street remarks were civil or
harassing, instead addressing other topics or issues. Relatively frequent among such
comments were calculations of the frequency of street remarks based on 10 hours of actual
video recording, observations that the YouTube ‘like’ rating bar had been disabled,
observations that a disproportionate number of the men in the videos were African American,
evaluations of the attractiveness of Shoshanna Roberts and how she was dressed, assertions
that women enjoy men’s attention, and various arguments and personal attacks among
commenters, often about gender. Comments that characterized the street remarks as civil or
polite overwhelmingly drew attention to literal meanings of words and conventional
meanings of such acts as ‘greeting’ and ‘complimenting’. There were scores of comments
such as the following:
5) Cut the bullshit … this is not harassment … they were complimenting her … (13 November
2015, 11:25:01 a.m.)
6) Saying hello is not harassment (16 November 2015, 2:36:50 p.m.)
7) This is not harassment they are just compliments (16 November 2015, 9:06:37 p.m.)
8) That was not harassment. Those are nice people trying to engage with you (19 November
2015, 5:19:34 a.m.) “
Page 8-9

The comments prensented in the article baffled me completely. Its important to highlight the
response from the general public, for me, it portrays the problem even more. The comments just
brushed off all the feelings that many women felt or still feels, up until this day, when those
“encounters” happens on a daily basis. By invalidating their feelings, it doesnt really makes them
want to come out and talk about this real issue. As someone who witnessed street harrasment, and
at those times, I genuilely felt threatened, we can argue, like the author did, about a male
dominance dynamic in this society. Men dont see it as a problem since, most of the time, they are
the one engaging in those street remarks and are offended when we dont respond the correct way ir
acknowledge their advances. Its whitin the roots of society that women are supposed to be
submissive to men and listen to them. The comments shows this exactly. They portray themselves as
a nice person complimenting another one, just saying hello or we are “overreacting”. This issue will
never be taking seriously as long as this mentality changes. Again, I strongly believe theres a reason
this video went viral. It portrays the real experience that many women will encounter in their lives
and it shows the acceptance of society into this issue (going as far as even defending their actions.