How should people compliment each other in public?
They’ll whistle at you, wink at you, and make inappropriate comments about your body or face. When you tell them to stop or leave you alone they try to play it off and act like they are complimenting you. However, while it's completely okay to compliment people, randomly saying “Hey, you got a nice butt,” to someone you don't know isn’t a compliment, it's catcalling.
Catcalling or verbal sexual harassment is making a whistle, shout, or comment of a sexual nature to a person passing by. For a gesture that seems overtly inappropriate, it happens a lot more than it should. According to npr.org, 77 percent of women and 34 percent of men had experienced some form of verbal sexual harassment during their lifetime.
Verbal sexual harassment had higher percentages than unwelcome sexual touching, cybersexual harassment, being physically followed, unwanted genital flashing, and sexual assault, for both men and women. Compared to the other forms of harassment at least, verbal is the highest on the list. However, this doesn't make it any better. Why it happens more often might be because people are able to play off their words as jokes or compliments easier than physical touch.
A great example of people trying to play off their catcalling is in this video by Rob Bliss, 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman. About 20 seconds into the video someone randomly says “Hey what's up girl, how you doing?” She just walks past him not saying anything. Then the catcaller’s friend shouted, “Somebody's acknowledging you for being beautiful, you should say thank you more.” this guy is trying to put her in the wrong by saying his friend was complimenting her, and she was being rude by not answering him when in reality she’s not obligated to.
Individuals are not obligated to respond to catcallers, but some people do. Florida realtor, Leanna Prendergast, said she has been cat-called on numerous occasions. When asked the question “Do you respond to the catcallers?” She said, “I do respond because I’ve seen when girls don’t respond, and the reaction from the catcaller is very disrespectful when the girls don’t, even when they’re the ones being disrespectful in the first place by catcalling. So, I do respond respectfully, or with a smile so I don’t come across as rude, so even though they’re being rude I respond in a kind manner, so their level of respect kind of increases for me. So, when their level of respect increases for me, they don’t think I’m someone that deserves being catcalled.” Doing this method of response has worked for her. Ms. Prendergast said, “One specific place I was at a beach party in Jamacia, and I was young, so I was probably wearing jeans and like a tank top, I was young as in my low 20s, so either jeans and a tank top or a long skirt and a tank top. It was nothing suggestive to get anyone’s attention. I was walking with my cousins on the beach there was a group of young guys around my age, maybe a little older, who we could hear snickering and whispering about us. One of them yelled out ‘hey pretty girl with the curly hair, come talk to me.’ I kindly smiled but kept walking, later on, that same day he approached me again, but didn’t catcall he approached me, in a more appropriate way. He introduced himself in a kinder way and ended up being a very nice person, we are still friends to this day.”
From catcalling/verbal sexual harassment, playing off catcalling, making people feel obligated to respond to verbal sexual harassment, or figuring out correct ways to respond to catcalling to gain respect from the person who’s disrespecting you, is all too overwhelming. All of this begs the question; How should people compliment each other in public? By figuring this out we can learn to avoid catcalling all together.
In a Quora post asking, What is the right way to give a compliment to a stranger? Dawn McClure a worker and Kroger Products and Services says, “I’ve found that people are less likely to feel embarrassed or threatened if you are very specific with your compliment, For example, instead of “You are beautiful’ say ‘You have beautiful eyes.” To add to what Dawn said, when Leanna Prendergast, Florida Realtor was asked the question What would be the best way to compliment someone? she answered, “You can compliment them using your words, respectful words. Like hi there you look nice today, or that’s a nice outfit you have on, or ‘you’re very pretty.’ It’s not what you say it’s how you say it. It’s not what you do it’s how you do it.
When all is said and done let's remember the wonderful compliment advice Ms. McClure and Ms. Prendergast gave us, and don’t forget “Hissing, at someone and making sly remarks is not going to get the attention of someone that wants to be respected.”