Whether its a whistle, an unwelcome comment or – that old favourite – someone telling you to smile, being on the receiving end of street harassment can be a demeaning and infuriating experience. Ta’ase Vaoga has had enough.

Dear Cat-Caller,

Please don’t cat-call me or any other woman who happens to walk past your current work locale. We don’t like it. We’re already self-conscious about walking past you when you’re on your smoko. We don’t intentionally walk past for your pleasure. We’ve got shit to do. We are literally walking from A to B to get shit done.

I don’t need you to holler your hot takes about my butt and I certainly ain’t your baby. I just want to enjoy my walk or run or workout or bus ride without you commenting on my appearance or trying to get my attention. If that’s the only way you know how to grab the attention of a babe like me, then you have bigger problems than your inability to keep your trap shut when I walk past you.

You might think it’s a compliment, that you’re doing us a favour, boosting our confidence. Let me tell you very clearly: that is not what is happening.

You’re demeaning the very form you claim you’re appreciating. When you cat-call me I’m not thinking “Yeah, my butt is great” or “Thank you for noticing my fine legs”. In that moment, you and I, we’re not in sync. I’m not hoping for a one-on-one with you, I’m not smiling on the inside. I’m thinking “What a gross twat, grow up already.”

While you’re busy trying to assert your power and look cool to your bros, I’m plotting your death by stare and thinking about your future partner and how sorry I feel for her to end up with such a complete tool. You’re abusing your power as a man by exerting it over a fellow human being. When you yell at those who are different to you, you’re further marginalising those who are less powerful than you. Stop. Just stop, OK?

I’ve compiled some helpful suggestions that might help you to break your bad habit. You should consider them as seriously as we’ve had to consider the impact your cat-calling has on us.

1. Don’t line the streets on your work breaks lest your wandering eyes tempt you into cat-calling. Find somewhere else to have your break – or if you don’t want to do that, you could just do your thing (i.e. have lunch) without imposing on my day. A novel idea, I know.

2. Implement a swear jar system. If you cat-call or abuse passers-by: money in the swear jar. If you’re complicit in cat-calling: swear jar. Put a minimum of $20 in each time. Employers: match that swear jar amount and donate the jar to Wellington Rape Crisis or the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network. Hit me up for the account details.

3. Adopt a zero-tolerance policy on cat-calling. Men: don’t let your mates get away with it. Call them out. Ignoring it means you’re just as guilty. Don’t just awkwardly laugh if you feel uncomfortable. Make the situation more awkward by simply saying: “Not cool bro, not cool.” If your bro can’t handle it then maybe he’s not such a cool bro after all. Employers: actively do something about it when it comes to your attention.

4. Employers: teach respect as an essential part of your health and safety policy. Tell your employees/contractors off the bat that it’s simply not OK to engage in any behaviour that is demeaning to others. Make it clear that the only people they should be engaging with on smoko break is their workmates and passers-by that they know personally by name. And no: my name is not Babe.

It starts with YOU. You can create change by treating fellow human beings not as pieces of meat to be devoured but as people who, just like you, have places to be and shit to get done.

Yours sincerely

Ta’ase

P. S. Even without a swear jar, you can still donate to Wellington Rape Crisis or to the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network.

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Knight of the Realm Sir Bob Jones rose from his crypt yesterday and immediately yelled the first racist thing that came to mind. Hayden Donnell asks why we keep enabling this sad bully.

The mummified remains of Bob Jones spluttered to life yesterday, coughing up dust and cat fur and dialling into Newstalk ZB. Jones was enraged by a story he’d seen about a homeless man in west Auckland who claimed to receive $150 a day begging. His call was received by talkback host Chris Lynch, a slightly tidier Boris Johnson whose former CTV show Lynched with Chris Lynch featured a mock lynching in its opening credits.

Jones said it was a disgrace that “fat Māoris as they mostly are” were allowed to beg for change on the streets where he sometimes deigned to walk.

This isn’t surprising. Jones is a corpse compelled by witchcraft to say the most obviously racist thing in any given situation. The only joy he can extract from this mortal plane comes when he’s raining blows on those he believes are beneath him, be they beggars, flight attendants, reporter Rob Vaughn, or victims of indecent assault who he believes have themselves to blame for making the “silly” mistake of walking in a park.

“If I’m a rich old white man. Everyone else should be a rich old white man,” he whines with each rattling breath. “And if they’re not, they’re lazy or criminals or even Māoris.”

Of course that’s not true. Not everyone can become a six foot pile of dry skin flakes brought to life by the power of pure hate. There are a huge number of structural and personal reasons people struggle, many of them put in place by people very much like Bob Jones. Hopefully most of us have enough empathy to understand that. Unfortunately the truth is many of us don’t.

In the distasteful Herald poll asking readers whether they agreed that beggars should be banned, 75% said yes. Thousands more liked the Herald’s post on Facebook.

This is not just a dial-a-racist sermon from an undead spittle-soaked narcissist. Too many of us don’t see other people as people, with complicated lives and reasons for being the way they are. Instead we see them as annoyances; things to be ignored and stepped around on our way to work. We want our lives cleared of these uncomfortable intrusions into our morning coffees. If we look deep enough into most of our middle-class psyches there’s a hint of that belief: “I earned everything I have. I deserve this.” The only alternative being the truth: that we’ve profited from a system that mostly keeps people who aren’t like us poor.

And so, while it’s imperative that Jones returns to his crypt until the dark hands drag him back into the abyss, it’s also true we are often little better. For almost 40 years we’ve accommodated this bigot in large part because he’s funny, and he says what many of us are thinking. So screw him, yes. But screw us as well, and maybe doubly so. He’s just a sad bully desperate for attention. We should know better.

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