Women are being cat-called, harassed and given unfair dress codes in school due to the men who cannot be respectful and considerate. Once men are rejected, they blame women for who they dress and act, making our society one of hyper-sexualization, misogyny and even grooming.

According to a Mother Jones article, 28.3% of female characters in movies are wearing revealing attire while only 8% are male characters. Genres in media such as Anime exploit women by constantly showing them as very curvy in lingerie clothing to get more views; men, on the other hand, are hardly over-sexualized.

The media chooses to over-sexualize women and make them look as revealing as possible, but when a woman chooses to show herself to gain confidence she is insulted and people say she has no respect for herself (specifically by men). Some men may even say, ‘well if she didn’t dress like a wh*re, then she wouldn’t be sexually assaulted.’

Clothing doesn’t excuse men or anyone to sexually harass or assault women. Men oftentimes use the logic that ‘she was asking for it’ to justify their disgusting behavior, but no. She wasn’t asking for it.

According to an article by Silive, more than half of the women who were interviewed noticed that they’ve changed their clothing, refused to attend social events and felt uncomfortable at their work/school because of men catcalling them.

Cat-calling women (who are minding their own business) is form of sexual harassment. Women have to live with fear that they can’t dress the way they want to because men will harass them just to gain power and sexual attention.

It is unfair that women are constantly having to be in fear of simply rejecting a man. The amount of cases that have arose because of men verbally and physically targeting women in the last few years because stricken egos (by being rejected) is honestly ridiculous.

It’s not the fault of women if men can’t handle simple rejection. Women are rejected by men all the time, yet the women don’t become violent with the men after receiving rejection.

Women are left having to be alert every time that they go out, and are potentially approached or catcalled by a man causing them to be in danger or left feeling emotionally distressed. Why are men not being properly held accountable?

Parents, teachers and elders in the community need to educate and really talk to young men about respecting women’s boundaries. These conversations should especially start occurring when they’re young.

Women’s Aid, a domestic violence organization, presented statistics proving that domestic abuse is a gendered crime aimed specifically towards women. It’s 2022, and we as a generation need to be the ones to stop sexism, misogyny, over-sexualization and the harassment of women by educating men at a young age.

We must educate men on how to deal with a woman saying no or how to take a woman’s rejection instead of constantly harassing the women, trying to physically harm her or even pulling a weapon out on her.