It’s Called Harassment

The summer I was 16 years old I worked at the civil courthouse in Downtown Houston. I worked for the first female judge of the 61st District Court in Harris County. I felt empowered in my Hillary Clinton-like power suit of navy blue and white, yet it took only one man to verbally harass me on the way to lunch for me to feel insignificant. This isn’t about being sexually harassed by a man 30 plus years my senior; this is about catcalling. I would define catcalling as a whistle, shout, or comment of sexual content on a woman passing by with no provocation. I worked downtown for a month and a half and that summer I was, without a doubt, catcalled more than twice every single day on my way to lunch and back. One day, the 15th of July to be exact, while I was walking down Congress Avenue, a man followed me. The guy harassed me from across the street, and when the light turned green, he switched to my sidewalk and was about five yards behind me for the ten-minute walk. The only reason I knew I was safe was that I was heading to a courthouse with police officers and a secure entrance. When I got inside, I realized not every woman who is harassed and followed has somewhere safe to turn. In this essay, I will argue how catcalling and other forms of street harassment are meant to intimidate and harass women along with perpetuating inequality between the sexes and that the solution is a law that would prohibit street harassment with fines.

Catcalling is verbal harassment at its peak. Yelling across the street at a woman on her lunch break for having a “fine ass” and wanting her to “come on over for a good time” is sexual harassment. There is an embedded toxic masculinity side of this as well, with how some men believe catcalling to be a valid form of flirtation. Second, this machismo attitude that comes with catcalling, to prove to the other men you are around how you can get women to react to you, isn’t beneficial to either sex. Part of the machismo attitude is to be strong and intimidating to other people, especially women. To break down catcalling being a form of harassment, it is necessary to clarify harassment in a court of law. In the United States, harassment is varied depending on state laws. Harassment is when the perpetrator “intentionally and repeatedly harasses another person by following such person in or about a public place or places by engaging in the course of conduct or by repeatedly committing acts which place such person in reasonable fear of physical injury” (Ramsey). Based on the original definition of catcalling, my experience of being followed was harassment by this definition. It is difficult to prove intent in a court of law, but along the lines of “which places such person in reasonable fear,” (Ramsey) catcalling can and does fit under the guidelines of harassment, not flattery. 

Some people, even women, believe that catcalling is meant to compliment women. This is precisely what female blogger Doree Lewak thinks: catcalling is a form of flattery. Lewak tells her story of how when she looks good in her sundresses in the summer and when she passes by a group of construction workers with confidence, she gets whoops and hollers. She says that “Walking confidently past a mass of men, making eye contact and flashing a smile shows you as you are: self-possessed and playful. The wolf whistles that follow will send your ego soaring” (Lewak). She is advocating for women to depend on random men to catcall them on the street because “it’s validating” (Lewak). A second argument against making catcalling illegal is the argument of the First Amendment validates freedom of speech and that making it illegal will. Columnist for The Atlantic Conor Friedersdorf suggests that “Catcalling laws would criminalize speech, a clear violation of the First Amendment” (Friedersdorf). However, the 2003 Virginia v. Black U.S. Supreme Court case states that actions and speech that have the purpose of intimidation, will not be protected by free speech (Nielsen). Many women, including myself, see catcalling as intimidating. There is an amount of uncertainty when it comes to being catcalled on the street because how a man responds to being ignored or told off is unpredictable. Unknown situations involving men are intimidating for women, and should be treated as the threat they are to women’s safety.

There are solutions to stop catcalling and street harassment. Around the world in the last five years or so, countries around the world have been taking steps toward women’s equality. In 2012, Belgium made it illegal with hefty fines for people who catcall others (Bilefsky). Most notably in Bueno Aires, “forms of sexual harassment in public in the Argentine capital could now land perpetrators with a $60 fine” (BBC News). There are many cases in which America prides itself on being the “Greatest Country on Earth,” but at the moment we are losing at protecting our citizens from each other. America can learn from these areas and make street harassment illegal with fines, be grounds for legal cases, community service, or even misdemeanors. It is difficult to monitor what people are saying, but according to social psychologist Laura Nielsen in The New York Times,  passing a law of this caliber “would prohibit uninvited harassing speech or actions targeted toward individuals in public spaces on the basis of sex when done with the intent to intimidate” (Nielsen). One of the significant things that can be avoided by adding fines and charges to street harassment is the physical abuse and intimidation that can and has come with rejecting unknown men from their advantages. This is the first step to downsizing widespread misogyny and harassment against women. Starting at the least with nonviolent aggression against women and building up to the most violent of transgressions is the best way to begin passing legislation to protect women. To conclude, catcalling a woman on the street is a form of harassment. Even if there is no intent for intimidation by these men, the effect on victims of catcalling is just so. Harassment in its general form is illegal and can be met with punishment, and street harassment and verbal sexual harassment should be included. I’m not arguing for mass incarceration of men who catcall, but a law to be passed that stands behind victims of harassment. I am arguing, however, that certain consequences be placed on perpetrators to protect primarily female citizens. Normalizing catcalling, as the opposition suggests, jeopardizes women’s equality and perpetuates inequity between the sexes. In response to catcalling and other forms of harassment against women, “no” is a complete sentence and should be treated as such when it comes to harassment.

Bibliography

• BBC News. “Sexual Harassment: Cat-Callers Face Fines in Buenos Aires – BBC News.” BBC News, December 6, 2016.
• Bilefsky, Dan, and Elian Peltier. “France Considers Fines for Catcalls as Women Speak Out on Harassment.” The New York Times, October 17, 2017, sec. Europe. 
• Friedersdorf, Conor. “Don’t Outlaw Catcalling – The Atlantic.” The Atlantic, November 4, 2014. 
• Lewak, Doree. “Hey, Ladies — Catcalls Are Flattering! Deal with It.” New York Post(blog), August 19, 2014. 
• Nielsen, Laura. “Street Harassment Law Would Restrict Intimidating Behavior.” The New York Times, November 3, 2014. 
• Ramsey, Dave. “Harassment Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.” Accessed November 17, 2017. Schulten, Katherine. “What Have Been Your Experiences With Catcalling or Other Kinds of Street Harassment?” The Learning Network. The New York Times, 1415786650.

The Validity of Bisexuality and the Issue of Biphobia

Bisexuality is one of the more highly contested sexualities in both the LGBTQ+ community and in the straight community alike. Some people believe that bisexuality is not a valid form of sexuality because someone cannot be sexually attracted to both sexes, or because most people eventually end up marrying someone or “picking someone” and that then determines if someone is straight or gay, and finally, bisexual people are experimenting or are sexually promiscuous. These are the stereotypes that bisexuals have to contend with within the communities they live in and are a part of whenever they come out to someone. There are also various definitions of bisexuality, but this essay will focus on the binary form of bisexuality: the sexual and romantic attraction to both men and women by a man or a woman. This essay will focus on the issue of biphobia and bi-erasure in both the LGBTQ+ community and the straight community and the two sides of the argument of the validity of bisexuality. The two sides of the debate are those who know bisexuality exists and those who refuse to recognize it as a valid form of sexuality. 

In discussing the issue of bisexuality, there are specific terms relating to bisexuality and sexuality that need to be defined. The definition of bisexuality as related to this issue paper is “a sexual orientation characterized by attraction to members of more than one sex. Often, bisexuality is thought of as an attraction to both men and women; however, neither sex nor gender are always dichotomous.” (Smith) For argument, the definition of bisexuality this essay will use will apply specifically to the binary sexes, male and female. There are specific points of oppression that come with bisexuality: biphobia and bi-erasure. Biphobia is the “prejudice, fear, or hatred directed towards bisexual people includes stereotypes that seek to undermine the legitimacy of the bisexual identity.” (“Bisexual FAQ.”) Verbal examples of this include “bisexuality is a phase” and “bisexual people are greedy or promiscuous.” Bi erasure is “the idea that bisexuality is systematically minimized and dismissed” (Denizet-Lewis) and extreme versions of this include “bisexuality does not exist.” These two forms of discrimination against bisexual people have led to us questioning the validity of our attractions, and without knowing the truth behind popular culture and historical figures’ sexuality, we see little to no representation showing that is in fact not true. 

According to the Human Rights Campaign, about fifty percent of all LGBTQ+ people are bisexual, yet there is still great discrimination against bisexual people in the community. The cause is stereotypes. Stereotypes are “oversimplified concepts that people who occupy the same status group share certain traits they have in common; mostly negative used to justify discrimination.” Negative stereotypes of all bisexual people include labeling us as promiscuous, as more possible cheaters, as greedy, and as having internalized homophobia. Specifically, for bisexual women, we are seen as merely experimenting with men, especially as young adults, and we are genuinely straight. Bisexual men are viewed as having internalized homophobia or are too scared to come out of the closet as only gay. So, in the eyes of many Americans, bisexuality remains a bewildering and potentially invented orientation favored by men in denial about their homosexuality and by women who will inevitably settle down with men.” (Denizet-Lewis) Therein lie the main issue and examples of one side of the argument about the validity of bisexuality.

The second side of the argument, the one who knows and understands its validity, knows that bisexuality does not come in black and white terms. Bisexuality, like all forms of sexuality, is fluid. Not all bisexuals experience equal parts attraction to both males and females. One sex may garner more attraction from a bisexual person than the other, or it may be equal. Back in 2005, Northwestern University psychologist Michael Bailey researched heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual men and women where he concluded that women were more oriented toward bisexuality and men were more “bipolar.” “Most bisexual men appeared homosexual in their genital arousal . . .” the authors wrote. “Male bisexuality appears primarily to represent a style of interpreting or reporting sexual arousal rather than a distinct pattern of… sexual arousal.” (qtd. Denizet-Lewis) This angered plenty of bisexual activists and researchers, commenting on how this fight against stereotypes will always continue. That fighting the stereotype that bisexual people are lying to themselves, or to others, or that we are confused and cannot be trusted. This moved Bailey to conduct another research study with new candidates called “Sexual Arousal Patterns of Bisexual Men Revisited” which found that bisexual men did demonstrate “bisexual patterns of both subjective and genital arousal.” Arousal patterns matched their professed orientation, leading to bisexual activists and researchers vindicating Bailey. This scientific study is key to proving the validity of bisexuality in today’s world and showing how various important studies are studying the fluidity of sexuality and the validity of bisexuality.

In the past couple of decades, advocacy and educational groups focusing on bisexuality have grown and become part of the greater conversation on the validity of bisexuality. The American Institute of Bisexuality “encourages, supports and assists research and education about bisexuality, through programs likely to make a material difference and enhance public knowledge, awareness, and understanding about bisexuality.” (“Welcome to The American Institute of Bisexuality”) These groups are not only educating the public and LGBTQ+ people on bisexuality, but they also have research on the implications of this essay’s issue: bi-erasure and biphobia are directly harmful to bisexuals. Dr. Brian Dodge, a leading researcher on bisexuality and health at Indiana University “found that compared with their exclusively homosexual and heterosexual counterparts, bisexuals have reported higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance use, victimization by violence, suicidal ideation, and sexual health concerns.” (Denizet-Lewis) There is indubitably representation in all forms of media of straight people, and a significant amount in the modern day of gay and lesbian representation, but mainstream media does not show solid forms of bisexuality.

Most films and other digital mediums display bisexuality as socially problematic or reinforce stereotypes of bisexuality. For example, in the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, the first main character of the series Piper Chapman is engaged to a man, after having a long time intimate relationship with a woman. While in prison, the two women restart their relationship, and when the fiancée discovers this, there is an extreme focus on Piper’s sexuality, and they begin labeling her as a lesbian. There is no discussion of Piper being bisexual; the term “bisexual” is never even mentioned. Another example of bi-erasure is the denial or re-explanation of historical figures’ sexuality. There have been a plethora of past figures with debated sexuality from Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Josephine Baker, Oscar Wilde, Malcolm X, and even former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. (Sargeant) Specifically for Oscar Wilde, he has become known as the poet and playwright who died in exile after being convicted of having a relationship with a man, so history has labeled him as a closeted gay man, even though he enjoyed relationships and wrote about both men and women. For Eleanor Roosevelt, her most notable relationship was with Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok. There are love letters from one woman to the other, and the FBI had a large file that included these that were intended to blackmail Roosevelt out of promoting liberalism. (Kearns Goodwin) There are different interpretations of this relationship. One side sees this as a reason to make Eleanor Roosevelt a bisexual icon, while others deny that and say Roosevelt’s and Hickok’s relationship was entirely platonic. There are other groups of thoughts that deny her “straightness” and or her “gayness,” instead of discussing her bisexuality. These examples of the removal of bisexuality from history and media lead to bisexuals questioning their existence and validity. Bisexuality is valid sexuality and sexuality is fluid. For binary people such as myself, the attraction to men and women may not be equally distributed 100% of the time, but that does not invalidate sexuality as a whole. However, with continued bi-erasure and biphobia, young questioning bisexuals do not see good bisexual figures that would help validate their sexuality. Bisexuality has been defined as being attracted to both men and women, but it’s being reclaimed, and the definition is expanding. Reporting historical inaccuracies through bi-erasure removes the possibility of providing good role models for younger bisexuals but also removes representation that would be a positive influence. The existence of bisexuality can be proven using science. When self-described and sexually active men and women were tested for arousal when shown men and women, their excitement was noticeable in both groups. Women are more likely bisexual, but that does not take away male bisexuality. The issue of biphobia and bi-erasure and the issue of the debate over bisexuality can do solved with education. Showing the scientific research of bisexuality and the research of bisexual historical figures who have been erased. The conversation about its validity needs to continue to lessen biphobia, especially within the LGBTQ+ community. A community that spouts acceptance should not promote harmful stereotypes of a stereotype, that are hypocritical and detrimental to the cause. In conclusion, bisexuals exist because I exist.

Bibliography

• “Bisexual.” Merriam-Webster, 2018.
• “Bisexual FAQ.” The Human Rights Campaign, 2018. https://www.hrc.org/resources/bisexual-faq.
• Denizen-Lewis, Benoit. “The Scientific Quest to Prove Bisexuality Exists.” The New York Times. March 20, 2014.
• Kearns Goodwin, Doris. No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
• Smith, Nathan Grant. “Bisexuality.” Edited by W. Edward Craighead and Charles B. Nemeroff. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. Credo Reference. Wiley, 2010. http://ezproxy.baylor.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/wileycorsini/bisexuality/0?institutionId=720.
• “Welcome to The American Institute of Bisexuality.” Not-for-profit. American Institute of Bisexuality, 2014. http://www.americaninstituteofbisexuality.org.
• Zivony, Alon, and Thalma Lobel. “The Invisible Stereotypes of Bisexual Men.” Archives of Sexual Behavior43, no. 6 (August 2014): 1165–76.

Equal Opportunity Should Include Equal Coverage

Yearbooks are a timeless piece of memorabilia that covers all the events in an academic year, well almost all of them. The Baylor University yearbook, The Round-Up, included women’s athletics at the bare minimum. One of the most notable female athletic coaches from 1956 to 1979 was Olga Fallen, who served as a dance coach and bowling instructor and then ended her tenure as head women’s basketball and softball coach. Women’s sports were on Baylor’s campus during this time, but you would not know that if all you did was go through The Round-Up. Coverage of the women’s Bearettes basketball team fluctuated throughout the decades, only increasing to rival the men’s in the 1980s. During Fallen’s tenure at Baylor University, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was enacted to ensure equal opportunity for women to participate in sports at their universities. Based on my gender analysis of women’s athletics at Baylor, this essay claims how through its coverage of women’s sports, Baylor maintained inequity on its campus, even when women’s sports were doing better competitively compared to their male counterparts.

The artifacts I analyzed came from The Texas Collection archive on Baylor’s campus. Most of the physical artifacts I examined came from the Olga Fallen collection, where I found the development of her various athletic programs over the years. There is also a significant impact Title IX had directly on Baylor’s campus along with other members of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the conference the Bearettes were members of during Fallen’s tenure, that can be seen in the archives. There were scores of individual manila files covering Title IX and relatable correspondence within the university about it, federal law book copies that outlined specifics and helped me understand this amendment in this historical context with athletics. The first insight I found about the importance of Fallen and her impact on Baylor athletics was a memo written by the Sports Information Office at Baylor. This memo was typed on a typewriter and the size of a standard piece of paper, with the Baylor University Sports Information Office header in the top left corner. This announcement was also dated for the archive after the finishing of the memo. This announcement commended Fallen’s success story and how “each year since the 1972­-73 season, Coach Fallen’s Bearettes have participated in state competition and have done well enough to advance to regional competitions” (Baylor Athletic Department). Next was a photocopy of a newspaper article written in The Waco News­ Tribune, which outlined how Title IX would hypothetically have college women participate in football, but further went on to explain how Title IX focuses on the equal opportunity for athletics on college campuses. At the end of Fallen’s career at Baylor, a significant portion of the Baylor Lariat went to investigating issues within her program, and the decline in empathy and commitment Fallen had for her athletes. This four­ page investigative piece, which I read online, was written for the sole purpose of trying to help student ­athletes who were not receiving help from the athletics department. Lastly, The Round-Up copies on the Texas Collection website were a large part of my analysis and how coverage of women’s athletics at Baylor adapted to Title IX and the growth of the programs. The yearbook at Baylor is a student staff-driven annual, with members of both the sexes achieving the editor in chief position. I did not see a difference in coverage depending on if the editor was male or female; the coverage of female athletics was continually scarce. It is also important to note the language used for women’s athletics, for it is obvious male athletes were the norm. There are instances in the majority of the yearbooks, specifically in the 1974 edition, of the women’s sports teams being referred to with “women’s” preceding it, while the men’s teams only receive the sports name. This example shows how being male was and is assumed to be the norm in athletics (Fulbright). I recognize within these yearbooks that it took a few years after the enactment of Title IX for women’s athletics at Baylor to receive the same amount and unbiased coverage as their male counterparts, showing an environment of inequity on this campus in the mid­20th century.

I looked through The Round-Up uploads on the Texas Collection website in chronological order based on Fallen’s years here at Baylor and used findings on her in the archives to further analyze the yearbooks. In the 1958 yearbook, women’s athletics only appeared in the form of women’s intramural sports. Pictured on page 189 are three women playing baseball as their intramural sport with the caption “Girls do get excited about these things!” (Fulwiler), as if competitive and sometimes aggressive athletics are an unseemly pastime for women to enjoy. In the 1972 Round-Up, staff writer Betty Dillard had some interesting commentary on this development at Baylor. “Has women’s liberation finally invaded Dutton Street Park? Beginning in the 1972 season, women participated in a traditionally all­ male sport at Baylor. Although not actually playing on the diamond, they were actively involved with service in the dugout behind the plate” (Duke). This quote seems to be a way to have young women participate in sports at Baylor, but does not line up with “equal competitive opportunity” guidelines under Title IX. In The Waco News­Tribune, 1972 sports staff writer George Foster gave a further run­down of the role Baylor Batgirls were to fill as a part of the team. These batgirls were young female students who “work the ticket booth and shuttle bats back and forth” from the dugout and “keep the umpire in supply of baseballs” (Foster). On the side of basketball and with researching Fallen, I found numerous accounts of her dedication to her team’s success, and how she grew the program itself and it’s budget. In a Texas Collection blog post, contributor Simon Simmons states how “when Fallen began her responsibilities at Baylor, the women’s athletics department ran on a budget of a mere $750. But by 1979, when Fallen left her position as athletic coordinator and coaching duties, the department operated on a budget of tens of thousands of dollars” (Simmons). I see this as a testament to Fallen’s coaching abilities, to create a female team in this era that increased their budget in a short amount of time. Towards the end of Fallen’s time in the department, when the Bearettes earned their way to the state championships and soon nationals in the Athletic Intercollegiate American Women’s league, their coverage in The Round-Up increased. This imbalance proves a problem of inequity in treatment; men’s athletics received standard coverage regardless of the seasons’ outcomes, but the women’s teams had to reach national recognition to receive an equal acknowledgment. Specifically, in the 1975 yearbook, headlines for their respective pages were “Women soared” and “Men faltered” (Sample) where the woman’s team led by Fallen and captain Suzie Snider, went to AIAW nationals while the men’s team had a difficult season producing wins. My findings support how in the Baylor yearbook, coverage for women’s athletics was based solely on their ability to be nationally praised, while the men’s teams automatically received detailed spreads regardless, and how this allowed inequity at Baylor.

During this time of Olga Fallen’s participation in women’s athletics at Baylor, there was a slow adaptation by the Baylor yearbook to give equal coverage to both women’s and men’s athletics. This analysis shows how during the era of the 1950s through the 1970s, inequity on Baylor’s campus regarding athletics was widespread. Yes, after Title IX there was equal opportunity for females to compete in sports, but there was not balanced coverage in the yearbook publications of their feats. Since the yearbook is a school-sponsored and student­ driven process, this shows how Baylor allowed and in some cases endorsed glaring inequity and unfair treatment of their female teams and athletes. Although the 1950s and 1960s were notorious years of ill­ treatment of women with the social inequity where women shouldn’t be shown and promoted as strong, aggressive athletes, that at the time were attributes solely for men. This era did bring about the Title IX amendment that added women’s athletics and women’s opportunities at universities, but there was and still, is tremendous work to be done to support female athletes. At a conservative Baptist school such as Baylor, there was pushback against the passing of Title IX, but since it is a federal law, there was no plausible way of pushing back. Baylor’s development with female sports, particularly with basketball and the head coach, Kim Mulkey, and the equal coverage in the annuals today show us that process can be made.

Bibliography

• Baylor Athletic Department. “Biography for Olga Fallen.” Sports Information Department, 1975. Collection #3797, Box 5, Folder 1. The Texas Collection.
• Dorn, Nancy, and Jeff Barton. “‘Growing Rift’ Splits Baylor Women’s Athletics.” The Baylor Lariat, April 4, 1979, Vol. 79, No. 98 edition. The Texas Collection.
• Duke, Kerry, ed. Round-Up 1972. Vol. 71. Baylor University Annuals. Waco, 1972. “Education Programs and Activities Receiving or Benefiting from Federal Financial
• Assistance,” Collection #3797, Box 5, Folder 23. The Texas Collection.
  Fulbright, Melody, ed. Round-Up. 1974. Vol. 73. Baylor University Annuals. Waco, 1974. Fulwiler, Mickey, ed. Round-Up 1958. Vol. 57. Baylor University Annuals. Waco, 1958. Foster, George. “Baylor Batgirls Add Feminine Touch to American Pastime.” The Waco
• News­Tribune. March 20, 1972, sec. Sports.
  Hale, Rick. “Women’s Athletics: Separate and Equal or Separate and Inequal or True
• Togetherness,” April 17, 1974. Collection #3797, Box 5, Folder 15. The Texas
• Collection.
  Sample, Suzanne, ed. Round Up 1975. Vol. 74. Baylor University Annuals. Waco, 1975. Simmons, Brian. “From Olga Fallen’s Bearettes to Lady Bears National Championships
• (Updated May 11, 2012) | The Texas Collection.” Blog. The Texas Collection, April 18, 2012.