When the Hollaback-sponsored “100 Catcalls in Ten Hours” video went viral (it’s now at close to 34 million views and can be watched below), we decided to check in with performance artist Ayana Evans, who via her “Operation Catsuit” relational art piece, has a lot of expertise on the topic. As part of the art project, Evans wore a Butch-Diva designed bright green catsuit to ten different art settings and recorded reactions from attendees, which ranged from little reaction at all to secret photo taking, cat calling and aggressive come-ons. On the occasions that Evans has screened “Operation Catsuit” videos, she has also read the YouTube comments made in response to the video. Evans is Chicago born and black, which adds another layer to her experience and one that many have observed was missing from the viral catcall video. While sponsored by Hollaback, an anti-street harassment organization, video direction was outsourced to Rob Bliss, a white male, who has been called out for over-emphasizing reactions in black neighborhoods. And indeed anyone familiar with New York City neighborhoods can see that much of it was shot in Harlem. (Good coverage of the criticism and response by Bliss by Gothamist can be found here.)
Evans is active in the New York performance art community and recently was part of a team that curated a performance art show called “Empathy Play,” held by Social Health Performance Club at Panonply Performance Laboratory in Brooklyn. She will perform next in a piece called “Practice, Practicing, and the Perpetual Becoming of Performance” in Boston at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts on November 14th.
TS: I want to make sure we do a disclaimer and put out that you do not represent the opinion of all women being catcalled?
Ayana: Lol, No, not at all.
TS: When did it occur to you to do “Operation Catsuit” as an performance piece?
Ayana: A year before I actually did it, like 2011. It came from a conversation about what slutty means. How what’s slutty to some is just fashionable to others. At art events, if you look too provocative, you’re treated like you don’t belong there. Like, “I wonder who she’s here’s with.” And then I was joking with a guy and saying I should walk around in whatever I want and call it art.
TS: Is slutty eternally in quotations? What does it mean?
Ayana: After the project, it’s always in quotations. My mother always said, a slut is someone people don’t like, because everyone has sex. And usually my mother is right.
TS: Is a slut the same as a ho?
Ayana: I would say yes, just a different term. If someone loves a person, it doesn’t matter what she does. Eyrkah Badu is the best example. She has three different baby daddies, people know and don’t say much about it because she’s liked. The rules are in flux. For me, because I have a big butt, a short skirt is taken different on me than someone else. This project showed me that you will be treated differently because of your shape. and then you layer color on top of that.
TS: I was wondering after we spoke the other night, do you think attending Brown [University] where you were very much in the minority and therefore stood out influenced “Operation Catsuit”?
Ayana: Chicago is very segregated. I lived in a black world, grew up on the South Side, went to a black high school and church. Brown made me think about race and racism because I hadn’t experienced that before, and it shifted how I thought about race in art.
TS: How many times did you do “Operation Catsuit”?
Ayana: There are eight videos but only five are published.
TS: How many days did you wear the catsuit?
Ayana: Ten or 12 days total, starting in May 2012. I went to the Lower East Side three times and I got the least harassment. I went back to see if it was a fluke and it wasn’t.
TS: Within your project, where do you experience the most catcalling?
Ayana: I think Chelsea by far (video below). I have a theory that there is a lot of misogyny in Chelsea.I think Chelsea has this so-called art culture of a lot of photographers looking for women to shoot pictures of and it seemed like people there felt entitled to take photos or make a comments or invade my space. At the end of the Chelsea video, I was tired and beat.
TS: What were the ethnicities in Chelsea?
Ayana: Mostly white but there was a group of black girls who said something to me.
TS: So addressing the [“100 Catcalls” video], what were your impressions?
Ayana: It was pretty well done. I knew logistically how hard it is to keep the camera on the right person. But I felt like it was so edited I didn’t get enough of a sense of it to reach the point where you have empathy and that shows in the comments. The guy walking beside her was super creepy. I don’t remember that ever happening in Chicago. If that happened in Chicago I would pull out my phone and call the cops. I would feel like, “You’re hunting me.” That is the part right before they grab you. I’ve had dudes walk next to me in New York. You go into a store and switch directions. Usually you can shake them off. One time I literally stopped and said, “Do you want to fight?” He was like, “Oh no, ma, I didn’t mean it like that.”
One of the things that came out the [“100 Catcalls” video] is that there isn’t much unity between black feminists and white feminists right now. Legions of black women aren’t running to the defense of the [woman in “100 Catcalls”]. Part of the issue is that some problems black women experience are unique and aren’t always included under the umbrella of feminism and they haven’t been for years. That has created a schism.
The other thing is that the guy who did the piece is a white man. The woman is just an actress in the video. Because of that, you get a flat perspective from what happens to a woman. It’s about what people are yelling not what she’s feeling. And I don’t know if it would have been as many black men who looked working class if it hadn’t been a white person filming it. There wasn’t a gamut of men in the video. And why didn’t you show people who didn’t say anything. In ten hours, no dude with a suit walked by? In a weird way, there was an unconscious racism. Go down to Wall Street when it lets out and let her walk there. It’s not cat calling, it’s something else but you can feel it.
TS: The [“100 Catcalls”] comments on YouTube became as almost as significant as the video.
Ayana: My comments are more diverse. I got some feminists who understand the concept of the male gaze. She really didn’t.
TS: Feminism states that all women regardless of how they dress experience harassment and all men catcall regardless of race of class? Is that accurate?
Ayana: I don’t think that’s accurate. We may not like to hear it, but it is more prevalent among black and Latino men for you to walk and get a comment and it’s also more prevalent in New York. It’s not just race, it’s location. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen among other men, but it’s more a side comment directed to a male companion.
TS: Is it a class issue?
Ayana: The only reason I say no is because when I did [“Operation Catsuit], there was no correlation with the worst comments I received and the profession with the least prestige. One guy who was an educator was so aggressive woman, another woman stepped in my behalf. One guy who asked me to come back to his place was in international finance.
TS: Why are commentators so angry at [the woman in “100 Catcalls”?], what are they missing?
Ayana: I think they’re missing the fear. That is the problem with [catcalling]. You are actually scared because you don’t know when it will escalate. I was walking with a friend, someone yelled at her and she said thank you. I asked her why and she said a friend of her once ignored a catcall and the guy threw a bottle at her head.
TS: Why do you think men get so angry when women ignore their catcalls?
Ayana: No one likes rejection. They’re telling a story in their head, like, “Oh, she thinks she’s better than me. Another bitch that thinks she’s better.” I’ve gotten “that light-skinned bitch” comment a lot. You have some issue with my color that has nothing to do me.
TS: How do you think “100 Catcalls” compares to “Operation Catsuit’?
Ayana: I thought about my piece, but I thought it was very different because she’s not a black woman. She doesn’t know how bad it is for us.
TS: Why is it worse?
Ayana: Most of us have experienced it turning physical. Your butt gets grabbed, no one apologizes for it. Among black women, there’s a feeling that it’s worse.
TS: Where’s the intersection between dressing in a way that’s perceived as sexy and deserving comments or attention, people saying you asked for it?
Ayana: I feel like, you never ask for it. I don’t care what you have on. The idea that you can say, you asked for it, that’s crazy. Saying, “Oh, she’s an attention whore!” What’s so wrong with wanting attention and why do you think that means bad attention?
TS: What is the connection between street harassment and rape?
Ayana: They blend together, street harassment is part of rape culture. Very rarely did I have someone come to my defense [during “Operation Catsuit”]. It’s okay to do it, which is setting you up for worse things. It’s a slippery slope. If I’m really respected, I’m respected across the board.
TS: There are men who say all the pressure is on them to make the first move and the fact that women play a more passive role in courtship, catcalling is part of that. So how do you balance that?
Ayana: [Catcalling] is not courtship. One thing I noticed in the video that I didn’t agree with, one guy saying, “God bless you” or “You look beautiful today” is viewed the same as a comment like “Nice ass.” They were highlighted as though they were equal. I don’t get mad at “god bless you, mami.” I don’t feel fear. I’m sure some feel harassed by those comments, too, but if I had to pick and choose that’s the one I like the most.
TS: Do you think then that every woman is harassed on the street equally?
Ayana: No, if you’re older it’s less likely to happen regardless of race. And it depends on when you start developing. I started getting comments at age 12. People would be hitting on me and I wouldn’t even get it. I know from spending time around a friend of mine, if you’re Asian, it’s some weird stereotype stuff. It’s Asian fetish, creepy stuff. A lot of black men because of police culture would be scared to say something to a white woman or to grab a white woman. I’ve been grabbed in New York more than once and almost every black woman I know has been grabbed. The idea it will become physical is way more real for black women.
TS: We talked about New York and a little about Chicago, does cat calling happen anywhere else?
Ayana: Yes, but New York is a walking city so you get it more whereas in L.A., you’re in your car. Women aren’t walking on the street, the opportunity isn’t there. I experienced it when I went off the resort in Jamaica. It reminded me of New York.
TS: Should a woman be able to wear anything. Does anything go?
Ayana: Ideally you should be able to wear whatever you want to wear. If you have tighter clothes you get more attention and you have to walk out and be prepared for that. That’s how the world is set up. And the curvier you are, the more attention shifts into you being perceived as sexy. A skinny model in a shirt dress is different than when a Kim-Kardashian-type woman is wearing the same. You’re not treated the same. I spent most of my adult life figuring out how to not show my shape but it’s tiring trying to figure out how to wear baggy outfits you don’t want to wear. And wearing baggy clothes doesn’t eliminate harassment so you should wear what you want.
TS: Men don’t have this dilemma. Society dictates that women should try to appear attractive to men but then punish them when they are.
Ayana: It’s problematic when you’re attractive and downright shameful when you aren’t.
TS: What have we not spoken about?
Ayana: Maybe I need to leave a comment on that poor girl’s video. It’s really hard to do that, to walk in the street in silence. [In “Operation Catsuit,”] I tried to not say anything. I didn’t get mad or yell, but I think what’s missing is how hard it is to make that type of video and how you feel when you make it. You start to feel down on humanity. When that guy was walking by her side, most women would have dipped into a store or stopped walking or pretended to be on a phone. And then for people to yell at her in comments, especially when the editing wasn’t in her control. I edited my videos.
“Operation Catsuit: Chelsea”
“100 Catcalls in Ten Hours”
