That Catcalling Experiment Went Very Differently in New Zealand
Inspired by Hollaback's now-famous " 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" video, the New Zealand Herald hit the mean streets of Auckland with model Nicola Simpson to expose the street harassment problem in their own country. There wasn't much to expose.
When Shoshana Roberts took her silent stroll around New York for Hollaback, she encountered more than 100 instances of catcalling and other street harassment. In Auckland, Simpson got a lot of conspicuous lingering looks, but only two men holla'd at her—and one of them just wanted directions.
None of this is particularly scientific, and you can pick apart the reasons why the experiments aren't equivalent (you pass a lot more people on the street in New York than you do in Auckland, for one), but we can still take something away from it: We really don't need a law against catcalling—New Zealand doesn't have one—we just need to change our shitty culture.
