Tell us a little bit about yourself. I’m Selin and I am 20 years old. I finished school two years ago and since then, I’m working on becoming a midwife. I like to spend my time with gardening, cooking, painting and doing collages.
Why do you think “chalking back” is a good method to raise awareness? I think catcalls need to be seen by everyone and it is important to give these acts of harassment a place. By writing it down on the locus, it gets attention. Especially because catcallers typically use vulgar language to lower the person affected, it attracts notice to people who read the chalkings, because they mostly don’t expect this type of language at seemingly neutral places. Realising that street harassment has occurred at places where you walk by, will get the person thinking and also hopefully, acting.
Why do you think ending street harassment is important? It is very important to end street harassment because I don’t want anyone to feel humiliated or scared just because someone considers oneself superior. I want to live in a society where everyone is treated equally. Power imbalances have no place in my ideal society.
What’s your favorite thing about your city? I like a few things about Kassel. For example the documenta, which is an exhibition of contemporary art that takes place every five years. We also have a nice park, it’s called „Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe“, which was built in the 17th century by the landgraves and prince-electors of Hesse-Kassel.
What do you hope is the outcome of your account? The ideal outcome would be the end of street harassment, but for now, it would be nice to get the problem of harassment seen and as a result to get people to think about their actions. I hope that we can give people who made experiences with catcalls a possibility to relate to and by that - helping them to realise that they aren’t alone.
What does being a part of this campaign mean to you? I think it’s nice to be with same minded people and to learn how they cope with harassment and learn from it.
