By- Megdelawit Getahun
Every woman knows the quiet, uneasy calculus of survival. It begins the moment you step outside: scanning your surroundings, listening for footsteps behind you, and walking faster if you sense the slightest unease. This vigilance is not something taught directly but learned from early warnings, mothers urging us to cover up, friends whispering advice to “just ignore him,” and shared experiences of being followed, harassed, or worse.
We’ve been conditioned to downplay it. “Smile and keep walking,” they say, as though a smile will shield us. But catcalling is never harmless. It’s the first step in a long, dark continuum of violence that too often ends in tragedy. It’s not about attraction; it’s about power, an exercise in control that reminds women that public spaces are not ours to occupy freely.
For those who brush it off as “just words,” I ask: when did women’s fear become so ordinary that we stopped noticing?
Society insists that harassment is trivial, a passing nuisance. But in reality, the line between words and violence is razor-thin. That whistle today could become an unwanted touch tomorrow. Women know this, how easily “hey, beautiful” can escalate into something more sinister.
What many fail to see is that catcalling is not an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a larger, deeply ingrained culture that normalizes harassment and dismisses the warning signs of violence. The epidemic of femicide, the murder of women because they are women, is not an inexplicable act; it’s the horrifying, logical endpoint of a culture steeped in entitlement, where women’s autonomy is routinely disregarded.
A Culture of Survival, Not Safety
We are taught survival tactics as if they were second nature: don’t wear headphones when walking alone, keep your phone in hand, text someone when you get home. These are not acts of paranoia; they are acts of necessity. Yet, society rarely pauses to ask why women have to live this way. Why must we calculate risks each time we step outside?
This isn’t just about isolated events; it’s about the everyday violence that builds up, silently and persistently, until it explodes into a headline. We are told that femicide is shocking, but it isn’t. It is the culmination of every ignored catcall, every dismissed harassment, every time society told a woman she was overreacting or being dramatic.
Why Don’t They Listen Until It’s Too Late?
We’ve shouted until our voices are hoarse, but too often, no one listens until the unthinkable happens. Candlelight vigils are held, if they’re kind enough to let us mourn. Hashtags are shared. The narrative becomes: “She deserved better.” But where was that sentiment when she was alive, asking for help, saying, “He’s making me uncomfortable”?
We don’t want to be hashtags or memorials. We don’t want to be remembered for what was done to us. We want to live, to move through the world without fear. We want to exist without having to perform the exhausting, never-ending calculations of survival.
Rage is Necessary
What we need now is not polite activism. We need rage, unapologetic, unrelenting rage. Feminist rage is not irrational; it is the most logical response to a world that treats women as disposable. It’s the fuel for revolution. As Audre Lorde reminded us, anger can be a tool for change.
I’ve been told that rage is dangerous, that it’s a phase for the young and rebellious, and that maturity means softening and finding more “reasonable” ways to fight for justice. But when the very foundation of the world is built on silencing women, on crushing us with violence, submission, and erasure, how can politeness be the answer?
Different movements may take different paths. There is room for dialogue, for quiet persistence, for reform. But feminist activism cannot afford to play nice in a world that thrives on our compliance. Politeness in the face of systemic violence is complicity. It’s a betrayal of every woman who has been catcalled, harassed, beaten, or killed.
For me, rage is not a choice born of youth or naïveté. It is a necessity. It is the refusal to accept the scraps of respect handed out to those who stay quiet. Silence and politeness didn’t save the woman who was followed home, the girl who was groped on a crowded bus, or the countless women whose names are now only remembered in candlelight vigils and hashtags.
We can’t smile our way to justice! Our anger is what carves out space where none existed before. It’s what pushes us to refuse the narrative that our oppression is inevitable. Rage is not the problem; it is the solution society fears most because it threatens to burn the whole structure down. It’s about reclaiming what has been stolen: our voices, our safety, our dignity. And if that means being called angry, so be it.
It’s All Connected and We Must Face It
Harassment and femicide are not separate issues. They are part of the same continuum of violence. Every whistle, every unwanted touch, every ignored plea is part of the same story. It’s a story we should no longer tolerate.
We need more than hashtags. We need the raw, uncomfortable truth. Catcalling is not a compliment. Harassment is not a joke. Femicide is not a random tragedy. Confronting misogyny means addressing it wherever it hides, whether in our homes, workplaces, or laws. It means rejecting the narrative that violence against women is inevitable. It is not. It is a choice society makes every day by failing to act.
We deserve to exist in a world where our bodies are not battlegrounds. And we will not get there by asking nicely. We will get there by demanding that society confront its complicity in violence.
I Don’t Want to Be a Candle
I don’t want to be a headline or a statistic. I don’t want to be remembered as “the girl who should have been heard.” I want to live. I want to move through the world without feeling hunted. I want to exist without having to constantly calculate the risk of being seen, of being followed, of being ignored when I ask for help. I don’t want to survive, I want to be free.
So the next time you see a woman walking faster, clutching her phone, or looking over her shoulder, remember: she’s not paranoid. She’s surviving. The question we should be asking isn’t, “Why is she so afraid?” but rather, “Why haven’t we done more to make her feel safe?”
Survival shouldn’t be the goal; living freely and without fear is what we should be fighting for. And until that’s true for every woman, we have work to do. So when another woman is found dead, remember that it didn’t start there. It started long before, in all the places we refused to look.
And I’m begging you: start looking.
This was inspired by the joint advocacy efforts of Ethiopian women’s rights advocacy groups and organizations, Addis Powerhouse, Article 35, and the SIHA Network- during the 2024, 16 Days of Activism. From Catcalling to Femicide #ከለከፋእስከግድያ
