Minding the Hooting and Hollering: Catcalling in Italy is Still a National Staple

“It happens every time I walk down the street,” Giorgia Astorio, 25, said, “It’s very bad. It happens the most on the street of my house.”

Astorio has lived in Rome her entire life; and besides the beautiful art, historic landmarks, and amazing food, there is one thing she has always been able to count on: catcalling.

“One time,” she recalled, “I was almost to my house, and these two men – they were in a car – and they stopped and stared at me in a very strange way. Then they honked their horns at me and started shouting.”

And this experience certainly is not standalone. According to a study conducted by ISTAT, the Italian National Institute of Statistics, 80% of Italian women have been a victim of some form of street harassment. Women in Italy appear to both experience catcalling and experience it so frequently it has become a normal thing they have to avoid.

But for the 15,000 new study abroad residents welcomed into Florence every summer, this catcalling culture can be especially jolting and upsetting.

“I was trying to prepare for it,” Aadya Kathuria, a 19 year old study abroad student from Georgetown University stated, “but it still genuinely shocked me how much it actually happened. It’s every night – they yell at me or chase me down – it’s a lot.”

Kathuria noted that despite the warnings she received, the catcalling greatly impacted her and her time in Florence. “It can really hurt your experience,” she said, “especially when you’re not used to it.”

Still, study abroad students aren’t the only ones upset by catcalling. For instance, Cecilia Del Re, a city councilor for Florence, Italy, stated that catcalling is a “very present problem” in not only her town, but in the country. As a lifelong resident of Florence, Del Re credits catcalling to a lack of city security, police, and most significantly, to masculinity.

“Catcalling and violence against women are part of a patriarchal society,” she explained. And she’s certainly correct. Catcalling, at its core, is a way of asserting male power. It’s reflective of the patriarchal idea that women and their bodies are something to be ogled, controlled, or used; and its frequency hints to the prevalence of this power play across the globe.

Yet, Italy seems to have a reputation for catcalling all on its own. In a study Cornell University conducted across 22 different countries on the impacts of street harassment, women in Italy most often reported choosing to change their walking route because of catcalling.

“We live in Italy,” Livia Pagano, a 24 year-old Rome native stated. “We have to expect it and try to avoid it.” So they don’t fight it – something Eirini Lavrentiadou has noticed in her time in Florence.

Lavrentiadou, a journalist and actress located in Florence, has her own view of catcalling in Italy. After having travelled across Europe for her job as a singer and actress, Lavrentiadou noted that compared to countries like Greece, women in Italy are not only more likely to experience catcalling, but also more likely to passively react to it.

“Here in Italy, it’s more acceptable,” she said, “I think Italy can victimize more women.”

Why? That, she suggested, is because catcalling is guised within Italian culture.

“It’s an Italian way of approaching women,” Lavrentiadou said. Men who catcall don’t associate it with harassment, but rather as a way of complimenting a woman or potentially starting a conversation.

“Italy is also a country based in beauty,” she remarked, “Women here are always seen as beautiful – they have this reputation, and this is a way men express that to them.” Lavrentiadou noted that the cultural value of objects in Italy, whether famous buildings or paintings, has seeped into how Italians view women and left women with a “toxic” standard for how they have to look and behave. Women are another object reflective of Italian culture, and so catcalling isn’t a degrading means of addressing them, it’s a way of letting those women know they have met those cultural standards.

Despite cultural justifications, leaders and residents of Italy can recognize street harassment as not only an issue for women being respected, but also for women’s security. As Cecilia Del Re explained, it’s a hard issue to track, as the cities are simply too crowded for anyone to really intervene. With Italy still lacking any laws surrounding catcalling, it’s difficult for police and security to actively or permanently stop any street harassment.

Still, Del Re is hopeful that efforts to shift the younger generations’ cultural attitudes towards women and masculinity can control the spread of this behavior. “In schools, we are trying to invest in projects to prevent the violence, by helping young people understand how real respect for women is essential – we are invested in changing the current cultural process.”

This article was produced as part of a journalism collaboration with Georgetown University’s study abroad program in Florence.