Abstract
Every woman remembers, if not precisely the first time she got catcalled, then at least the dawning realization that catcalls are an ordinary part of daily life moving through the world with a female body. Many of us wear headphones to drown out the shouts, honks, whistles, and kissing sounds that constitute daily street harassment; others perfect the art of tuning out the noise, almost as if they wear an invisible, private set of headphones. The routine ubiquity of street harassment should not diminish our collective capacity for recognizing it as a form of violence. Street harassment, and catcalling, in particular, can be heard as one manifestation of everyday violence, pervading and shaping the public sphere. This everyday violence, while commonplace and seemingly mundane, is indicative of deeper social injustices that have normalized the public and private harassment of marginalized individuals and groups. Simone Kolysh skillfully illustrates this point in their recent book Everyday Violence, arguing that “everyday violence is an example of oppression that must be eradicated” (161).
In Everyday Violence, Kolysh employs a multi-pronged methodology drawing from qualitative analysis and auto-ethnography. Kolysh, who identifies as lesbian and agender, incorporates an intersectional approach in their analysis of catcalls and homophobic public harassment. Starting on the first page, they identify themself as a “feminist sociologist” drawing from personal experience in addition to interviews with their 67 interlocutors, who represent a diverse array in terms of gender, sexuality, race, class, education, and age. Significantly, Kolysh does not shy away from pointing out the racism of their participants, as when they spotlight the fact that some of their white cis interlocutors “respond to their harassers by using a classist or racist put-down” (38). They additionally make it clear that these classist and racist put-downs are based on widespread false assumptions rooted in white supremacist stereotypes. In addition to presenting empathetic portrayals of their diverse interviewees, Kolysh discusses coping with their own “lifelong fatigue” in their demonstration of everyday harassment's psychological toll, carrying as it does the omnipresent awareness that this harassment could always escalate to the level of physical violence (21).
The book's major contribution is Kolysh's concept of “toxciscity,” a neologism they explore in depth throughout the fourth chapter. Kolysh defines “toxciscity” as “both a city made toxic by everyday violence largely enacted by cisgender people and the harmful, cumulative toll that it takes on transgender people” (23). This concept can (and should) be employed across a range of disciplines endeavoring to discern the ramifications of misogynist and anti-queer violence within different communities and spaces. The recent onslaught of antitransgender legislation across the United States is only one indication of the heightened harm and violence that trans individuals undergo as they navigate public and private space. Kolysh's comprehensive ethnographic and theoretical discussion of “toxciscity” will be useful to scholars and practitioners working in women's studies, urban studies, sound studies, queer theory, social work, and especially trans studies, as well as activists and advocacy organizations who seek to bolster their understanding of gendered violence. (Kolysh states in their introduction that they hope their book will prove useful towards a general communal effort to combat street harassment.)
As an ethnomusicologist, my only complaint is that Kolysh does not consider the specifically aural effects of catcalls and street harassment (elements of a phenomenon I have elsewhere referred to as “sonic patriarchy”). Aural harassment is a very particular type of everyday violence that affects us on an embodied (not just psychological and sociocultural) level, and a more extensive examination of this element could have further strengthened Kolysh's key arguments. That being said, the book still conveys convincing evidence advocating for an increased level of attention given to street harassment as a minor, yet significant, manifestation of hegemonic masculinity. Kolysh begins their exploration of public harassment with a chapter on catcallers themselves, alongside an overview of “the anatomy of” everyday violence in the public sphere. They then move on to the recipients of catcalls, homing in on public harassment's parallel everyday violence in the domestic sphere (Chapter 2), sexuality/queerness (Chapter 3), transness (Chapter 4), and race and class (Chapter 5).
Everyday Violence will no doubt aid in deepening readers’ conceptions of gendered, sexualized, and racialized harassment in the public sphere. The prose, analysis, and overall structure of Kolysh's book will prove accessible to a range of audiences, across multiple disciplines within academia, as well as outside the academic setting, to those who do not have sociological or theoretical training but are interested in the topic. Through their examination of hundreds of instances of street harassment, Kolysh effectively demonstrates not only that heterosexism is a “violent process”, but how this process operates on a quotidian level. Kolysh formulates a strong argument that public harassment, while continual and mundane, is still an urgent issue exemplifying broader structural inequalities. Catcalls do not only affect the individuals who must hear them as they navigate public space; these instances of sonic patriarchy also perpetuate systemic heterosexism. Readers of this book will come to recognize that as scholars, activists, educators, writers, and humans, we must work towards a world where this type of everyday violence is not expected (or accepted) every time we leave the house.
