Whistling at Your Mom

January 26, 2015 11:08 AM

Oh my God, I'm ashamed that your are my son. The Peruvian show Sílbale a tu Madre (Whistling at your Mom) takes a...creatively confrontational approach to fighting street harassment. They enlist the mothers of chronic catcallers to catch their offspring in the act, a process involving makeovers, hidden cameras and very public shaming.

The show is sponsored by Paremos el Acosto Callajero (Let's Stop Street Harassment), the first group of its kind in Latin America, which is pushing for a national law against sexual harassment in public.

And Everlast.

posted by gottabefunky (47 comments total)

gottabefunky: "Sílbale a tu Madre (Whistling at your Mom)"

"Sílbale" is imperative, so that's "Whistle at your mom". It's worth noting that "<do whatever> at/to your mom" is a common comeback in Spanish to either requests for doing that thing, or in annoyance at someone doing the thing.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:11 AM on January 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

As ever, don't read the comments...
posted by Mayor West at 11:14 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Kind of curious how Everlast got involved with a campaign like this, but it looks like they've been on the issue for a while.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:15 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's staged with actors.
posted by empath at 11:17 AM on January 26, 2015 [13 favorites]

Kind of curious how Everlast got involved with a campaign like this

Until I clicked on the link, I thought you meant the guy from House of Pain.
posted by jonmc at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2015 [21 favorites]

Esta actuación a cargo de actores está basada en entrevistas a sujetos reales que alguna vez acosaron por error a una mujer de su familia y expresaron “profunda vergüenza”

"This performance by actors is based on interviews with real subjects who some time harassed a woman of their family by mistake and expressed "deep shame"
posted by empath at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2015

Empath, that's interesting - any other sources?
posted by gottabefunky at 11:24 AM on January 26, 2015

It's staged with actors.

Now lets get the real people confront the actors on the street and berate them for a half hour. It's a self-perpetuating reality show!
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2015 [8 favorites]

Joakim Ziegler: ""Sílbale" is imperative, so that's "Whistle at your mom""

That's correct, though a more idiomatic translation might be "Go whistle at your mom".
posted by signal at 11:28 AM on January 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

signal: "That's correct, though a more idiomatic translation might be "Go whistle at your mom"."

That's an excellent translation. It was what I was getting at with my explanation, but yours is much simpler.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Now lets get the real people confront the actors on the street and berate them for a half hour. It's a self-perpetuating reality show!

Isn't this basically the description of a sketch from Comedy Bang Bang?
posted by unknownmosquito at 11:32 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

that's interesting - any other sources?

Realistically, how do you think they found these dudes moms? And how many of them would actually catcall at their mothers without recognizing them.
posted by empath at 11:33 AM on January 26, 2015

I'm having a wonderful time, but I'd rather be whistling at your mom.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:38 AM on January 26, 2015 [21 favorites]

One of my friends got catcalled by her brother when she was a teenager. He was driving, but (needless to say? I hope?) she wasn't in disguise or going for any kind of gotcha--he just saw a female form walking and did what he always did in such a situation, I guess. The mind reels.
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:49 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

the guy from House of Pain.

Who, sadly, has a daughter with cystic fibrosis. Sympathies, dude.
posted by jonmc at 11:49 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

There was this guy I heard about in my high school who actually married his mom, killed his dad, and then when it came out his mom hanged herself and he gouged his eyes out because he was so embarrassed. It was all pretty complex.
posted by srboisvert at 12:10 PM on January 26, 2015 [77 favorites]

So regardless of the "reality" of these actual confrontations - I am not sure it makes sense to have dudes shamed by their mothers. Isn't the goal to have men have respect and empathy - not fear and loathing of women? I think this approach on serves to make women even more of the "enemy" - to be either objectified sexually or dismissed as unworthy.

It makes for nice revenge fantasies - but not much else.
posted by helmutdog at 12:10 PM on January 26, 2015

So regardless of the "reality" of these actual confrontations - I am not sure it makes sense to have dudes shamed by their mothers.

The machismo culture is so firmly engrained that I don't know that anything will change it for the forseeable future. To them, women belong to their families until they belong to their husbands. That kind of mindset is pervasive in Latin America except among university students and in wealthier areas of the big cities. The only thing that's going to change it is time, education, and women flexing their own political and economic power.
posted by empath at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's a hilariously broad generalization of like 2 dozen countries.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:21 PM on January 26, 2015 [8 favorites]

By 'them', i meant 'people with a machismo mindset', not 'everyone in latin america'. Obviously it's a huge, varied region, but machismo is a thing that really exists, and it is part of systematic oppression of women in the region (which is changing, slowly).
posted by empath at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

how do you think they found these dudes moms?

Absolutely. Think of the logistics here:

- Find a man randomly catcalling on the public thoroughfare.
- Somehow identify them without their knowledge and track down their mother.
- Successfully negotiate a filming deal with said women that will publicly embarrass their son.
- Install hidden cameras presumably where that man was catcalling
- Wait patiently for that man to return to that same location to repeat his offensive behavior, assuming he is a stationary offender, not mobile, and this was his preferred attack point.
- Signal the target to to walk by and hope (a) the target is not recognized, and (b) the man finds this target provocative enough to catcall
- Repeat this process successfully several times with different subjects.

...OR...

- A film studio accepts a contract to develop a PSA.
- They hold auditions for actors
- They select several filming locations
- They stage and film catcalling scenarios with chosen actors.

Combating this behavior is commendable, but faux-reality video fools only the simplest thinkers, while pissing off and alienating the majority.
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think anything that gets people to think critically about their own behavior even a little bit is a victory. If "Oh crap, what if it was someone I'm not supposed to disrespect?" leads to the thought "This behavior is disrespectful" occurring where it wouldn't have otherwise occurred, that's good. I'm not bothered by the fact that it should be obvious because that approach hasn't worked.
posted by bleep at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I would be so embarrassed if my child was ever involved in that sort of behavior. It's pretty common knowledge that only low-lives do that sort of thing. You never see a successful, well dressed or respectable looking individual acting this way. It's always the losers... that dress like losers, have body language like losers and have the money management skills of losers and the work ethic of a loser that act like this. By extension when you act like this it's like pasting the word "loser" on your forehead. If my son went giving this kind of image to the public I would probably cut him off so he wouldn't affect the family name. When my cousin was caught acting disrespectfully to some girls outside his school he was straight up barred from attending any family functions for 2 years and was sent to military school. Even my own brother wouldn't speak to him. He came back a completely different person and no one in the neighborhood ever saw him act that way towards anyone again. He's happily married now to a great lady that can't believe he was ever 'that' kid. I know that probably sounds old school and perhaps archaic to some, but the older I get the more I appreciate my upbringing. I grew up in a leave it to beaver sort of environment. Parents married 40 years to each other and virtually all my uncles and aunts are happily married for 30-45 years already. And all of us were taught that the way we treated others in public not only said something about us, but also about those closest to us.

Nowadays you can't even stop a fight between two kids without risking getting charged with abusing them in some way. At our local school Our principal was fired after he tackled a kid who was pummeling another kid smaller than him. The kid got detention- Principal lost his job. No wonder kids grow up to be scumbags now.
posted by manderin at 12:37 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

By 'them', i meant 'people with a machismo mindset', not 'everyone in latin america'.

Except you also said "That kind of mindset is pervasive in Latin America except among university students and in wealthier areas of the big cities." Machismo isn't "a part of systematic oppression of women in [Latin America]", it's a part of systematic oppression of women, period. USian men are not even a little bit immune, so let's not try to peg this as a Latin American problem. I think the best part of this video is that *all* women can empathize with the mothers, staged or not.
posted by zebra at 12:41 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's always the losers... that dress like losers, have body language like losers and have the money management skills of losers and the work ethic of a loser that act like this.

For what it's worth, this describes me pretty well (except that I don't catcall). Maybe classist generalizations aren't the solution to misogyny?
posted by GrumpyDan at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2015 [19 favorites]

I wanted this to be real so much you all have ruined my day.
posted by weeyin at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's pretty common knowledge that only low-lives do that sort of thing. You never see a successful, well dressed or respectable looking individual acting this way.

Actually -

1. It's not "common knowledge", and
2. Yes you do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:56 PM on January 26, 2015 [36 favorites]

Machismo isn't "a part of systematic oppression of women in [Latin America]", it's a part of systematic oppression of women, period. USian men are not even a little bit immune, so let's not try to peg this as a Latin American problem

Sexism isn't expressed in the same way in every culture.
posted by empath at 12:56 PM on January 26, 2015

And I'd be happy to introduce you to the older guy in the 3-piece suit who creepily told a 26-year-old me that "I love watching you walk", or the older guy in the three-piece suit and porkpie hat who just stared at me for a full five minute subway ride, if only I could.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:57 PM on January 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

a hilariously broad generalization

I see what you did there.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:58 PM on January 26, 2015

Hilarious broads you say??
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:04 PM on January 26, 2015

At our local school Our principal was fired after he tackled a kid who was pummeling another kid smaller than him.

Link to well-reported news story or it didn't happen.
posted by yoink at 1:08 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

empath: "Sexism isn't expressed in the same way in every culture."

Catcalls are exclusive to Latin America?
posted by signal at 1:09 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Like, I get where they're going with this but it's a little gross that the message feels less "Women have dignity and are worthy of respect" and more "This specific woman has value to you as a man, so maybe other women have value to other men?" I know you gotta start somewhere but is it too naive to think that we maybe don't have to start on the lowest possible rung?
posted by bookwo3107 at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

. It's pretty common knowledge that only low-lives do that sort of thing. You never see a successful, well dressed or respectable looking individual acting this way.

You sound sheltered and naive.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:14 PM on January 26, 2015 [7 favorites]

I would be so embarrassed if my child was ever involved in that sort of behavior. It's pretty common knowledge that only low-lives do that sort of thing. You never see a successful, well dressed or respectable looking individual acting this way. It's always the losers... that dress like losers, have body language like losers and have the money management skills of losers and the work ethic of a loser that act like this. By extension when you act like this it's like pasting the word "loser" on your forehead.

I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not. Unfortunately, sexual harassment of strangers and acquaintances knows no social stratus boundaries. It happens across the board. Now, the concept of the catcall may be dominated by someone of a lower social standing - but unfortunately social standing does not preclude this behavior.

You are right though, behaving like this is not the behavior of someone I'd generally associate with the term 'winner' unless they won by birthright...

As a last thought. One of the things people always said about GWB was that he was more the type someone would want to have a beer with over Kerry... That got me to thinking...

Who do you think would more likely catcall someone, GWB or Obama?
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:15 PM on January 26, 2015

Machismo is more than catcalls. It's a whole set of beliefs about men and women and the relationship between them. Which is not to say that there isn't pervasive sexism in the united states and a system of beliefs about the roles of men and women and so on. Machismo is just the way it manifests in Latin America and it is distinctly different than the way it is in the US. It's hard to describe the difference if you haven't been there and seen it for yourself, though.
posted by empath at 1:23 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

No wonder kids grow up to be scumbags now.

Can I get a citation on the implied premise that more kids grow up to be scumbags now than before?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:28 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Invisible Green Time-Lapse Peloton: "It's definitely a particular kind of machismo, even if you want to pile on empath."

Anecdata aside, the "pile on" is about lumping together more than 300.000.000 people as all practising 'machismo', based on where they were born.
posted by signal at 1:32 PM on January 26, 2015

No one's asking for perfect rhetoric, we're asking empath to knock it off with the racism.
posted by zebra at 1:38 PM on January 26, 2015

Invisible Green Time-Lapse Peloton: "how are you going to be rhetorically perfect when talking about these things...?"

By not applying broad labels to hundreds of millions of people? By talking about actual facts instead of prejudice and racist caricatures? Or maybe by just being more specific?

Latin America is no more a single country than Africa is.
posted by signal at 1:40 PM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Holy shit, it is not racist to point out that machismo is a thing in latin american countries. You can find thousands of academic articles talking about it.
posted by empath at 1:49 PM on January 26, 2015 [16 favorites]

That's correct, empath, but that's not what you did. You said that machismo was pervasive in Latin America (except among the urban rich and educated, because apparently they don't catcall), argued that the set of behaviors that make up machismo are distinctly unique to Latin American culture, and insinuated that Latin American culture is a monolith. All of that? Is racist, with a little xenophobia, classism, and elitism thrown in for good measure.

Some parts of the US might use slightly different terminology to describe this set of behaviors (macho, perhaps, gee I wonder where that word comes from) but they are the same behaviors. If you check the very next FPP above this one, you'll see a great discussion of this very thing from right here in the US of A.
posted by zebra at 2:47 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

What is kind of monolithical about Latin America, and here I would agree with empath. is the "cult of the mother". From Mexico to the tip of the Southern Cone, you find this everywhere (I can't speak for Brazil, or the various indigenous societies. I am speaking about the urban and semi-urban Spanish-speaking population).

Symbolically at least, respect for women is reserved for those who fit into a traditional role of mother, daughter, and variations thereof (older woman who could be your mother, such as your aunt, or a younger woman who could be your daughter, or your sister, part of a respectable family anyway). It makes a LOT of sense to send their mother to scold these guys in the video, not because it might necessarily "scare" these men into not harassing women, but because of the symbolic transfer - it could be your mother, your mother is also a woman in the street.

A regular woman in the street is a woman you can look at without these associations, and thus a woman you can disrespect, and even use for your own pleasure or amusement. Often, their attitude turns to a slimy sort of chivalry as soon as the woman in front of them fits the mould they are supposed to respect.

I don't know how much weight this opinion carries here but as a Latin American who studied Hispanic-American Culture in a Latin American country and is acquainted with the region, empath's opinions don't strike me as racist, if anything maybe a little bit hurried and imprecise.

I would argue though that university students can be just as bad as any other machistas in Latin America. And please let's not overestimate rich people! It is so pervasive, even in the most "well educated", and this is no different in Europe or the US/Canada.

Of course, you can see some change compared to, say, 10 years ago, but it still feels much more explicit than sexism in Europe, North America (excluding Mexico). It's all over the language, jokes, and the expectations. It's all over television (free tv as well as cable). We are starting to have the discussion that the US/Europe have been having the past 30 years. But in general, I feel very optimistic about the developments - and the millennials really seem to be on to something.
posted by ipsative at 4:47 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Latin America is no more a single country than Africa is.

It is not Africa either, though. Excluding the small territory covered by the British, French, and Dutch colonies, and excluding Brazil (for the sake of accuracy), Spanish America is pretty homogeneous in a lot of ways. Of course, also very diverse in others, but we do share a history of Spanish domination and cultural influence (even hegemony), superseded by USAmerican quasi-domination and cultural influence.

There is a lot that can be said about Latin America as a whole in general without necessarily being racist and I'm afraid machismo belongs to that lot, unfortunately.

Though I do know that Peru is more forward thinking than, say, Bolivia, but Argentina tends to trump all others in matters of progressive thinking, Chile is doing okay I guess, but I'm too close to be objective. And Mexico is not exactly famous for being a safe haven for women.
posted by ipsative at 4:57 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Isn't the goal to have men have respect and empathy - not fear and loathing of women?

When I am cat called by a man, I fear and loathe him.
posted by Monday at 12:50 AM on January 27, 2015

Holy shit, it is not racist to point out that machismo is a thing in latin american countries. You can find thousands of academic articles talking about it.

I would just be careful to bring up the academic-level topic of machismo because a less scholarly, simple-minded racist will hijack it and turn it into proof that low-class-low-life-brown-people-have-no-manners-they-took-our-jerbs.
posted by intelligentless at 9:23 AM on January 27, 2015