TW: Explicit references to sexual harassment and racism
Street harassment is an unfortunate reality of everyday life, with 27% of women and 16% of men having experienced at least one form of harassment on the street in 2022, according to a report by the ONS. This disproportionately impacts women and girls, for whom the likelihood of experiencing cat-calling, wolf-whistling, and horn-honking is an expectation ingrained into them from a young age. Sheffield is no stranger to this. I spoke to Becky Mantell, who volunteers as campaign coordinator for Catcalls of Sheffield, an organisation that hopes to raise awareness about street harassment across the city.
You may have seen Catcalls of Sheffield’s chalking project on social media. It began in April 2024, when founders Flo Rushton and Babhravi Krishnan, both students at the University of Sheffield, decided to take a stand against the frequent occurrence of harassment in the city and give those who have experienced it an opportunity to reclaim their narratives. The project forms part of the global Chalk Back campaign, which gives people around the world a place to “share their stories, raise public awareness and ultimately denormalise gender-based harassment”. Catcalls of Sheffield recognises the intersectional and multi-faceted nature of street harassment, and is committed to tackling bigotry in all its forms. The organisation encourages people to share experiences relating to sexual harassment, racial harassment, homophobic harassment, transphobic harassment, Islamophobic harassment, antisemitic harassment, or any other forms of bigotry, with a hope to raise awareness and empower those impacted.
Since its inception, Catcalls of Sheffield has gained a huge amount of traction in the local community and beyond. The team has spoken at the Violence Against Women and Girls Forum, the Chalk Back board meeting, the Festival of Debate 2025, and has been interviewed twice by BBC Radio Sheffield (see their website for more info). Throughout, their chalking campaign has remained a constant, with its visually engaging and community-based impacts earning the group a following of over 4,000 on Instagram.
Receptors of harassment can anonymously submit their stories via a Google form (available in the group’s Instagram bio), giving as much or as little detail as they would like. The team, sometimes with the help of volunteers, creates a visual representation of the experience by chalking on the pavement, as close to the location as possible. Becky described this action as a “powerful juxtaposition” between the childish behaviour of chalking and the strong, shocking nature of the words displayed. She joined the team after seeing one of the chalk statements outside her local shop in Crookesmoor and has since been astounded at the way in which the chalk messages make people stop and encourage conversation and interaction with Catcalls of Sheffield’s work.
By documenting experiences of harassment at the place where they happened, the group can begin to tackle the disempowerment felt by those who experience it. With verbal harassment being much more nuanced and harder to prove or identify perpetrators for than forms of physical violence, many victims feel that their experiences are not “bad enough” to report by more traditional means. In a culture where 95% of sexual harassment cases aren’t reported (as per a UN study), it’s easy to see how these degrading and traumatising experiences can leave people feeling isolated and powerless. As Becky highlighted:
“Sometimes people don’t realise that what they’ve experienced is actually harassment”.
Chalking gives those who have experienced harassment an opportunity to acknowledge and fight back against what has happened to them. By submitting their story, they are joining a community of others with similar experiences; learning that they are not alone and that people care that this has happened to them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common form of harassment experienced relates to gender-based discrimination. The most recent experience posted to the Catcalls of Sheffield Instagram page recounts an experience at Barber Place: “I was walking to work and was nearly hit by a van crossing the road. The man shouted out of the window ‘Sorry, I would’ve been more careful if I’d seen how pretty you were, flash us babe,’ and when I told him to fck off, he followed me with ‘Maybe I wouldn’t actually, you’d have been easier to fck if you were dead’”. With experiences as shocking and violent as this one, it’s easy to see how the impacts of verbal harassment can be equally as devastating on a psychological level as experiences of physical sexual assault, not to mention how quickly instances of street harassment can escalate into physical forms of violence. With misogynistic ideas being so ingrained and normalised in societies, both in Sheffield and around the world, the chalking project gives women an opportunity to mark and denounce the negative and traumatising comments that are thrown at them. The campaign is working toward an acknowledgement of and push back against these attitudes, as well as encouraging discussion and hopefully future intervention amongst bystanders.
However, the realities of street harassment in Sheffield stretch beyond sex-based discrimination, with the project also highlighting the myriad of forms of harassment experienced by people of all genders, and the intersection of gender-based and other forms of harassment for ethnic minority, LGBTQ+, and disabled women. The images included in this article display the variety of experiences: from misogyny and sexual violence, to homophobia and transphobia, ableism, and racially-motivated harassment. Catcalls of Sheffield makes sure to contextualise the statements they publish (see image captions for testimonies).
Image and testimony credits: Catcalls of Sheffield.
The group has faced some degree of backlash when out chalking. Becky described how a man got out of his car and started shouting at them that their “woke liberal agenda” would “come back to bite them on the ass”, and another instance where they were shouted at by a passing bus driver who called them vandals. But the vast majority of engagement with the campaign has been positive. When chalking the experience of an international student who experienced racial harassment at a tram stop on West Street (see image above), Becky recounted how a man came over and asked them about what they were doing. He stood and reflected and told the team about his own similar experiences. “It’s so nice to see that people are benefiting from it,” Becky said.
Ultimately, the chalking is non-permanent and unobtrusive (the group makes sure not to chalk outside of venues etc. to avoid bringing negative publicity to the businesses inside). It’s simply an artistic statement, and an accessible way to raise awareness and produce solidarity amongst those impacted by bigotry in all its forms.
Support their work by following @catcallsofsheff on Instagram or visiting their website, catcallsofsheff.org
You can report your own experiences anonymously, or sign up to be a volunteer chalker via the link in their bio.
