Moho Forum

Hi, here's another voluntary project I worked on. It's a continuation from this one.


The Ocac (Observatory against street harassment) is an organization composed by volunteers which try to eradicate a form of violence which affects mainly women. In a year they have achieved to put the topic on the agenda and this week they finally achieved to launch a law project to penalize, but more important, to educate about this form of violence.
I helped on the script and had around two weeks to make the entire animation and composition. I slept very little and have huge dark circles, but they are making a great work and I'm proud to help them.
I hope you like the video (it has english subtitles, so you can understand it )

Direction and script: OCAC Chile
Ilustration: Maritza Piña
Animation and composition: Víctor Paredes
Locution: Ignacio Lira
Translation: Rodrigo Olavarría
​Music: ​BrunoXe

Great animation, but any law that penalizes "cat-calls" in any way would be no good (although it's unclear whether that is what this is advocating). Unwanted physical contact or threat, definitely, but I assume assault and battery laws already exist to cover those (please correct me if I'm wrong). No need to curtail free speech to address those. Granted, there's nothing wrong with simply raising awareness of the potential discomfort of cat-calls.

selgin, donating two weeks of work, sacrificing sleep is a tough thing to do. I enjoy animating tremendously and I stay up late to work on my projects--but it is hard work.

synthsin75 wrote:any law that penalizes "cat-calls" in any way would be no good

I agree - that's a great way to meet chicks!

This is another great animation, selgin. The gradual transformation to octopus as the character walks up stairs was just wonderfully done!

Thanks for the comments.
I'm not an expert on the topic, but have been working and talking about this problem for some time, so I will try to write in English what I have learned so far.
The project doesn't penalize "cat-calling", but it's important to understand it as the weakest part of the same gender phenomenon, which basically an inequality for men and women in all the spaces, public and private. The problem with "cat-calling", it's not about free to speech or good intentions, it's about a one-way message, which gives men the right to judge and express out loud that not asked judgment to an unknown person, as if she/he were an object which exists to be beauty or ugly.
Why, just because you are a woman, have to be constantly judged by unknown people? Some people like it, that's a fact, but for someone who doesn't like it, it's a problem. You can say it's a little problem, but when it repeats several times a day and at different grades, it forces you to change your habits, your routes, the way you dress, etc. Plus, at least here in Chile, it happens a lot to little girls. Imagine a person of 12 who must support a sexual comment from an old man.
From the studies Ocac has made about cat calling, I can certainly tell you that it's a myth it's a way to meet someone and establish a relation. Since it works one-way, it doesn't expect for feedback, it's not courtship. Actually, in most cases, when the victim tell the "cat-caller" she/he doesn't like the comment, the answer is aggressive, generally telling the contrary concept to the girl (if he told her "beauty", now she will be "ugly"). So here is no courtship or respect, it's more a show of power. If you like a girl (as a person, not object), you simply don't work that way.

Now, as I said, this project is not about "cat-calling", but focused about more serious ways of sexual harassment in the street and the sanctions are in proportion to the gravity of harassment. It penalizes explicit sexual comments, sexual contact, recording videos or pictures, public masturbation, etc.
The main problem is the current law doesn't cover that harassment when it's in public spaces, so if there's no penetration or mouth/sexual parts contact, you have no tools to denounce it. So, without this being part of the law, you simply can't defend the victims.
Also, the project has a big focus on education and prevention. Almost any penalization can be changed by public apologies, taking classes about problem, etc.

Finally, I mostly talk about men attacking and women, because that relation covers more than the 90% of the aggressions, but the law doesn't take in count the gender of the attacker nor the victim's. So anyone can be defended.

It's hard to get the time and energy, but I think supporting equal right for the half of the world's population deserves more than two weeks of work and I'm happy to contribute the best way I know to.

Really nice animation and designs, Selgin!