'Stop Telling Women To Smile': Denouncing 'Jackals' And Catcalling In Mexico

By Rigoberto Hernandez

Published February 10, 2015 at 11:40 AM CST

Magali, 33, describes the worst catcall she received from a soldier in Mexico City.

Note: This post contains language that some people may find offensive.

Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh recently went to Mexico City to talk with women who've gotten unwanted "piropos," as catcalling is known in Mexico. Here are some of the things they recalled hearing:

Maricela, a politician, describes the vulgarity of the "Piropos" teenage girls receive in Mexico City.

Daniela, 28, is studying communications.

Valerie, 30, a publicist from Mexico City.

Sabina, 30, a university professor from Mexico.

Fazlalizadeh, 29, has been taking on street harassment since 2012 with her campaign "Stop Telling Women to Smile," a series of street posters with portraits of women and messages like "Critiques on my body are not welcome" and "Women do not owe you their time or conversation." The campaign started in Brooklyn and has expanded to other cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston.

The campaigns first international foray is in Mexico City, where rampant sexual harassment has led the city to provide female-only subway cars and buses. The campaign is part of an impressive new interactive project at Fusion, a joint startup between ABC and Univision aimed at attracting millennials. The page includes short videos of women describing their experiences, maps of where the posters were planted throughout the city and videos documenting the project.

Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, 29, talks to one of the women she depicted in poster she pasted on the streets of Mexico City.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, a Brooklyn-based artist, pasting a poster in Mexico City.

One thing that really stands out about the project is age range of the women who participated; some are as young as 18, and some are as old as 63.

"There have been women [fighting] against street harassment since forever here in Mexico but I think that for a couple of years now, this dialogue has been reignited," Gabriela Duhart-Herrera, 26, of Hollaback! Mexico told Fusion. "It is something that happens all the time. Every day."

"I want to present people in a metropolitan environment dealing with things that women in the United States deal with, the 'jackals' and sexual harassment," says the editor of digital voices and storytelling at Fusion, Anna Holmes. "It's not a pretty picture."

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, the woman behind "Stop Telling Women to smile," in Mexico City.

Head over to Fusion to see the strong reaction the project had in Mexico, in which many participants talk in detail about the vulgarity of the comments.