Catcalls of Sheffield: How Many Testimonies Do We Need?
- Date
-
Thu 1 May 2025
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
- Venue
- Broomhall Community Centre
In partnership with Catcalls of Sheffield
How many testimonies do we need to hear for harassment to be acknowledged? How many stories do we need to collect to trigger institutional and cultural change?
Since beginning our campaign in April last year, we’ve received over 200 submissions of harassment that have occurred all over Sheffield. These aren’t just numbers – they are reflective of real life experiences and the true number of instances will be far higher. Yet despite the issue being so widespread, harassment – whether racial, homophobic, transphobic, sexual or a combination of these – is often overlooked and dismissed.
In this discussion, we will be unpacking why this is the case. Join us to explore how and why testimonial injustice happens and how we can create community-wide changes in attitudes and responses towards all forms of harassment in Sheffield and beyond.
Established in April 2024, Catcalls of Sheffield is a grassroots campaign working to tackle harassment and inspire community change as part of the global Chalk Back movement. We aim to tackle all kinds of harassment, working towards community change. Our most visible form of activism is our chalking, where anonymously submitted experiences of harassment are chalked where they occurred. Since we started, we’ve been featured on BBC News, BBC Radio Sheffield and recently held a photography exhibition alongside Arts in the Right Place.
Babhravi is a second year Politics, Philosophy and Economics student at the University of Sheffield. She was inspired to co-found Catcalls of Sheffield after being introduced to the Chalk Back campaign by Flo Rushton in their first year of university. She is interested in looking at the ways in which philosophical questions about epistemology and the philosophy of language are relevant in everyday life, and she aspires to work in public policy research.
Flo is a second year Politics and international relations student at the University of Sheffield. After becoming aware of the first Chalk Back campaign, Catcalls of New York, back in 2018, they were inspired alongside Babhravi to co-found Catcalls of Sheffield. Her research interests include geopolitics, transport infrastructure and queer theory.
