One Friday evening last month, a group of women positioned themselves outside the Wicker Park bar Cans, pressed play on their boom box, and launched into a synchronized dance routine set to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.” In pink T-shirts emblazoned with the words “You Can’t Touch This!” and black pants with fuchsia hands appliqued on the buttocks, they had no trouble attracting attention. When they were done, they handed out homemade flyers on sexual harassment and date rape to the crowd.
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At Cans, however, not all the feedback was positive. “All of these guys in the windows started hooting and hollering and being, like, ‘Oooh, baby,’” says Kate Dougherty. “At first we laughed and then it got kind of creepy. A couple of us ran across the street with flyers about harassing women on the street. They got really angry and shut up.”
didn’t go home and say, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore,’ it interrupted what they were doing.”
The group hopes to make enough money to buy their own sound system–or at least a louder boom box–at a fund-raiser this Sunday, October 13. “We’re working hard to be louder and more visible in public,” says Caidor. They also plan to join larger protests–particularly if and when the U.S. declares war on Iraq.
