Update: It turns out this video was staged, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to The Sun. Regardless, women are catcalled and heckled in the street every day because of their sex, as projects such as Everyday Sexism highlight. This video has helped to raise awareness of this fact.
Original story: Being catcalled is annoying at the best of times – particularly when you're alone and vulnerable – and for cyclists at the mercy of unpredictable traffic, it's a downright dangerous distraction.
So it might not be surprising that there's now a video of a female cyclist getting revenge on a catcalling van driver in London – and it's going viral.
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In the clip, the driver swerves close to her at a set of traffic lights near Tottenham Court Road, before saying, “Alright? Want my number?”
When she tells him that, no, she doesn’t want his number, he gets angry and starts insulting her, calling her an “old dog”.
Then he delivers that textbook male-to-female put-down: “You on your period?” before asking her out for a drink. No prizes for originality, mate.
She tells him to go away and the man reaches for her before claiming her behaviour is “not very ladylike, is it?" Classic.
After he drives off, the woman, clearly – and understandably – fed up, chases him down the street, catches up with him and rips off his wing mirror, before speeding off into the distance.
The incident was captured by a moped driver on a GoPro camera and shared on YouTube by user Rob Alexander.
While we don’t condone damage to property (there are, you know, laws against it), we admit it's a pretty strong comeback. If we were in her shoes, we’d want to get away with far worse...