Hollaback!, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending street harassment, recently posted a video that quickly went viral, amassing 6.5 million views on its debut day. It now has more than 35 million, but the message – that street harassment disrespects and dehumanizes women – is still failing to hit its mark with a large portion of its audience.

The video, titled “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman,” shows volunteer Shoshana Roberts walking around Manhattan for 10 hours while Rob Bliss, the director, walks in front of her with a camera hidden in the back of his shirt.

Roberts is silent and moves at a quick pace without making eye contact or interacting with anyone around her. But despite these blatant non-verbal cues that she couldn’t be more uninterested, she had to deal with more than 100 instances of verbal harassment, only a fraction of which are actually compiled in the video for viewers to see. A note at the end informs viewers that these 100 instances do not include the countless winks or whistles that were directed at her as well.

Instead of indignant replies about how awful it is that Roberts was treated this way, many of the video’s comments completely downplay the issue. Many YouTubers adamantly state that this is not harassment, that she should learn to take a compliment, or, worst of all, that she’s ugly and not worthy of the so-called praise in the first place. Reactions to the video have even escalated to the point of rape threats and death threats.

A public service announcement by Hollaback! issued two days after the video was uploaded reads, “the onslaught of rape and death threats that have been directed at Shoshana B. Roberts, the subject of the video, are unacceptable but sadly unsurprising. When women are visible in online or offline spaces, they experience harassment. When women demand change, they meet violent demands for their silence.”

As the organization says, this reaction is unsurprising. But it is no less disappointing, disgusting and wrong. Viewers need to understand that it is unacceptable for men to harass women on the streets. Men need to understand that they must stop.

Street harassment is an almost singularly female problem. A man walking down the street wouldn’t receive a single comment. He wouldn’t hear exclamations of “Damn!” or “Nice!” He would not receive wolf whistles. No one would even tell him hello, ask how his day is going, repeatedly and forcefully request his number or comment on his body in any way.

Roberts was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but it wouldn’t matter if she had been wearing a short skirt, a sweatshirt or even nothing at all. No one has any right to comment on her body or act like her walking down the street is for their benefit. She owes these men nothing. One bystander shouted, “Someone’s acknowledging you for being beautiful. You should say thank you more!” Others told her to smile. Still others scoffed when she didn’t respond, acting as though it was unbelievable or even rude of her to ignore their advances.

Let me make this perfectly clear: Women do not owe men a single thing, especially men they don’t know. They have no obligation to respond to comments about their bodies that are unwanted in the first place.

This doesn’t just happen in New York, either. It doesn’t just happen in big cities. It happens everywhere, all the time. Day or night. In cities and suburbs.

Friends and I have experienced it in the shouts of passengers in cars driving by. We’ve been greeted with “Hey ladies” while walking down residential streets by men in their front lawns. And when men do, we make a point to act casual and carry on our conversation, hoping to feign that we didn’t hear them. We’re afraid of what they would say or do if we told them we don’t appreciate their comments.

In a country where one in five women will experience a rape in her lifetime, where an even greater number will be sexually assaulted and where women are expected to carry pepper spray or a key between their fingers in fear of a would-be assailant, street harassments are terrifying because they can lead to something more. I need only mention the Queens woman whose throat was slashed by a stranger last month because she ignored his catcalling or the women who died in May for rejecting Elliot Rodger to prove my point.

My friends and I exchange sidelong glances and subtly move closer to each other when men we don’t know walk near us down the street. Our heartbeats speed up, and our steps get a little faster. We don’t want attention from men in these scenarios because we don’t know their intentions.

The goal of the street harassment video was to open the floodgates for conversation and give people the opportunity to shed light on the issue. So let’s spread the message that it’s not OK to objectivize women. It’s not OK to make unwarranted comments about their bodies on the street or anywhere else. It’s time to take a stand and end it.

Jamie Bernard can be reached at bern2479@stthomas.edu.