I lead by inspiring young activists and allies to take hands-on action on social justice issues they are passionate about; by encouraging them to transform feelings of helplessness into creative advocacy.
Sitting in a required writing class at New York University, Sophie Sandberg’s mind was focused on managing her freshman year of college. As she sat taking notes at the dawn of her academic career, Sophie listened to her professor assign the class a project; each student was assigned to immerse themselves in a topic and document it on social media.
The assignment topic was left to the student’s selection. The openness of the assignment momentarily stumped Sophie. Rifling through ideas, she kept landing on dead ends. None of her ideas met the standard she set for herself regarding her work. To Sophie, there was no room for a merely passable project.
Inspiration came, and struck with a forceful blow. She had found it – a topic that was impactful, informative, and meaningful, perfectly suited to her interests and experiences.
Growing up in New York City, Sophie saw, heard, and observed a plethora of catcalls. It didn’t sit well with her that merely participating in one of the most basic human activities- walking- would result in her, and others, being inappropriately sexualized by a street predator’s profane mouth.
At the time Sophie began the project, she was only nineteen years old. However, she was not short on memories of being on the receiving end of catcalling that went back many years. She can recall her first day of work at only fifteen years old, forever marred by the vulgar language of a catcaller. Sophie refused to forget how it feels and affects her to be catcalled and she wanted to do something about it.
“I wanted to show people that catcalling is a big deal and has a harsh impact on so many people.”
She wanted to create a project that struck people, something that caught the eye and made people pay attention to the issue at hand. Sophie wanted to reach people in a way that took some of the power back – to empower the innocent on the receiving end of catcalls. She was aware of the ridicule, hyper self-awareness, and fear experienced post-ridicule on the street.
What better way to take back the power than turning words that make us burrow into ourselves into visible, loud, unashamed, revolutionary art?
Thus was the beginning of Chalk Back, the social media campaign turned global movement. Since it began in the heart of a nineteen year old student in 2016, Chalk Back has continued to grow and inspire people around the globe.
At the project’s inception, Sophie worked alone, creating street art and posting it on social media. She deemed the project, “Catcalls of New York City.” Sophie went to the geographic locations where the catcalls attack occured and wrote the words of the attacker in colorful chalk on the sidewalk above the instagram handle @catcallsofnyc with the hashtag “#stopstreetharassment”.
If you ask Sophie today whether she knew what her school project would become when she first started, she would laugh. The truth is that she wanted to let the project go after her grade came in. College is a busy time and she had other priorities that needed her attention. However, her friends were persistent, urging her to continue the social media page. For almost two years, Sophie continued her work on her social media project, cataloging submissions of catcalls and taking note of her own personal experiences to help spread awareness.
Sophie experienced an interesting phenomenon as she carried out her project. Sophie often found herself subject to harassment herself while carrying out her art. People would yell at her to erase the upsetting words as she wrote vulgar messages on the street, or older men would inform her the recipients of catcalls should be flattered and accept the words as “compliments.”
“I’ve had men come up to me and say girls are asking for it when they wear tight clothes, and if they don’t want to get catcalled they shouldn’t wear tight clothing, and that makes me so angry and upset.”
These experiences were extremely frustrating to Sophie. Her artistic expression is intended in solidarity with the victims of street harassment, not to create a domino effect of further harassment on the street. Her art was not and is not for others’ approval.
Staying true to the message of the project, when faced with contempt Sophie always spoke of the true message of her project with a crisp execution and a calm demeanor.
“First and foremost, the goal is to make everyone facing gender based harassment feel less alone and feel like they have a community of support whenever they face something like this, and also empower everyone facing harassment to act and to do something.”
Sophie went on even further, describing the multi-faceted intentions of the project.
“Also, super important, we want to educate people about this problem, so that we have more allies than bystanders when it comes to street harassment and other forms of gender-based violence.”
Sophie continued chalking vulgar catcalls to spread awareness, documenting it on social media, and listening to people’s stories for the better half of her college career. However, everything changed when the #MeToo Movement took off.
The rise of the #MeToo Movement of 2017 pushed the topic of sexual harassment into the national spotlight. Sophie’s activism, which had a similar goal to bring forth the truth about sexual harassment, was brought to the forefront and shared in the spotlight. Suddenly, media outlets including Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post were reaching out to Sophie for interviews. Her Instagram account gained tens of thousands of followers nearly overnight. Finally, people were listening, and Sophie wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.
“At first it was just in New York, but then after all this attention people started asking if they could bring it to their city.”
And bring it to their cities they did. Presently, there are one hundred and sixty people worldwide who run sister accounts to @catcallsofnyc in addition to the twelve people on Sophie’s leadership team. Following the media attention, Sophie decided she felt called to devote her life to this work, and is now the 24-year-old Founder and Co-Leader of the global overarching organization “Chalk Back.”
“I think the most fulfilling part is building this really powerful community of activists around the world.”
Sophie knows she is young and has much left to learn in regard to leadership, but she is profoundly spoken in her beliefs thus far, allowing her to acquire a position of leadership and influence at such a young age.
Sophie’s leadership style is influenced by her upbringing and her passion. Through growing up with parents who worked as therapists, Sophie learned the practice of listening, a practice she actively utilizes in her leadership. That, in addition to her passion for the project, are her essential ingredients to becoming the leader she strives to be every day.
Sophie’s story began from a project in a freshman class at NYU, providing her with the perfect background to support other young people in participating in their own activism. How to find that passion, or that drive to participate in activism? Let it be personal, Sophie advised. “Start from your personal experience. So much of my work, my activism, and my leadership have come from that moment of feeling lost and confused. I think it’s a great starting place to think about your personal struggles and challenges, and that can create a lot of empathy for new leaders.” Yet, as a creator of a global movement might, Sophie urged to go even further. “The second tip is don’t stop there. It’s really important to listen to other people’s struggles and other people’s lived experiences to expand your knowledge as a leader, and ensure that you’re aware of power and privilege and all the things that come up when you’re leading other people.”
As Sophie continues growing her global movement, she stays rooted in that unsuspecting moment her freshman year at NYU, when a school project ignited her activist art project. As of right now, the founder of Chalk Back has three goals. The first, to bring in more funding in order to broaden Chalk Back’s reach with other activists and beyond. The second, to develop a series of self-care workshops for her staff, so as to provide resources for them to reconnect and recharge from what is often mentally challenging work. Lastly, the largest goal for Chalk Back is to get into schools. Sophie does a lot of public speaking events already, but her dream is to have all her staff get involved.
“I want to plan a program for Chalk Back where different activists from around the world could have the tools to go into the schools in their city and talk to students about street harassment and why it’s wrong.”
Sophie spends each day working towards creating real justice and a better future for all those who have ever felt victimized by catcallers. Using colorful art, she has helped the world recognize the real impact of street harassment. Sophie’s work not only actively strives for a safer world for everyone walking down the street, but also creates a platform for other aspiring young activists to cultivate their own leadership styles. If nothing else, Sophie Sandberg shows us just what young, fierce minds can do.
Leadership Inspirations: “My leadership inspirations are all the people who run catcalls accounts. I just see the different ways that they are able to gather their community and organize their community to make a difference. They’re so young too. So many of the people who run catcall accounts are actually still teenagers. I’m just so impressed by their bravery in taking on this initiative and bringing it to their community even though they don’t have a lot of experience yet. They are just ready to jump in and make change in their community in this really powerful way.”
Sophie’s story began from a project in a freshman class at NYU, providing her with the perfect background to support her mission to inspire other young people to take action in whatever way speaks to them.
Captured October 2021.
Images courtesy of Sophie Sandberg.