MTV News producer and local legend Daniel “Monty” Montalto passed along this little gem of reportage, about a woman who wrote her master’s thesis in women’s studies/public policy at George Washington University on “street harassment.” To learn more, she conducted an anonymous email survey of 225 women, and found that 98% were occasionally harassed on the street while a whopping 30% were regularly harassed.

CNN decided to dig deeper, and came up with women who argued both sides of the “catcalling” debate: some called it “street abuse,” while others shrugged it off as an awkward kind of compliment. Take this Los Angeleno who said, “Yeah, it’s objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn’t have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I’d think, ‘Boy, I must really be getting old and dumpy.’”

Hmm…Is that healthy?

Pretty soon, Monty, Choose or Lose wonkette Michelle Rabinowitz, and I started with the emails:

DM: What I want to know is, why do they call it “catcalling”?

AM: Um…pussycat-calling?

DM: Does it really have something to do with the P word? Ew. They should give it a classy name, then it would be OK.

AM: Something classy like “street-complimenting”…

MR: “Vagina-praising.”

DM: “Verbal Confidence Vitamins.”

DM: This is the best part, though: “Often, Kearl says, an assertive, clear response can illicit a kinder reaction than one expects. ‘A lot of the time, I find guys will just say, Oh, OK, I didn’t realize it made you feel that way. Thanks.’”

MR: I like to turn around and take their picture. It freaks them out.

So what do you think? Is it all right for men to call out the girls on the street? Is it unbelievably irritating — and even serious disrespectful? Or do women sometimes overreact?