No one is suggesting catcalling is the same as rape; people are suggesting they're both in the same category. To use an analogy, a Ford Fiesta and a Ferrari FXX aren't going to compete in a race together but they're both cars.
To use an analogy, public urination and murder aren't doing to result in the same penalties but they're both crimes.
There is an unsavory political/propaganda purpose to putting catcalling and rape in the same category. The eliding of crimes of vastly differing degrees of severity is another warping of law enforcement and the judiciary which totalitarian states have used to oppress individuals. To do the constant work against this, we need to be careful about distinctions.
Unless one views combatting unwanted sexual conduct to which people are subjected without consent as an unsavory purposes, no, there isn't.
> The eliding of crimes of vastly differing degrees of severity is another warping of law enforcement and the judiciary which totalitarian states have used to oppress individuals.
True, but irrelevant, for several reasons: first, this isn't a law enforcement issue; second, while the category of discussion overlaps with criminal conduct, it is not a discussion of crime as such, but of a category united by shared features not incliding criminality; third, no one is suggesting equivalency or arguing for ignoring the distinctions between acts within the category while discussing the broad category.
But if one views the efforts towards combating unwanted sexual conduct as a pretext used by certain people who want power as an end, then it becomes an especially unsavory purpose, no?
True, but irrelevant, for several reasons: first, this isn't a law enforcement issue
The classic strategy of non-governmental authoritarians, since they do not have a monopoly on violence, is to do what they can with the same effect. If you don't have the state monopoly on violence, then dress in uniformed hoods and do violence and vandalism under the cover of anonymous crowds. If you don't have the state function of the judiciary, then use kangaroo courts, "trial in the media," and extralegal means to make accusations with the presumption of guilt. All of the above is very relevant today.
third, no one is suggesting equivalency or arguing for ignoring the distinctions between acts within the category while discussing the broad category.
False. Exactly that is happening in order to turn the tables on current power structures, and to let one group intimidate another.
What would happen if your tools were used against you?
I certainly don't presume you and I would see eye to eye on the society I'd build.
Do you imagine your faction would be in charge? It certainly sounds like you do. "Revolutions are often initiated by idealists, carried out by fanatics and hijacked by scoundrels." -- Thomas Carlylse
I support laws against catcalling, or enforcing existing harassment laws to include catcalling. But you really lose me when you try to put saying anything--no matter how offensive or even illegal--in the same bucket as doing physical violence to another person.
I think this is where the #metoo movement and other groups that promote women's safety and well-being lose a lot of support from people who would otherwise be in agreement with them. I can go really far supporting laws to protect women from all kinds of awful things. But I can't really stretch reality far enough to say that saying something is the same as raping someone.