Local artists, as well as the students and professors from Georgia State University who had invited Ms. Fazlalizadeh here, passed paste, steadied the ladders and even tried their hand at plastering the row of storefronts on Forsyth Street.

Jessica Caldas, a visual artist, watched the posters take form. “Something a lot of people take for granted as normal and acceptable is being shown for the impact it has,” she said.

Street harassment, though, is hard to define precisely and then to challenge legally, experts say. A growing body of research shows that it is a problem affecting where women live, how they get to work, when they go out and how they dress, said Laura S. Logan, an assistant professor of sociology at Hastings College in Nebraska, who has studied catcalling for years.

“The challenge has been there are so many behaviors that can go into street harassment on a continuum, from ‘hey baby’ to contact,” she said. “It also presents a first amendment challenge: Offensive speech is not illegal.” Still, she said, “the negative consequences are pretty well documented: fear, anger, distrust, depression, stress, sleep disorders, shame and anxiety about being in public.” Beth Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University, said verbal harassment is “more pervasive than workplace harassment, but there are less policies and laws to deal with it.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she said, “very, very recently has started to ask questions about this, to see if this could be a pervasive public health issue or problem.”

Laurie A. Combo, a New York City councilwoman from Brooklyn who is the chairwoman of the Committee on Women’s Issues, said Tuesday that she is calling on the Council to revisit the issue. In 2010 the Council held a hearing on the matter.