Unwanted Attention



David Aaronovitch highlights the unwanted attention many women face on a daily basis by reference to an incident involving his daughter. 

And here's a interview with Shoshana Roberts who exposed this creepy behaviour by men in New York on behalf of the Hollabeck campaign group.

The public menace of a modern-day Gladstone

By David Aaronovitch - The Times

Notebook: Harassment of women for what they wear takes different forms

It didn’t take long for some guy in New York to try and show that all that stuff about sexual harassment of women was feminist phooey.

He donned a tight white T-shirt, which showed every tin in his six-pack, and went off around the edge of Central Park. And, sure enough, one or two women and gay men did say “Daaammn!” loudly enough to be heard, and a woman briefly approached him on behalf of her friend.

The problem was that his video proved the opposite of what he thought it did. He received a third as many comments of any kind and none of the threatening harassment that the woman who had done the same thing, Shoshana Roberts, received.

He also unwittingly proved how badly some men want to believe that there really isn’t a problem. Hannah Betts demolished that argument on these pages on Saturday and I just wanted to add a recent experience of my youngest daughter, who’s 17, which illustrates a related psychology.

She was on a London Undergound train in the middle of the day, wearing a jacket and leggings over which she had a pair of shorts. Opposite her was a man in young middle age — probably a Muslim — in a shalwar kameez and a small cap. She got off the train at Finchley Road and walked up the stairs, followed by the man. At the top, he approached her. In a calm voice he told this young woman, whom he had never met before, that she should not be wearing leggings like that since they were “too tight”. She disagreed and walked away. He called after her: “Think about it!”

This may or may not be a religious thing, but it is definitely a male thing. I have managed a lifetime in London without once having a Muslim woman come and tell me what I ought to be wearing. Or any other woman, come to that. Yet here is this born-again Gladstone, saving fallen teenagers from the sin of tights. It may not be “sexual” but it certainly is “harassment” based on gender

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