The theocratic group Sharia4Belgium responded to Sophie Peeters’s documentary about street harassment by remarking that she dresses like a whore.
In Thursday’s video message Sharia4Belgium said of Ms Peeters that “She walks the streets half-naked and dresses like a cheap prostitute. She has painted her face like a clown. She has done all this to attract the attention of men.”
The fundamentalist group believes that Ms Peeters provoked the men in the film.
“Why do you think that women go about scantily-clad and with painted faces? It’s to get reactions from men.”
And men “react” by calling her “salope” – and that’s her fault. Charming.
I’m old and ugly. I wear clothing to mask that I’m genderqueer, to “pass” as a cis woman of middle age. I get harassed. I get mocked and ridiculed, for walking down a street, minding my own business. If I’m bringing home my groceries in an ice chest, pushed in an old stroller (because I had no vehicle & it’s 10 miles, round trip, to the grocery), they threw things at me, swerved their cars as if to hit me, called me sex-shaming names. This is a person in her fifties, in modest clothing. I guess we’re all whores. Guess I’d better start wearing my burqa to the store.
Sophie Peeters’ Facebook picture.
Sharia4Belgium is talking out of their asses about her being “half-naked” and made up like a clown.
Gormless-looking bloke, ain’t he? Would this deeply cunning accusation be slanderous, I wonder? After all, it’s clear from her film that she doesn’t do anything of the kind.
It’s humiliating to see all those slavering males sitting watching the poor girl reading. Makes me wonder whether there’s been any advancement of human civilisation and dignity, at least in the male sex.
Those damn women, keeping us poor men from getting free of our primitive urges. And then they have the effrontery to say no! It’s not fair!
Weren’t there studies in Egypt (before the uprising) that showed that women in hijab were harassed just as much as women in “western” dress?
But of course, to them, any women not swathed to the eyebrows are “half naked”. I’m afraid my answer to anyone whose position begins with “sharia for” anywhere is “fuck you, arsehole”.
Shari4Belgium thinks men are ridiculous, out-of-control creatures with no self-awareness or sense of restraint. S4B thinks that with the slightest stimulus, the smallest exposure of female skin, men will react by shouting like someone pushed the Cat-Call Button on them, will follow frightened women down the street, will be compelled to ask the woman how much she charges for her sexual services. S4B thinks that women, and only women, are capable of self-awareness and sensible decision-making. S4B thinks that women are capable of controlling men’s urges and reactions by covering themselves, by making themselves invisible.
S4B thinks that women are capable of behaving like adults, and men are capable only of jumping up and making a spectacle of any woman who passes by.
And yet, somehow, it’s we feminists who are guilty of misandry.
Fortunately S4B doesn’t do much thinking. This is more like a gang founded by convicted burglar. It is pretty much a bunch of criminals latching on to a new scam and provocation is the way for them to appeal to youth and rejects. They say all kinds of stupid stuff to irritate people. It’s their shtick.
They’re a bunch of violent regressive arseholes, unfortunately they’re vocal for a tiny hate group like that. Glad Sharia4Holland didn’t fly, they where told what amounted to a “fuck off.”
They are responsible for violently ‘protesting’ at a book introduction in Amsterdam, the writer had the public physically protect her by surrounding her, cutting off attempts to harm her, so they spewed hate and spittle (literal spitting).
Alyson Miers comments in #6 made me realize something. It shouldn’t matter if Ms. Peeters was walking down the street “half-naked” or even completely naked. She shouldn’t have to suffer indignities because some men have to prove their manhood to each other or themselves.
Sharia4Belgium has clearly never SEEN a half-naked clown, because the proper response to seeing that is “WHAT THE FUCK???” and possibly running away.
But then, I have some clownfear, so I may be biased.
The moral thing to do for a man who can’t control his urges when he sees a woman is to lock himself up and not go on the street. That’s the way to correct HIS problem.
As has been pointed out this is a group advocating for Sharia law. Obviously a woman outside of the home is half-naked to them.
@Alukonis, metal ninja
The correct response is a double tap. Probably a zombie.
Well, anyone who thinks Sharia is in any way a good idea is the lowest form of vile scum anyway.
The patriarchy at work: All women are “whores” and all men are “undiciplined animals”.
“She has painted her face like a clown. She has done all this to attract the attention of men.”
I’ve had no idea so many men were attracted to clowns.
Quite.
And if these charming theocrats find they still lack the capability for such self-restraint, it seems to me we might find a more permanent solution in the canon of one of their brother religions…
I mean, didn’t someone kinda legendary once advise his followers that, should their eyes offend them, they might pluck them out?
The eyes, granted, have other uses than leering. But then there are other organs whose removal might equally correct this problem…
Ye, verily, so much trouble could be saved if, whenever some mediaeval-minded asshat starts prescribing burkas for all and sundry, we simply address this problem at its source and cut his balls off.
Anyway, even if a woman does address for men’s attention: SO FUCKING WHAT? She is as equally entitled to respect as any other woman, or man for that matter.
I think Slutwalk should protest outside their mosque on a Friday night. And by protest, I mean stand there quietly wearing whatever the fuck they want to.
The fact that we have laws regarding “indecent exposure” is revealing. The rules vary quantitatively across cultures, but the essential idea is consistent. So what is the real justification behind the coverup?
People often chose a presentation to be provocative, for courtship or otherwise. Is that a problem?
Do the provoked people need extended exposure therapy to transcend their creature nature, or will that only reinforce objectification issues?
I think they don’t see the need for self-awareness or self-restraint when it comes to sex, because they take their own sexuality for granted; any ambivalence is projected onto women. Men are human beings with sexual urges that are acceptable but need to be controlled. Women are quasi-human sexual objects who should satisfy men under the proper conditions (ie, within marriage,) and keep from provoking sexual thoughts in men at all other times. If women fail at the latter, it can only be because they’re evil sluts who choose to provoke men’s lust. Women as free agents with sexual desires and agency of their own and no particular concern for how men see them? Does not compute.
It’s the same false equivalence that we see again and again:
she invites sexual interest = she invites contempt and disrespect
sexual attention = contempt
Even supposing a woman is dressing to look sexy/attract attention, why is that the same thing as attracting contempt and invasive harassment? Why does the attention she attracts have to be disrespectful? Even ‘feminists’ make this false equivalence, and it doesn’t make any damn sense.
Whatever they are elsewhere, in England and Wales, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 very clearly differentiates between mere incidental nudity and deliberate exposure to cause distress:
66 Exposure
A person commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally exposes his genitals, and
(b)he intends that someone will see them and be caused alarm or distress.
(Note that he is the pronoun of choice used here in English and Welsh law to denote any person.)
Anyway, whilst nudity may be a problem, depending in the context, the problem in this case (of the OP) is obviously one of perception, and not of intent. It is a basic failure of adults to take responsibility for their own guilty lust.