The global street harassment myth that has to die

Noorjahan Akbar

I recently realized that about ten years have passed since I took my first job in a women’s rights organization. I have learned many things over these years. Here is one of them: the oldest and most widely held myth about street harassment is that women’s choices about their clothing determines whether or not they are harassed.

This is especially infuriating to me because I have been harassed in rural Faryab (that is in Afghanistan) while wearing a long dress and a large scarf that covered not only my hair but also my shoulders and chest and I have been harassed in D.C. while wearing a big winter coat, work pants and high rain boots. Also infuriating is that in both instances when I spoke up against the disrespect, my clothing was blamed.

Here is why the myth that women’s clothing leads to harassment has to die.

It is simply untrue. Some argue that the fact that this myth has survived is because it has some degree of truth. But there are many myths that have survived time and are wrong: colds and flues are the same thing, women are not as smart as men, and black cats are cursed. All these are old but living myths. They are all wrong. Our long-held belief in something doesn’t make it true. In addition, it matters who believes these myths, who has the power to perpetuate them, who uses them to oppress, silence and marginalize others. Myths about gender are not accidents- they are constructed because they are tools of oppression.

In addition, street harassment is a global problem despite the diversity of clothing styles around the world. Women wearing skirts in Brazil are harassed like women wearing blue burqas in Afghanistan. Women in jeans in New York hear sexual comments like women in Egypt in full hijabs.

Some will argue that this is because the standards for appropriate clothing in each country is different and in each context the women dressed less conservatively, by local standards, is more likely to face harassment. This is also not true. In the US, 87% of women have experienced street harassment. 79% of women in India, 89% in Brazil, 86% in Thailand and 75% in the UK have faced street harassment, including violence in public. In Afghanistan, 9 out of 10 women in seven surveyed provinces have been harassed. It is clear that the vast majority of women in countries around the world face harassment so if they are harassed because their clothes don’t meet the acceptability standards of our communities, whose clothing is creating these standards? If the majority of women in our communities don’t “meet” our made-up standards for how they should dress, shouldn’t we reconsider our standards?

In addition, girls as young as seven and grandmothers are old as 90 have been harassed. How should they be dressing? The first time I was harassed, I was in the first grade. A grown man biked towards me, pulled his gentile out of his pants and flashed me. He laughed and biked away as I stood there frozen. I was wearing my school uniform.

Whether in a global context or at the local level, it is time to accept it: women’s clothing has nothing to do with whether or not they are harassed.

It absolves harassers of responsibility. When we tell our 12 year old girls to cover themselves so that they won’t be harassed, we are also telling our 12 year old boys that if they harass girls they are not to blame. Like many myths surrounding sexual violence, our collective response to street harassment is to police women’s movements and bodies instead of holding men accountable. If we spent the energy we spend on demonizing women’s clothing and bodies on fighting street harassment, confronting harassers, and creating and implementing laws that discourage this behavior, our communities would be safer almost instantly. Women’s clothing doesn’t cause harassment. The choices and actions of some men and the silence of others causes and perpetuates harassment.

It dehumanizes women. I remember the first time I was told to bend my shoulders. I was twelve. A man with a long white beard, who was probably about 70, passed me and a friend when we were on the way to school. Shamelessly, he stared at my chest. My friend looked at me and told me to walk with my shoulder’s bent so that men wouldn’t notice that I was growing. From that moment, my entire public existence was summarized in my puberty-stricken body. I became my body. I became a sexualized object- to be covered, stared at, touched, and commented on, without my consent. I noticed that all people saw in me was an object. Women are more than society’s sexualized view of their bodies. We are full human beings. Focusing on our clothing and curves and shapes instead of our humanity is dehumanizing, belittling and humiliating.

When we tell women to cover up or be harassed, we are telling them that they deserve respect only if they make themselves appear the way we want them to. Women, and men, deserve respect regardless of their appearance. We deserve respect because we are people.

It insults men. When we treat the violent behavior of men as some sort of inevitable reality enticed by women, we insult them. Men are not weak. Men are able to control their thoughts, actions and words. Men are able to respect women- all women. Men are capable of being adults- not children excused for irrational behavior.

As a daughter, I find it an insult to my father who made many sacrifices to provide me with an education and fight for my human rights, when other men say that women’s clothing makes them behave wildly. Men are not animals. My father certainly wasn’t. Stop playing the victim. You have not fallen victim to women’s “deceitful seduction” when you harass them. You have chosen to disrespect a fellow human being and a fellow citizen. Take responsibility for your actions and stop assuming that you are not capable of controlling your sexual desires. I (and science) assure you, that you are.

One in three women around the world face violence. Globally, 80% of women have faced harassment. These are not faceless beings floating on the internet to create statistics. They are real people and they deserve better. Equally important: men are capable of being better. Let’s end the myth and work towards creating a world in which every person is respected and feels safe.