Last month this video featuring the trials and tribulations of a young woman walking silently through the streets of New York City went viral. The two minute video compiles the highlights of her ten-hour trek through the city which was unfortunately nuanced with suggestive comments, the occasional tail of male passersby and other forms of harassment.
This shocking account of sexual harassment in arguably the world’s most high profile city yielded quite a few parodies and imitations, but there was one video in particular focusing on a woman walking through NYC in a hijab that got under my skin. Check it out here .
Okay, so is the viewer supposed to come away from this thinking that if you’re a woman that dresses in Islamic garb then you don’t have to worry about harassment? I doubt that some of the same people saying stuff like ‘ay mami’ to the non-hijab-wearer are thinking they shouldn’t say the same thing to someone wearing one because her outfit commands their respect. It’s more like this girl seems to be of another culture and represents something they are unfamiliar with. This unfamiliarity is what makes her virtually invisible to potential offenders. Besides, why are we focusing on the victim here? Shouldn’t the message be: “Hey man, stop harassing women” not “Hey lady change your clothes?”
Even if the message was one of the repelling power of Islamic garb, they definitely got it wrong. Dead wrong. If you want to show how wearing Islamic apparel makes a difference, shouldn’t you be in a place where Islamic ideals influence culture? Check this out:
Okay. So he’s really a man, but I think we can all agree that his look was pretty convincing. The supposed invisibility cloak of traditional Islamic wear seems to be powerless in Cairo. Perhaps this is because the subject appears ‘normal’ in the cultural context and thus more approachable the same way harassers in NYC found a young woman wearing a black t-shirt to be.
So what do you think? Should women stop wearing certain outfits to avoid suffering the wrath of harassment? Or is it that men are harassing women everywhere and hence they should stop?