A sea of men surround a single girl
Oh hey, look at this – a news story from Egypt in October 2006.
CAIRO: As Egyptians began their Eid Al-Fitr holidays last week, rumors of a wave of alleged sexual harassment tainted the joy of what is usually a family-oriented festive occasion.
The wave of harassment, manifested by public groping and touching of women accompanied by pushing and shoving and even pulling at headscarves and shirts, has stirred dismay among outspoken young women and men across some popular blogs.
Across these web spaces, which provide a free forum of expression for many, bloggers posted and shared pictures of incidents in which crowds of men harassed women.
In one picture, taken in the downtown area and posted on Misr Digital blog, a sea of men surround a single girl, the caption reading that they were groping her as she tried to squeeze herself free but the picture is inconclusive.
Another picture shows a shop owner blocking the entrance to his store, as dozens of men huddle around, with a caption explaining that the aforementioned girl had to hide in the store to escape harassment.
Sound familiar?
WTF?? Is this some kind of horrible traditional cultural practice akin to acid in the face as punishment for women who go outside? Or some kind of horrible criminal strategy employed by large groups of men in cahoots with each other to torture women? Is there any part of North Africa (?, I don’t know where the criminals come from) cultural conventions that view these attacks as permissible “boys will be boys” behavior? Do they act this way in their home environments? How the fuck do they know to form three concentric circles around the victim? How do men learn this?
It makes me sick. And it is going to make life even harder for refugees trying to escape the dreadful circumstances of the countries and camps they are escaping from.
It sounds like something from a really bad end-of-the-world movie.
That’s just what a lot of people are trying to figure out. It looks as though it is, and, if so, as if it’s under-reported.
statistically
3 out of 4 Japanese school girls have been groped on public transit
as a lifeguard in the 70s in all white north america there was at least 2 “swarmings” a year by all white christian boys on some girl at my pool
so please take cultural out of “horrible traditional cultural practice”
add to that we had a group of drunken girls virtually strip a cute gay guy to his underwear outside a bar one night
you know to help him
so imho it is more about the insane human imperatives
at a core level you are zero if you don’t reproduce
the endless tension is in every organism
not just the refugees or the guys
No, sorry, the putative need or imperative to reproduce neither explains nor justifies assaulting women.
All of the examples of behavior that you list, lungta, are cultural. White Christians share a culture. Japan has a culture. Drunken girls at a bar are taking part in culture behavior. Life guards are participating in culture. I used the term carefully and accurately. So, no, I will not remove it.
I see no evidence in the reported cases that reproduction is at the root of the assaults and rapes. If it were, the groups of men would be fighting each other to win the victim’s body as the incubator for their sperm. They would not be cooperating, which is what it sounds like. They would be killing each other.
Not much of a case to be made for “the endless tension” in human primates, either. And maybe not in non-human primates. And no evidence at all the the endless tension would lead to assaults on women.
Sorry.
It’s a form of bullying and happened in my middle school. It happens anywhere authorities decide certain categories of people are not worth protecting from assault. The point isn’t to get sex; the point is to induce fear and proclaim power.
The point is to get sex though. The bullying is part of the fun, but if it were purely bullying they would just hit at random. They don’t, they grab breasts and bums and stick fingers into vaginas.
It’s like subways. There are men who will use crowded subways to “cop a feel” as the dainty expression had it.
It’s sex and aggression all mixed together.
@ lungta. That ridiculous argument is used to defend rape too.
Of course, in order for it to be a valid argument, you have to propose that men are not rational creatures, that they are so strongly driven by “the imperative to reproduce” that they are unable to control their behaviour. Also, in order to fulfill “the imperative to reproduce” each episode of harassment should lead to sex – whether coerced, forced or voluntary on the woman’s behalf. This does not seem to be the case so how is “the imperative to reproduce” working in this case to increase the men’s chances of sex?
Of course, biologically, there’s a problem with the men cooperating. When animals act instinctively to fulfill “the imperative to reproduce” males do not tolerate the presence of other males. A male will chase others away so he is the only one who can mate with the female and so that others cannot mate soon after him thus ensuring his sperm is the one to fertilise that female. Other males are a threat. Male animals do not band together with other males to jostle, poke, rub against and squeeze females. That does not lead to greater reproductive success.
Of course, that’s taking your ridiculous comment way too seriously, just in case there’s anyone reading who might be swayed by it. Rape culture, you’re doing it right.