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"Eve teasing" in bangladesh concerning the authorities

10 replies

ImSoNotTelling · 12/06/2010 13:21

Today on the BBC

Terribly depressing stories, and teh results, girls not going to school, suicides, girls being pushed into marrying very young.

Just thought people would be interested.

I also see parallels with the way things happen all over the world. The behaviour of the men in Bangadesh is extreme and would not be acceptable here. However our society does tolerate lower level incidents of this, and similarly onlookers find these things amusing more than anything else.

What can be done to change these wordwide attitudes? Are there any countries where women can go out without running the risk of some pratt shouting at her, propositioning her, touching her etc?

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threelittlepebbles · 12/06/2010 14:07

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alexpolismum · 12/06/2010 15:20

pebbles - just think about how British society was in the past, and it should cheer you up. It means that things can change, because they have done so. It's not enough yet, but it is still better than it was, so there is hope!

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mathanxiety · 12/06/2010 17:33

I think it doesn't have the same terrible and tragic results in the west in general (annoying and unfair and really unacceptable though it is) because the notion of 'honour' is not mixed up in it for western women as it is for women in societies where 'honour' is a really important part of life. Honour was mentioned in the BBC report, as well as the onlookers laughing while the girl was assaulted. 'Honour' brings with it a terrible double standard.

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ImSoNotTelling · 12/06/2010 19:07

I wonder math, is it really so different?

Certainly women and girls commit suicide/leave their jobs/suffer depression and so on, but what they have experienced does not have a name in our society. If it's at work then it gets called sexual harrassment, if it's at school then it's called bullying, then there's stalking, which obviously is a criminal offence. Then we have a whole load of low-level stuff which is just generally bloody annoying. Then there's actual sexual assault and rape - I don't know if these things fall under the "eve teasing" umbrella as well. It sounds as if sexual assault does.

If all of those different things were called one name in the UK, like "Eve teasing", then the extent of it and the consequances might "feel" different. At the moment as it is called all sorts of different things, there is no sense of how widespread/damaging this sort of behaviour is.

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ImSoNotTelling · 12/06/2010 19:08

Women here certainly develop all sorts of problems after sexual assault as they feel ashamed.

Agree though we don't have the underage marriage problem (apart from in certain sections of the community), or the notion of "honour" in the same way.

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mathanxiety · 12/06/2010 19:33

Yes, I think we're all potentially facing the same problem no matter where we are, and unfortunately it's part of the wallpaper for a woman. Where Honour comes in is the idea that a family is being dishonoured by an attack of whatever kind on a young woman, and this idea comes from the notion that women belong to the family. There's an extra layer of damage done that perhaps even obscures the damage to the individual women themselves in the eyes of society.

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ImSoNotTelling · 12/06/2010 19:42

It is worrisome.

The thing that stands out for me is how people immersed in their own culture buy into what is acceptable and what isn't.

I was casually groped most unpleasantly in a pub once, and when I went back to the table and told my friends, they shrugged, said i was over-reacting and went on talking about something else.

We put up with it, and play along with it being a "laugh" and so on. People are "flattered" when men shout things at them and so on. And yet then we expect men to understand when we don't want them to do otehr stuff. Or to realise it is OK to shout at one woman but not another

I mean IMO they don't need any bloody encouragement.



I wish there was a zero tolerance for all of this stuff, everywhere, TBH.

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ImSoNotTelling · 12/06/2010 19:42

I wonder what the "background noise" of acceptable behaviour of men towards women is like somewhere like Bangladesh.

When I think about what is happening to women around teh world it freaks me out a bit TBH.

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threelittlepebbles · 14/06/2010 08:38

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NanKid · 14/06/2010 08:41

'Eve teasing'. Who the fuck came up with that stupid label for the sexual harassment and abuse of women?

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