Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A Subway Car of Their Own
Brazilian women are the latest to join women in Mexico City, Tokyo, and Cairo, all places that grant women the special privilege of...a subway car of their very own. As Suzy Khimm reports today on Alternet.org, Brazilian women demanded this privilege in response to unrelenting sexual harassment (otherwise known as groping) in the packed commuter trains taking them to work.
"Men think it's extremely normal to do this. They don't feel guilty at all," says Monica Aranjo Neves, 34, an administrative assistant who has been groped on several occasions. "We have to go to work, then take care of everything at home, and we shouldn't have to deal with this on the train."
That's right, women who enter the public sphere, the working world, should not be subject to harassment from men who continue to see them as no more than sexual objects. Unfortunately this macho attitude is perpetuated in many cultures, including our own, via the very unequal dress code for working men and women: squared-off pants suits and flat shoes for men, tight shirts, curve-hugging skirts and heels for women. I still wonder how women can expect men NOT to see them as sexual objects when they are so clearly dressing the part.
It's no surprise that some Brazilian men are responding to the new law granting women their own subway cars with cries of reverse discrimination. Others quoted by Khimm complain that the law unfairly demonizes all men. More serious are charges by Brazilian women's rights organizers that the law "will do little to change the behavior of errant men, other than keep them at train car's distance"; Brazilian authorities, they say, must do more to educate the entire population about the illegality of sexual harassment of women.
Clearly simply segregating men and women is no more than a stopgap measure. Male attitudes towards women in the public sphere reflect male attitudes towards women in the private sphere, and in both realms, inequality is the rule. Why should men feel free to grope women anywhere, whether on the dance floor or in a crowded subway? Why is our society so comfortable with women earning only 77 cents on the male dollar? Why are housework and child care still almost exclusively women's work, the world over? Why are only 14% of U.S. Senators women? These are the deeper questions that must be addressed before the temporary protection afforded women by a subway car of their own will be rendered unnecessary.
"Men think it's extremely normal to do this. They don't feel guilty at all," says Monica Aranjo Neves, 34, an administrative assistant who has been groped on several occasions. "We have to go to work, then take care of everything at home, and we shouldn't have to deal with this on the train."
That's right, women who enter the public sphere, the working world, should not be subject to harassment from men who continue to see them as no more than sexual objects. Unfortunately this macho attitude is perpetuated in many cultures, including our own, via the very unequal dress code for working men and women: squared-off pants suits and flat shoes for men, tight shirts, curve-hugging skirts and heels for women. I still wonder how women can expect men NOT to see them as sexual objects when they are so clearly dressing the part.
It's no surprise that some Brazilian men are responding to the new law granting women their own subway cars with cries of reverse discrimination. Others quoted by Khimm complain that the law unfairly demonizes all men. More serious are charges by Brazilian women's rights organizers that the law "will do little to change the behavior of errant men, other than keep them at train car's distance"; Brazilian authorities, they say, must do more to educate the entire population about the illegality of sexual harassment of women.
Clearly simply segregating men and women is no more than a stopgap measure. Male attitudes towards women in the public sphere reflect male attitudes towards women in the private sphere, and in both realms, inequality is the rule. Why should men feel free to grope women anywhere, whether on the dance floor or in a crowded subway? Why is our society so comfortable with women earning only 77 cents on the male dollar? Why are housework and child care still almost exclusively women's work, the world over? Why are only 14% of U.S. Senators women? These are the deeper questions that must be addressed before the temporary protection afforded women by a subway car of their own will be rendered unnecessary.
