Daniela is not one of the many women who have been murdered, raped, attacked. Daniela is one of the many women – I’m afraid almost all of them – that you have suffered injustices for being a woman. And some of these injustices, like sexual harassment, they are forms of violence, even if the law and society do not recognize them as such and does not punish them or prevent them.
Men and women on the bus and effective remedies against harassment
Daniela recounted the times in which a passenger on public transport rubbed against her, in particular the time in which she rebelled provoking a reaction from two other passengers, but not against the harasser, but against the harassed woman.
My nuanced opinion is that anyone who rubs himself against a woman on public transport is a disgusting pig who should be punched, made to go down by the ear, taken to the police station, tried immediately and sentenced to work for six months without discounts and without pay in a center that takes care of assaulted women. Too drastic?
How to nip an obnoxious costume
But no, it’s the only way to stamp out this hateful custom, which each of us has heard of, when we haven’t witnessed it directly. It’s too easy to react when it’s your mother’s turn, your daughter’s turn, your sister’s turn.
Yell, report, push, get help
We have to react when it’s the turn of a woman we don’t even know, with whom we have no bond of blood or affection, with whom we only have the bus, the city, the weather in common. And women must remember that, as Franca Viola said, “those who do certain things lose honor, not those who suffer them.” So scream, report, push, get help. Or imitate that association of Iranian women who get on the bus with a pin to re-educate the molesters. And use it.
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