France just banned “catcalling” among other offences in a new law spurred by a video-taped incident in which a Frenchman allegedly verbally accosted a young woman in the street, and when she told him to stop, he slapped her….hard.
OK, here’s the thing. Laws already exist to prosecute him for slapping her. Or anyway, I ASSUME France has laws against physical assault. I don’t really see why there need to be additional laws here. And it seems a bit dangerous to me.
The new law bans “sexual or sexist comments and behavior that is degrading, humiliating, intimidating hostile or offensive”…well, THAT is all pretty subjective isn’t it?
What if someone happens to have a remarkably inflated sense of their own importance, and FEELS that it is degrading to them if you ask for the time?
What if they FEEL humiliated because you think they are walking too slow and taking up too much space on the sidewalk, and you brush past them without saying “do I have your consent to pass”? Like “what, do you think where you have to go is more important than where I have to go….just because you are a MAN???” I mean that is something that could get fined for on a daily basis.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/01/world/europe/ap-eu-france-sexual-violence.html
External Context سياق خارجي
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/01/world/europe/ap-eu-france-sexual-violence.html