The women’s majlis: Blame culture of sexual harassment has to stop

A video has gone viral showing the sexual harassment of two young women walking in a park in Jeddah. The one-minute video shows them being followed by some men who are yelling, laughing and taking their pictures. The men surround the women, making it impossible for them to get past and forcing a confrontation. Then it ends.

One of the men has been arrested, and with huge social pressure, hopefully justice will be served and the men will face an appropriate punishment. I was worried for the women, wondering what was going through their minds and how scared they must have been. What I found more disturbing is there are no laws against sexual harassment in Saudi Arabia. The argument being if women dress according to Islamic teachings, and behave in a demure, respectful manner when in public, no one will bother them.

Coming from a conservative background, I dress according to Islamic teachings. However, I don’t believe that my abaya and shayla will protect me from sexual harassment, just like I don’t believe women revealing their hair or parts of their body are asking to be harassed. But this isn’t how I was brought up. My mother would always say girls and women who wear revealing clothes are asking to be harassed; the men who pursue them are helpless, because men are weak in front of beautiful women. In school, my Islamic teachers always asked us to keep our shaylas on, even though it was a girls’ school with no males in sight. Some Islamic scholars give similar messages.

I held these beliefs as absolutes, hearing them repeatedly throughout my life. I really believed that if I covered myself, by wearing an abaya and a shayla, I’d be safe and men would respect me and leave me alone. What I didn’t give much thought to is what this belief suggests about the men who commit these vile acts; how it makes them seemingly innocent and with no control over their behaviour. Reading about rape challenges these beliefs, from horrendous incidents in India to almost epidemic sexual harassment in Egypt – and now this video. This incident hits too close to home; Saudis are our neighbours. These women were dressed very similarly to how I dress, walking in a park in the middle of the day. The only thing they weren’t covering were their eyes.

You come to realise that this rhetoric is only of benefit to the perpetrators, who realise that society will excuse them for their behaviour and place the blame on the victims. It’s dangerous to teach young women and men that the responsibility of the morality of a society lies solely on the shoulders of women. If we want to live in a safer world, we need a real understanding of sexual harassment and the real victims. We need solid laws that will make sexual predators think twice before committing their crimes.

Fawzia Abdul Rahman works for the Abu Dhabi Government.

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