By David Futrelle
On Wednesday, a Malaysian member of parliament proposed a new kind of “Sexual Harassment Act” to help protect men from being “seduced” into raping or otherwise molesting women and girls wearing too-sexy clothes.
“I propose to the minister that we create a ‘sexual harassment act’ to protect men against the demeanor, words and clothing of women,”
Mohamad Imran Abd Hamid told the Malaysian parliament.
which can cause them to be seduced to a point where they commit acts such as incest, rape, molestation, pornography (sic) and others,
Such a law, he said, would ensure that “the men in this country are safe, and the country is peaceful.”
The proposal didn’t go over well, with Mohd Imran’s own party, the ruling Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), rejecting it outright. And so, on Thursday, Mohd Imran apologized for hurting “the feelings of many women and also men, who feel insulted” and retracted his proposal.
Unfortunately the central assumption behind his proposal — that women are “asking for it” if they behave in certain ways or wear certain clothes — is shared by innumerable men (and quite a few women) around the world.
It’s especially widespread among men of the manosphere, who regularly rail against the alleged seductive power of women wearing yoga pants or short shorts as well as outfits that show a bit of shoulder. (Or even just arm.) Men’s Rights granddaddy Warren Farrell has been warning men for decades about the alleged “miniskirt power” and “cleavage power” of young women.
Meanwhile, our old pal enemy Roosh V, the rapey-pickup-guru-turned-raging-fundamentalist-Christian took to Twitter yesterday to warn against another deadly seductive threat to men: women wearing pants.
Stay safe, men! Emulate the folks in Bird Box and wear a blindfold at all times every time you leave the house.
H/T — to Alan Robertshaw for the story and @Zemyla for the Roosh tweet
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
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When you think about it, pants on women and skirts on men seem to be more in line with anatomy.
And bicycles- as Gallagher once said, “does it make sense to you that the ones with the balls get the bar?”
Because of the gendering of pants vs skirts, in fact. The low bar is made so that you can ride a bike in a skirt and step through the bar to mount, thus not flashing your undies.
“If life made sense, men would ride sidesaddle”.
It’s fascinating, the belief that harassment can be passive. That just by existing within a man’s field of sight, women are violating them in a way that is the equivalent of rape. They never seem to acknowledge their role in actively fantasizing about the woman, who is likely to be completely unaware of their reaction to her.
The difference is that real harassers are very aware of what they’re doing.
@Moggie
Hammer pants are also nofap pants, because u can’t touch this.
You know, Jesus talked about men who couldn’t control their urges and were saying that the women were tempting them into sin based on how hot they were.
Matthew 5:29:
This comment is more about preserving gender norms Roosh V is comfortable with, skirts show more skin than pants unless they are almost to the floor plus they are much easier to lift up so if a Man can’t control himself…
Heck who is he kidding if a skirt causes you to lose control you should not be out on the street.
Its ok to be tempted but removing all temptation won’t remove the desire to be tempted, you have to show some control of yourself as an example to others.
Asking others to control themselves because you can’t control yourself is silly.
@Buttercup:
Stop!
My partner’s tight fitting cargo pants very much emphasised his thighs and rear. They recently and irretrievably bit the dust.
I bought him a replacement pair, and the cut didn’t fully sexualise his body.
I’m still shopping.
Confession time:
I did, in fact, once lose control at the sight of attractively dressed women. I lost control of my car.
During college, I was leaving campus when I passed by three Japanese exchange students who were wearing miniskirts. I was sufficiently Distracted By The Sexy that one of my wheels went up onto the curb, and I barely stopped in time to avoid colliding with a lamp post.
The “best” part, of course, was that the young women not only noticed, but clearly realized exactly why that white doofus had nearly wrecked his car, as they were looking at me and laughing (with one hand in front of the mouth, as many young Japanese women do).
I’m sure this is a much funnier story for them to tell than it is for me. In my defense, 20-year-old me was a hormonal idiot.
But the only conclusion I reached from this was “holy crap, I am a hormonal idiot,” not “evil women are causing traffic accidents by wearing miniskirts!” because even then I wasn’t that much of an idiot.
It’s not that women’s pants are inherently more body-emphasizing than men’s pants. It’s that women’s bodies are considered inherently more sexual than men’s bodies. Patriarchs don’t care if you can see the shape of a man’s butt through his pants, because it’s just a butt. A woman’s butt, though? That’s SEX on display, how indecent!
@Nequam
Good Gosh, Junji Ito makes everything horrifying.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Piggies really are the best. They have very distinct personalities, too.
Roosh and people like him just need to go to jail for LIFE. No more gender policing and no more misogyny!
@rv97
Roosh should be in jail right now. He has raped at least 1 woman (and likely more) and yet, like 99.4% of rapists, will never even face trial.
@Naglfar
I hate this world. Only misogynist social conservatives and corporate scum seem to have any power in it.
Straight men must be allowed to be out of control.
Everyone else must not be allowed to be out of control.
Everyone else is also tasked with not letting straight men be out of control, but punished for being successful, because it prevents them from being out of control. And also punished for failing to do so, and double punished for trying and failing.
Such is patriarchy.
@rv97: Don’t forget white supremacists. 🙁
@Allandrel:
That’s from a recent Junji Ito manga I’ve seen excerpts from, and wouldn’t mind finding a copy of, which is just autobiographical domestic comedy about Ito, his fiancee Ako, and their cats, and nothing horrifying ever actually happens, but you keep expecting it to, because of his drawing style.
@Moon Custafer
What a nice skull cat!
Can I take some time to discuss some unrelate4d things here? I am concerned about how Malaysia, like possibly many other Muslim-majority countries, have a very negative attitude towards the LGBT community and gender non-conformity. Homosexual acts are illegal, as is probably “men trying to pass themselves as women”. Apparently, this and their supposed death for their acts is all outlined in the Qur’an and is to be strictly adhered to as everything else on it. This gives me concern about the plight of LGBT individuals who consider themselves Muslims or LGBT individuals worldwide. Some also consider leaving Islam. I feel like that the only Muslims (and anyone who considers themselves religious for that matter) who are LGBT and feminist positive or at least tolerant mostly live in the west.
I am quite passionate about this because it can target lesbians and anyone born female too, even though it’s generally been used against gay men and MtF transgender individuals (generally, those assigned male at birth). I do genuinely think that lesbians are better than straight women because I feel like that lesbians’ romantic and/or sexual inclination towards women protects them from being trapped in abusive relationships, considering how men tend to be rather abusive in my opinion. Pressure to conform to gender norms is also why I hate the mainstream religions and their institutions and why I hate society and the world as a whole.
@rv97
Islamophobia is not prettier when it takes the form of concern trolling.
@Dalillama
I don’t know. I do feel like that religion is playing a role in promoting homophobia, transphobia and gender policing even among cisgender individuals, although largely because of references of Lot and Leviticus.
I wouldn’t say that this issue is exclusive to Islam – I have beef with Orthodox Christianity and the Catholic Church too on this, even if their laws are different. I would genuinely appreciate it if you could elaborate as to the harms Islamophobia causes even if no one dies from it.
This is a dangerous way of thinking and it traps lesbians into abusive relationships. It makes people diminish the pain that lesbian in abusive relationships go through. It protects them from nothing as abusers come in both genders. This is a horrible thought to have and it hurts people. I advise you to chase your way of thinking. Gay women rape other women (melanie Martinez) and get away with it. Gay women kill their partners (May Kieu) and you are erasing them with you bias.
@Lainy
For technical reasons, people would discourage you from doing quotes like that on this website.
Unfortunately, I admit this is something that’s gonna be hard for me to deal with. I feel like I’m doing this almost out of spite with the current status quo, which only benefits rich, white, religious (those who subscribe to repressive doctrines in regards to gender, sexuality and how one should carry out their lives) and heterosexual able-bodied men.
@rv97
What the hell are you on about? Blockquotes are the preferred way of quoting things on this site. Something you’ve been told repeatedly, IIRC.
What?
@Lainy
I will admit that I’m doing this out of spite with the current status quo, in a world that wants women to essentially be in house arrest to serve their husbands and children first (whether they like it or not, under doctrines established ) and that benefits only rich white men who are able-bodied, heterosexual and cisgender.