Woman of the Street

Posted on by

The video below is a trailer for a Belgian documentary about sexual harassment on the streets of Brussels. No one should be surprised at the culturally-enriched aspects of the experiences this woman had to endure.

Many thanks to Michael Laudahn for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:



Transcript:

0:06   Two years ago I moved to Brussels.
0:10   They say about big cities that people no longer talk with each other in the streets.
0:16   But this was not quite so.
0:21  
0:54   [male suggestion inaudible]
0:55   (F) [No] Thank you.
0:56   (M) Are you all right?
0:57   (F) Pardon?
0:58   (M) Are you all right?
0:59   (F) I’m all right.
1:00   (M) Are you heading for lunch?
1:01   (F) Yes.
1:02   [inaudible, probably suggestion to accompany her]
1:03   (F) No, thank you.
1:04   [inaudible, another suggestion]
1:05   (F) No, thank you.
1:06   (M) Whyyy? [probably more which can’t be heard]
1:08   (F) Huh – yes, a little. This is molesting, in fact.
1:10   (M) Where are you from?
1:12   (F) I’m from Brussels, but this is molesting.
1:14   (F) Pardon?
1:15   (F) No phone, no.
1:16   (M) How could we be together?
1:18   (F) No thank you.
1:19   [another proposal to go to his home and have coffee, as far as I can hear]
1:23   (F) Don’t you understand? I don’t want to.
1:26   etc [denigrating sounds, remarks]
1:32   (Tramp)
1:34   (Whore)

3 thoughts on “Woman of the Street”

  1. I watched a documentary years ago now. The journalist Simon Dring drove all the way to India (re-creating the “hippie trail”)

    When he was in Islamic countries the women were harassed no end. It was really appalling. They couldn’t walk down the street – one girl had to run to escape a possible rape situation.

    The men were unapologetic. Dring interviewed a group of them as they sat smoking outside a shop. They saw Western woman as pieces of meat to use sexually – in the parlance of so-called feminism, as sexual objects – and that was all there was about it.

    Now they’re here.

    And their behaviour is not a surprise.

  2. Pretty woman, walking down the street …

    Whore, tramp, slut …

    It’s a cultural thing.

Comments are closed.