Shanghai Metro's warning to women: 'Sexy clothing may provoke sexual harassment'

GlobalPost

Women in China have accused Shanghai Metro of sexism, after the transport company warned female passengers that wearing sexy clothing could provoke sexual harassment – and urged them to "have self-respect," the South China Morning Post reported.

Shanghai Metro made the comments in a post on the Twitter-like micro-blogging site Sina Weibo, which was accompanied by a photo of a woman on a subway platform wearing a sheer dress with opaque black undergarments.

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Alongside the picture was this comment: "Dressing like that, it would be unusual for a lady not be harassed. There can be perverts on the subway and it's hard to get rid of them. Please have self respect, ladies."

The post incited a flurry of some 6,000 responses – many agreeing that women should dress conservatively over the summer to avoid unwanted public attention – and others arguing women should be free to dress as they choose.

The Shanghaiist website and Asia News Network published several of the comments. One user, wrote: "What I wear is my basic right, it does not deny the rights of others," while another said: "According to this logic, all men can harass women in swimming pools.”

On Sunday, two women dressed in black robes and masks staged a protest on the Shanghai Metro line 2, waving boards that read: "I can be sexy, but you can not harass," and "yes to cool dress, no to dirty man."

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Despite the offense caused by the Shanghai Metro blog post, Sina Weibo online poll found that almost 70 percent of respondents agreed women should dress more conservatively on the subway, the South China Morning Post reported.

Shanghai University sociology professor Gu Jun told the paper that some men feel threatened by sexily dressed women because the manner in which they dress was an “expansion of women's rights in public.”

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