Seems reasonable when the evidence is clear. This is too common. People should be able to walk around their own neighborhood and feel comfortable and safe. Awaiting replies from the free speech brigade to explain again why taking a reasonable small step to protect people is the end of the world.
Now let's get this down to earth. You're walking outside, it's dark, you get catcalled by a passerby. What's next? Do you pull out your phone and call the police? Try and take a picture of the person catcalling you? Where's your evidence? By the time you're done reaching for your pocket, that other person is long gone. That is to say, we now have a new law which is incredibly difficult to enforce, so what's the point exactly?
Why don't we tackle problematic social phenomena through education instead?
I don't think the video depicts any need for a new law.
Harassment already has laws. But I think what happened in the video was clearly a step up from that, and would fall under criminal assault.
Not sure what the woman in the video expects to get done by pushing for more change. Everybody at that restaurant stopped eating. A man in a white shirt grabs a chair to defend the woman. I counted at least 3-4 ready to jump in after him. All pedestrians stopped. There was more than enough evidence to perform a citizen's arrest (assuming that's legal in France?)
To me this is an indication that the current laws are working fine. They may not be heaven, but they are effective at curbing any immediate danger as best can be afforded without treading on other public freedoms (i.e. the freedom to express oneself!)
I head stories of women being harassed daily on the same route to and from work. It's probably being done by the same guys. If the police really wanted to, of course they could stop this..just like sexual harassment in the workplace barely ever happens anymore.
I know women that have to endure that almost every day, but the police can't do anything about that. The police can't be everywhere and even if they would there is not much they can do if people approach women by saying something like "hey beautiful woman".
Please don't wade into flamewar right off the bat, especially when a topic is inflammatory. We're trying for a bit better here than the usual internet sludge.
The article seems to suggest that this only bans street harassment of women.
>[now] the laws of the French republic forbid insulting, intimidating, threatening and following women in public spaces.
I don't read French; I'd be interested to know if the law is gender-specific or not, and to know how they define harassment. Laws that ban harassment generally require a pattern of behavior. Catcalling is often a first--and only--contact.
Is any contact that the target decides is unwelcome harassment? If you greet someone and smile, and they interpret your greeting or your smile as sinister, does this law make you a criminal?
> The new law also allows for fines of 90-750 euros ($105-$876) for gender-based harassment on streets and public transportation. It bans sexual or sexist comments and behavior that is degrading, humiliating, intimidating hostile or offensive.
Not the least because being offended is a blank check for anyone to define their own red line and impose them on others. And some people seem hyper sensitive...
What makes you say that? It would obviously have to seem offensive to the judge, not just to the purported victim. Same as for the other adjectives, like "intimidating", "sexual" etc. I don't see why "offensive" is any more inherently subjective than those.
Is a carricature of Muhammad offensive? Cartoonist have been making carricatures of God and Jesus for years, but most newspapers didn’t dare to publish the Muhammad cartoons. Apparently some people get offended when being called either male or female, even though these two categories are bioligically correct. Etc. Anyone can make up their own definition of what is offensive to them, and many do not hesitate. You seem to treat being offended as if it was an absolute objective thing. And I would certainly not use the word “victim” to refer to someone attemting to limit someone else’ speech on the pretext of having been offended.
My point was anyone can make their own definition of pretty much any word, and still, we have a functioning legal system. Very different from what you've read in my comment.
But I think there's some things we know we can assume are offensive. And there's other things that a person can say "stop it, that's offensive". And that creates an obligation on you under the general principles of good manners.
Now you might not have realised it's offensive. You might disagree - you think it's fun, and legitimately believe most people think it's fun too. But once you've been told to stop, it's pretty clear. It's perfectly okay to be corrected and to learn. And it's normal to behave different with different people.
I disagree. It is a very subjective thing. Now you call someone an “asshole”, anyone would be offended. You claim that men tend to be physically stronger than women, a woman tells you “I am offended, you are somehow implying that women are inferior to men, this is offensive to me”. Do you apologise? I think it’s reasonably factual statement. I don’t think everyone should have the right to make up their own red line in term of what is offensive and can be said.
And in this world of twitter lynching, feminist and political correctness mititantism, this is a blank check that you can bet will be cashed in.
If someone is screaming "you claim that men tend to be physically stronger than women" over and over again while you walk alone along a road and you tell them to leave you alone but they keep doing it louder and closer to you than before, deliberatly targeting you, does it matter if it's factually accurate?
This is a fine. It needs a cop thinking a reasonable person would find something offensive to inconvenience you and a judge agreeing for it to be applied.
Have you been to Paris as a reasonably attractive woman or with same? I have done the latter, and that experience taught me why this law is required. Paris is probably the least civilised European capital city I've visited for this type of behaviour though admittedly Brussels isn't far behind. I've never seen this type of thing in London.
"Nearly half of young women in London were sexually harassed in public last year, with many forced to endure unwanted male attention on buses and trains, a new study shows."
Interesting then, as when I was in Paris it seemed catcalling happened even when I was accompanying my girlfriend, whereas I never had the same happen elsewhere. Perhaps the behaviour when a male partner is present is different.
I think this is a clear case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. The cases you are highlighting are important and deserve discussion. However, if we were to wait for the perfect solution, we may never start. This I think gets started with a significantly observed subproblem.
Not really sure what you are going for here. But, I kinda read this as downplaying the harrasment that women face. I'd assume thats not what you are trying to say, so, I'd suggest clarifying your comment.
There are some great documentaries that show how unpleasant it can be as a woman to walk through a city. It's awful.
How do we go about remedying this situation without making criminals out of anyone who has a spur-of-the-moment interaction with a stranger a potential criminal? I think that's an important question, and I wonder how (if?) this French law addresses it.
if you ask directions from someone no one will put you in jail. if you're yelling sexual or harassing shit to someone who's walking by you then it's a problem. Where is the grey area?
That’s why we have courts and flexibility in legal systems.
I’d argue that it’s impossible to build an objective description of what actions constitute harassment. Most interactions are going to clearly fall on one side or the other. The ones that don’t, we’ll figure out.
France doesn't have a purely jurisprudential system. Jurors have lots of leeway in passing judgements that aren't tightly bound by previous judgements.
I'm pretty sure your example be rightly called as non-harassing ( unless you're not sharing additional context)
You made the point once, and it was marginal to begin with. Now by repeating it several times, you're derailing this thread. Please stop.
It was marginal to begin with because of the following site guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That applies to stories as well as comments.
Since there's no reason to assume that the colloquial use of the English word "offensive" is the same as whatever legal term the French law invokes, the point is vapid and basically concern trolling. I think we can expect better from an HN discussion. Applying the site guideline I just quoted, one can foster a higher-quality discussion by assuming that the law writers are not completely stupid.
I think people who can't understand the object difference should not then yell stuff to strangers on the street. I've managed to live 34 years without accidentally harassing anyone (that I know of). People who think they are going to have a problem with that should not yell stuff to strangers..at least not in france.
Well let's say you're authentically ignorant of the fact that bringing sex up with strangers is usually considered offensive.
The first you learn of it is when the cops come up and interview you.
You indicate ignorance and also that you think the woman was a shit for dobbing you in.
You indicate ignorance and also deep remorse - you're genuinely hurt that you harassed this woman and potentially several others.
You indicate ignorance and feign deep remorse - you actually think the woman was a shit. You bring up sex with strangers again and the police see that you have form.
There's a difference in what's going to happen in these cases. The fact that the police think it's worth investigating a report of a crime doesn't mean they'll react in the same manner to different circumstances.
> without accidentally harassing anyone (that I know of)
Wasn't this always the biggest problem: People not knowing. I also didn't get any problems and I'm close to your age - but I listened to a lot of stories from my wife in which people were doing things that may be considered offensive or even harassment, and without knowing.
No the biggest problem is men actively harrasing women because they can easily get away with it. Ask any woman you know about their experiences some time.
Yeah, I updated my comment before seeing yours, and it now touches that subject as well. She is usually sure that the offending person doesn't know what they are doing.
If you are accidentaly doing something wrong and you find out you will hopefully apologise and change your behavior.
All the big metoo cases, for example, are not people who didn't know. They are people who were activly predatory over many years. The accidents aren't what are being targeted here. It's mostly men activley and knowingly abusing the fact that they can get away with it.
That's the key to your comment. You cannot ever know for certain if your conduct offends someone. Some people get offended if you look at them the "wrong" way. I don't think you should be fined for accidentally offending someone.
The article also includes fines for behavior that is "offensive" -- and you've certainly offended plenty of people in those 34 years, often without ever realizing it. There's a more general problem here as well. What's the difference between porn and art? I mean I'm sure if I show you two things you could probably tell me which is which. But when you try to encode this into law it is incredibly difficult. In more puritanical times various states tried to effect bans on "obscenity" however they struggled to avoid encompassing things that were not "obscene."
This is one of the biggest reasons that restrictions on speech, let alone ones that seem to be so vague, are so very dangerous. They can be used, and abused, to great effect whereas their net positive effect is perhaps harder to gauge. In the US we do not have many laws that are so open to social interpretation, but with those that we do, we already see regular lawsuits well outside the spirit of the law that individuals hope to win by force of legal and persuasive prowess alone. Even if France might have a more mature legal culture, who's to say such things will not change?
This is why I think when looking at laws, we should not see things through the most positive and optimistic lens, but through the most critical and cynical lens. The reason is because that lowest common denominator is shown, time and again, to end up being what the law will be disproportionately used for.
Well, if you read some of the replies to my comment, there is one that reality argues that greeting a women is harassment. I never thought it is, so I guess I should stop talking to people in public?
Not to an extent that would satisfy you if you are looking to play harasser's advocate. Any concrete case is for the courts to decide.
But, roughly: If you would greet anyone in the same situation (man, woman, child, beautiful or ugly, old or young), then you can greet the person. France has not outlawed greeting your colleagues in the office.
On the other hand, if you would not greet everyone in the same situation, you are a harasser. You do not greet random people in the Paris métro. Thus, if you greet an attractive woman in the Paris métro... well, I don't know if you are technically a harasser under this law, but just don't do it. It's not hard, you know how to do it with other people.
> Thus, if you greet an attractive woman in the Paris métro... well, I don't know if you are technically a harasser under this law, but just don't do it. It's not hard, you know how to do it with other people.
So you can't ask people you don't know out on a date? That's harassment now?
Context is key. In a bar, it might be OK. (This is not a blank cheque I'm giving you, you still need to think about a lot of things!) In the métro, I'd say yes, in almost all cases it would be unwanted. Unwanted forced interactions with strangers are harassment.
Yes, it's sad that you may lose the love of your life this way. It's sadder that many women lose their actual lives over this kind of thing.
Like the other poster said, context is key. Strike up a conversation with a person you don't know, enjoy it, and want to talk to them more? Ask away. And bars and things might be appropriate so long as you quit if they say no.
The main thing with the "random person you've never spoken to" is this: It might be something you do from time to time. It might be something she deals with once or twice a week - or daily. You might be respectful and asking, but many others aren't. If you haven't even had a brief conversation, she likely knows it is all based on looks and absolutely nothing about her personality.
You won't personally be harassing her, no. But overlooking this stuff is being ignorant of how she might be treated on a daily basis and it can make you part of the problem, depending on the context of the situation. It isn't like it is hard to simply move on: You likely do this with people that aren't prospective dates in your eyes.
I dunno about you, but I actually enjoy being able to speak to strangers at the metro without getting labelled a harasser. I'd be happy to speak with any of those demographics that you mentioned during a trip. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't engage with a young child, outside of smiling at them, because I'd be worried of being labelled a sex offender of some sort, despite the fact that I would never even come close to considering doing something like that. I'm a male, so I do enjoy engaging with attractive women, but I don't limit my interactions to them. Now it turns out I can only engage with anyone EXCEPT women? Do you really fail to see how that could also be harmful to women? Have you really never made a new friend while on a train?
I've seen a lot of negative news about France lately, that it's getting to the point that I might never see myself visting there, despite knowing it would probably have lot to offer in terms of experiences. Where do you draw the line? I think I'm a fairly reasonable individual, and if I speak with someone I'll cut it short if they seem uncomfortable... But it seems pretty crazy that you could have someone call the cops on you just for striking up a conversation.
If you greet them with similar intros, especially with non-sexual topics, great. Take cues when the chatter isn't welcome and stop? Great. Things like this and you are safe. Bonus points if you apologise.
Seriously, cat-calling is a different beast entirely. nothing like walking down the street to pass a group of men who exclaim very loudly, "Well, she was ugly in front but look at that ass!"
I had a customer literally drool forget his sentences every time he saw me. He'd follow me around the store and talk to me. Other folks would step in. He left me a card - at work! - telling me he'd stop, but also exclaiming how sexy I was and how much he adored me. I had asked him to stop. He had noticed I disappeared when he came into the store. He finally did stop, but it took months of discomfort.
I had a boss that would "accidentally" brush up against my breasts or ass. Small place with no recourse, and I had to quit.
There is a lot of area between these two, and I think it should be quite obvious that they are wrong, but it happens nonetheless. There is a huge difference between a nice chat or nicely asking someone out in a way that respects them and this sort of stuff. Save for the one dude that probably thought I was a prostitute, folks in Amsterdam treated me better (I was there for a fun weekend alone, spouse stayed home) - including the dude that propositioned me after chatting in the coffee shop. He was really respectful and simply asked. I talk to random people on planes and other places willingly. Most conversation is fine so long as the other person is reasonable, and halts when I ask the conversation to stop.
In Frankfurt (Germany) some random, well-dressed woman approached my wife on the street (when I was just next to her, maybe I should stand even more close to her haha), took her hand, and told her that she is beautiful and she'd like to get her a drink. My wife laughed and jokingly told her that it was too late, while showing her ring. Meanwhile I was grinning like a child. She said she was sorry to bother us, and walked away.
I wonder how we would react if the person were a man, and weren't that presentable.
It's very, very hard to say when it becomes offending/harassment. There being clear cases like the linked video in the article, doesn't change this.
I'm not saying that that guy in the video should get away with it just because we keep bike-shedding about where the line is, but it is something we need to think about as well.
The question doesn't come up if you just don't walk up to random strangers on the street and make comments.
Sure, sometimes it might work out fine for both parties. In almost all cases it doesn't. If that woman feared retribution due to harassment laws, and she wouldn't have approached your wife, then the world now would be poorer by one anecdote, but at the same time much safer and more welcoming to billions of women. It's not a hard choice at all.
That's not a defence against another person behaving questionably.
Anyway it's generally understood that there's differences in the appropriate behavior of men and women. For instance, it's okay for me to come up and piss next to a guy who's pissing but probably not okay for me to come up and piss next to a woman who's pissing.
So even if her behavior was accepted as reasonable however odd it was, it's not proof that every guy doing that would also be accepted as reasonable.
You're not responsible for the behavior of other people, but you do have to take into account other people's behavior (to the extent it's known to you) and your own past behavior, when you're deciding how you should interact with other people.
These aren't new ideas. They're the basic principles of manners that have always been part of our society. Criticise pushing them into law as much as you want: but don't act like they're coming out of nowhere and impossible to comply with or enforce.
Right. OP describing a situation where everyone was happy isn't really a good starting point for a discussion of harrasment. There are many of examples of real clear cases (see video in article) why not start the discussion there rather than with a situation he imagined might happen.
It sounds, though, as if this stranger approached politely and respectfully and didn’t press the issue when you indicated lack of interest. A man who did the same would probably not be harassing.
This law is clearly not targeting any potential romantic interaction between strangers on the street. “You’re attractive” can be harassment in a workplace setting (where power dynamics and standards of professionalism are different) without being harassment in a different setting.
This law is targeting catcalling and men who will follow a woman down the street. These behaviors are power plays and are intimidating in a way that a polite and respectful approach is not.
You may never have been the target of such behaviors, but if she travels frequently on foot, your wife almost certainly has been, and can likely tell you just how awful it is to be the target of them - ranging from disempowering to mortifying to terrifying.
I think the issue is the idea that we should continue to carve out exemptions to what most would consider a basic human right (free speech) because of people’s feelings.
Are you entitled to feeling safe? Yes, without infringing on the rights of others. Are you entitled to not being offended? No, that is not a right. You cannot legislate civility and decency in a free society. You cannot legislate emotional well being and fortitude.
Disclaimer: American, supporter of unrestricted free speech
If someone is following you down the street and shouting sexual comments at you the whole way, even after you let them know that you want them to leave you alone, is the person receiving the comments just being offended? If this person does this every time a person passes how should they be dealt with? Genuine question for someone coming from your POV. This kind of stuff happens daily.
I tend to agree with "your side" and it wouldn't suprise me a bit if this gets abused but there are people who will just turn it up a notch if you ignore them.
The problem I see here is that any law to help someone to feel safe is an infringement on someone elses's freedom. We have laws against murder for example, that obviously infringe people's freedom, but we way it up and decide it's definitely better to have such laws. The "unrestricted free speech" arguement tends to have so many exceptions "calling fire" etc. that I feel you can't really argue against this.
Hi, American here, supporter of (almost) unrestricted free speech (more the free exchange of ideas than speech itself).
However I do not support unrestricted harassment. I'm a guy. I have a dick between my legs. I think it's easy to forget that if you DON'T have a dick between your legs, you often times are verbally abused, followed, and otherwise harassed, even if you're pre-pubescent.
It's all fine and dandy to say "If I don't support someone's speech, I'll just ignore it!" until a person twice your size is following you down a dark street at night talking about the sexual things they want to do to your body.
Someone talking about a political opinion making me feel "unsafe" is a stretch, and I wish people wouldn't confuse exchange of ideas with safety. However, someone following me around harassing me and verbally sexually abusing me isn't free fucking speech. It's harassment.
Granted, I don't know what this law will do about it, because I'm assuming harassment is illegal already in France, but I just wanted to point out that the speech you are arguing in defense of is not an exchange of ideas, it's threatening and bordering on sexual violence. I also want to point out that unless it has happened to you personally, it's easy to say things like "just ignore it."
The issue is when you say “almost” unrestricted free speech. Someone’s going to have to make the call what the line is. In the US, that’s already been decided thankfully (imminent harm, not “harrasment”). France, I think, will end up walking this back depending on the political repercussions.
It’s enjoyable to get other perspectives, but at the end of they day, I support candidates and judicial nominees who maintain rights as freedoms as unrestricted as possible (speech, firearms ownership, etc). Because you never know who is going to be in power next, and how they will weaponize the exceptions to fundamental rights.
> Someone talking about a political opinion making me feel "unsafe" is a stretch... the speech you are arguing in defense of is not an exchange of ideas, it's threatening and bordering on sexual violence.
People don't follow people through streets decrying "oh baby do you know about the 1st amendment". This isn't a big problem.
Anyone making this about political speech is not arguing the actual issue of harrasment. Derailing the conversation to discuss some imagined "what if" scenario that isn't real.
If these laws were used to stop legitimate protest then that would be a problem but that isn't even close to happening in France where people protest as a national past time.
> It's all fine and dandy to say "If I don't support someone's speech, I'll just ignore it!" until a person twice your size is following you down a dark street at night talking about the sexual things they want to do to your body.
So a person twice your size following you down a dark street at night not saying anything is OK?!
It's a slippery slope... One could argue that catcalling is also not herassment then. After all it's just a way to tell women that you find them pretty, right? Isn't a greet and a smile something similiar, although less obvious?
I don't read French as well, but am also interested if it's gender specific, but I'm guessing it's not - it's probably because women get harassed a lot more than men on the streets.
I also wonder if this would be something that cities in the US like San Francisco would adopt. Not just harassment against women but just harassment in general. I do get harassed once in a while while walking in SF, but my wife definitely experiences a lot more of the catcalling and harassment than me. It just makes it uneasy to walk around in SF, day or night, when it's such a beautiful city.
I didn’t see anything gender-specific in this law. Only the advertising about the law is gendered.
Also, as far as I’ve understood, for the « long, sustained look », it has to be witnessed by a policeman directly. Therefore I don’t believe we can have many fines for this category. They said they’ll start the fines in September.
Another specific thing to know about France is, police doesn’t act. They might witness a skin-head peeing on the Hotel de Ville de Lyon, they won’t act. I’ve also never seen two people fighting on a street where cops would intervene, leave alone come (I should know, I get assaulted once a year, make a point of calling the cops, never seen them, even after the 4th call. I had to write the city mayor to make them act against a drug dealer who was doing parties in my street). They have sirens in all the time, but it’s just on the way back to the station for lunch time and at 5.30pm.
So, if one girl succeeds in having the fine applied, it’s already unfair.
>Is any contact that the target decides is unwelcome harassment? If you greet someone and smile, and they interpret your greeting or your smile as sinister, does this law make you a criminal?
I remember that point being a main part of the debate a few months back, how exactly do you draw the limit? It's different for each women, some of them will enjoy a stranger smiling at them, some others will immediately call it harassment.
Also do you need witnesses? A police officier to witness the harassment? Or just the word of the plaintiff?
I'm at work and I can't dive into the legislation right now, but I doubt they managed to precisely define what constitutes harassment. The secretary for gender equality has been... disappointing, to say the least.
These kind of laws makes approaching people with a sexual interest to perhaps be considered as sexual harassment. That's why I have stopped approaching women, it's not worth the risk. When it's popular to write peoples names publicly on twitter without any evidence for example (metoo), then you know it has gone way to far.
The truth is if people find you attractive, the chance is much lower that they will consider it harassment (even if it may be) and just let it slide. I am sure that these laws will just backfire on the very people it were designed to protect.
There are certain settings where this is more appropriate: bars, clubs, social events. The streets - less so. No one will sue you if you politely start a conversation with a woman in a bar, that's not what this is about.
I understand that, but what I am saying is that it is what is going to be about as well. Why is it even common to think that is automatically harassment because you are starting a conversation with a woman in a street or grocery store?
Generally, yelling things to women from a few meters is not starting a conversation.
I wouldn't say it's automatically harassment to approach women in public areas but you should be very careful about how you are doing that and be ever more polite. Most women want to get from point A to point B and not be picked up.
I didn't say anything about any yelling. I don't know about you, but I don't expect to pick up the women I talk to even if I start the conversation out of a sexual interest.
> These kind of laws makes approaching people with a sexual interest to perhaps be considered as sexual harassment. That's why I have stopped approaching women, it's not worth the risk.
If you've been approaching complete strangers in the street with sexual interest, there's no "perhaps" about it. That's sexual harassment and always has been.
No it hasn't always been, it is a very, very recent reasoning. Talking to complete strangers is fun and I am always friendly. I don't necessarily do it in the street but it has happened.
Talking to strangers is fine under the right circumstances. (Maybe a bit weird if it's literally in the street, which is what the French law covers.) You're the one who specifically said "approaching people with a sexual interest." That's a far cry from simply "talking."
We already had law against harassment. They are just very hard to enforce.
This law is mainly a PR move. It is a very common thing in France to pass law that will almost never be used because they are impossible to enforce. They only purpose is for the gov to say "look, we did something !".
You mean in a country where police officers have gotten convicted for using violence against women for not going out with them ? Also officers have gotten convicted for intercepting phone calls of ex-lovers ? And, given the convictions, how many such officers got away with doing that ? Hundreds ? Thousands ?
That's the government that's supposed to change that normative behavior. Or at least, that's the part of the government that actually interacts with the majority and enforces the laws.
This law is just another racist way to fine and punish POC. Anyone who has been to paris knows the primary cat-callers are not white. I thought Le Pen lost the election?
You’ll notice they only have white people on their ads « Fixer du regard, c’est harceler » (=« Fixate/looking into the eyes for more than 7 seconds is harassing »).
I don’t think this law will be enforced against « racailles » (=gang members). I think only white people will get fined. « Racailles » get away with drug dealing and beating up Asians, who would think they’d get —finally— be fined with harassment. Nap, won’t happen.
A lot of commenters here obviously have not witnessed this or been a target.
In pedestrian areas, sometimes the offender will walk with their target for a block or more, saying rude things, directly asking for a f++k, etc.
And believe it or not, sometimes a driver of a car will slow to the speed of the pedestrian and one or more people in the car will harass the pedestrian in verbal sexual ways.
Even if a law is not easily enforcible, at least if a cop happens to witness this they can step in and fine the offender. That just might start to have an impact on the problem.
It's a real nasty situation, particularly for women, especially when they are walking alone (even in the middle of the day). Some of the offenders have no sense of civility.
How could you defend those accused of this if they were innocent, though?
Someone might quite literally just want to start talking to someone without having any way of knowing where someone's head is at.
I'm thinking particularly of more gray areas. Like outside of a nightclub. Or with a women who is just trying to cause trouble by baiting men (which is a REAL possible outcome of instituting oppressive laws like this!)
Laws have to be clear about what is acceptable behavior and what isn't, and cannot be subject to interpretation.
We may as well just ban all flirting between men and women if that's where this is headed, because this looks like another insanely evil marxist law designed to subvert our natural ways of dealing with social provocations, that mother nature has enshrined us with, and probably leading to more social imbalances than those even posed by original problem!
I think the elephant in the room here is that this behaviour is probably not coming mainly from resident French, but rather, being kind, those that France needs to work harder to introduce to common standards of behaviour in France. An extreme leftist position might argue this law is an evil right wing law that hampers different cultures that are equally as valid as mainstream French culture.
The reason you are being downvoted is that it is also not ok to harass women outside of a nightclub.. or in a nightclub.. or anywhere fucking else.
If they are baiting, well perhaps this a pathological response to constant lifelong harassment. Perhaps not being harassed for sex from the time they are pre-pubescent will actually change the dynamic. If people get off on the give and take of sexually threatening roleplay in a public setting, perhaps they need to check themselves before worrying if that 'right' will be taken away.
Law definitely does not have to be clear (show me a law that is black and white). Once again, the important thing to remember here, and the issue men seem to have a problem with, is that this kind of change does indeed shift the power dynamic. Suck it up, sweetheart!
Oh please stop it with the ridiculous baiting argument, especially such nonsense as "REAL possible outcome of instituting oppressive laws like this"! Perhaps stealing cars might be legal, otherwise car owners might bait by driving their cars around -- it's a REAL possible outcome! Shoplifting should be legal too -- it's a REAL possible outcome that shops might bait us by having all those things on their shelves!
All of us have been in a situation that we wanted something from a shop but couldn't have it because we couldn't afford it or for other reason -- how many has taken it anyway? And furthermore, how many of those who have did expect to be pardoned because they were "baited"?
There is way too many white knights on HN to even have the discussion here. Even if you word stuff good, have valid points you will be downvoted and ridiculed.
Typical mob mentality and it's pretty obvious to me that this is the real reason behind these kind of laws.
So you’re obviously speaking from a position of no experience, and don’t understand legislation (laws are far from black and white, one of the reasons why a court system exists), and have gone as far as to present a strawman / slippery slope argument.
Many comments here have concern about this being enforced inappropriately because it's hard to distinguish between an ok situation and a real harassment.
I'd say for me it's real clear where the line goes: consent. If a person says you are not welcome or just doesn't react to you at all after a couple of sentences, just go on your way. If you fail to do so and continue to get in the person's way or head, then it's harassment plain and simple.
A very good point! I was mostly addressing the crowds that didn't understand what this is all about at all.
Frankly, once I understood what terror being a woman in a public space can sometimes be, I was baffled that it is allowed to happen by the modern society. To offset this crap, I always behave in the most politest way possible and don't even hold my gaze for too long just to avoid contributing to this.
The issue really is that some men think that it's okay to lightly harass women on the street, so like many other laws, it would have tremendously benefitted from some kind of educational material aimed at the offenders which shows how and why this is not okay.
Well, now that this comment is long anyway, I think that much of liberal legislation would be much better received if it was deployed along with some kind of education stuff which explains what the problem really is, refutes common misconceptions etc
> like many other laws, it would have tremendously benefitted from some kind of educational material aimed at the offenders which shows how and why this is not okay.
Does this actually work? Like, will car thievs just stop stealling cars, as soon as you explain to them that it’s actually not OK?
When judging this law please keep in mind that Paris (and some other cities in France) already have the problem of disappearing women from streets and bars in some districts/suburbs. There are various newspaper articles on this, just google it. I personally know women that complain about street harassment on their every day commute to/from work even during the day. Those people approach them with something similar to "hey beautiful woman" and walk next to them for a few meters. Those women feel obviously very insecure because you never know upfront whether they give up after a few meters or not. Maybe this law helps them, it's worth a try in my opinion.
And to be quite frank: This problem is mostly with immigrants.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadhttps://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=634866222&rid=1001
Why don't we tackle problematic social phenomena through education instead?
If there's no evidence there won't be a fine.
Harassment already has laws. But I think what happened in the video was clearly a step up from that, and would fall under criminal assault.
Not sure what the woman in the video expects to get done by pushing for more change. Everybody at that restaurant stopped eating. A man in a white shirt grabs a chair to defend the woman. I counted at least 3-4 ready to jump in after him. All pedestrians stopped. There was more than enough evidence to perform a citizen's arrest (assuming that's legal in France?)
To me this is an indication that the current laws are working fine. They may not be heaven, but they are effective at curbing any immediate danger as best can be afforded without treading on other public freedoms (i.e. the freedom to express oneself!)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>[now] the laws of the French republic forbid insulting, intimidating, threatening and following women in public spaces.
I don't read French; I'd be interested to know if the law is gender-specific or not, and to know how they define harassment. Laws that ban harassment generally require a pattern of behavior. Catcalling is often a first--and only--contact.
Is any contact that the target decides is unwelcome harassment? If you greet someone and smile, and they interpret your greeting or your smile as sinister, does this law make you a criminal?
> The new law also allows for fines of 90-750 euros ($105-$876) for gender-based harassment on streets and public transportation. It bans sexual or sexist comments and behavior that is degrading, humiliating, intimidating hostile or offensive.
Banning intimidating behavior has a strong argument for it. Banning overtly sexual comments at least has a clear line to it.
But banning "offensive" behavior? I prefer the right to free speech over the right to not be offended.
Now you might not have realised it's offensive. You might disagree - you think it's fun, and legitimately believe most people think it's fun too. But once you've been told to stop, it's pretty clear. It's perfectly okay to be corrected and to learn. And it's normal to behave different with different people.
So it hardly seems like there's a big issue here.
And in this world of twitter lynching, feminist and political correctness mititantism, this is a blank check that you can bet will be cashed in.
This type of thing is everywhere.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/catcalls-whi...
"Nearly half of young women in London were sexually harassed in public last year, with many forced to endure unwanted male attention on buses and trains, a new study shows."
How do we go about remedying this situation without making criminals out of anyone who has a spur-of-the-moment interaction with a stranger a potential criminal? I think that's an important question, and I wonder how (if?) this French law addresses it.
I’d argue that it’s impossible to build an objective description of what actions constitute harassment. Most interactions are going to clearly fall on one side or the other. The ones that don’t, we’ll figure out.
You understand that these are different things. You understand that they can legally be treated as different things. Well done.
[Edit: For whatever it's worth, I think the parent comment was mistaken but not worthy of being flagged.]
Is that criminal harassment now in France? Or is it just greeting someone? Does it depend on if they are offended or not?
I'm pretty sure your example be rightly called as non-harassing ( unless you're not sharing additional context)
No. Laws do not work that way.
It was marginal to begin with because of the following site guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That applies to stories as well as comments.
Since there's no reason to assume that the colloquial use of the English word "offensive" is the same as whatever legal term the French law invokes, the point is vapid and basically concern trolling. I think we can expect better from an HN discussion. Applying the site guideline I just quoted, one can foster a higher-quality discussion by assuming that the law writers are not completely stupid.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The first you learn of it is when the cops come up and interview you.
You indicate ignorance and also that you think the woman was a shit for dobbing you in.
You indicate ignorance and also deep remorse - you're genuinely hurt that you harassed this woman and potentially several others.
You indicate ignorance and feign deep remorse - you actually think the woman was a shit. You bring up sex with strangers again and the police see that you have form.
There's a difference in what's going to happen in these cases. The fact that the police think it's worth investigating a report of a crime doesn't mean they'll react in the same manner to different circumstances.
Wasn't this always the biggest problem: People not knowing. I also didn't get any problems and I'm close to your age - but I listened to a lot of stories from my wife in which people were doing things that may be considered offensive or even harassment, and without knowing.
All the big metoo cases, for example, are not people who didn't know. They are people who were activly predatory over many years. The accidents aren't what are being targeted here. It's mostly men activley and knowingly abusing the fact that they can get away with it.
That's the key to your comment. You cannot ever know for certain if your conduct offends someone. Some people get offended if you look at them the "wrong" way. I don't think you should be fined for accidentally offending someone.
This is one of the biggest reasons that restrictions on speech, let alone ones that seem to be so vague, are so very dangerous. They can be used, and abused, to great effect whereas their net positive effect is perhaps harder to gauge. In the US we do not have many laws that are so open to social interpretation, but with those that we do, we already see regular lawsuits well outside the spirit of the law that individuals hope to win by force of legal and persuasive prowess alone. Even if France might have a more mature legal culture, who's to say such things will not change?
This is why I think when looking at laws, we should not see things through the most positive and optimistic lens, but through the most critical and cynical lens. The reason is because that lowest common denominator is shown, time and again, to end up being what the law will be disproportionately used for.
But, roughly: If you would greet anyone in the same situation (man, woman, child, beautiful or ugly, old or young), then you can greet the person. France has not outlawed greeting your colleagues in the office.
On the other hand, if you would not greet everyone in the same situation, you are a harasser. You do not greet random people in the Paris métro. Thus, if you greet an attractive woman in the Paris métro... well, I don't know if you are technically a harasser under this law, but just don't do it. It's not hard, you know how to do it with other people.
You do not "make dirty noises, comments and whistle" at men in the street. Please don't do that to women either? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/30/uproar-in-fran...
So you can't ask people you don't know out on a date? That's harassment now?
Yes, it's sad that you may lose the love of your life this way. It's sadder that many women lose their actual lives over this kind of thing.
The main thing with the "random person you've never spoken to" is this: It might be something you do from time to time. It might be something she deals with once or twice a week - or daily. You might be respectful and asking, but many others aren't. If you haven't even had a brief conversation, she likely knows it is all based on looks and absolutely nothing about her personality.
You won't personally be harassing her, no. But overlooking this stuff is being ignorant of how she might be treated on a daily basis and it can make you part of the problem, depending on the context of the situation. It isn't like it is hard to simply move on: You likely do this with people that aren't prospective dates in your eyes.
I've seen a lot of negative news about France lately, that it's getting to the point that I might never see myself visting there, despite knowing it would probably have lot to offer in terms of experiences. Where do you draw the line? I think I'm a fairly reasonable individual, and if I speak with someone I'll cut it short if they seem uncomfortable... But it seems pretty crazy that you could have someone call the cops on you just for striking up a conversation.
Seriously, cat-calling is a different beast entirely. nothing like walking down the street to pass a group of men who exclaim very loudly, "Well, she was ugly in front but look at that ass!"
I had a customer literally drool forget his sentences every time he saw me. He'd follow me around the store and talk to me. Other folks would step in. He left me a card - at work! - telling me he'd stop, but also exclaiming how sexy I was and how much he adored me. I had asked him to stop. He had noticed I disappeared when he came into the store. He finally did stop, but it took months of discomfort.
I had a boss that would "accidentally" brush up against my breasts or ass. Small place with no recourse, and I had to quit.
There is a lot of area between these two, and I think it should be quite obvious that they are wrong, but it happens nonetheless. There is a huge difference between a nice chat or nicely asking someone out in a way that respects them and this sort of stuff. Save for the one dude that probably thought I was a prostitute, folks in Amsterdam treated me better (I was there for a fun weekend alone, spouse stayed home) - including the dude that propositioned me after chatting in the coffee shop. He was really respectful and simply asked. I talk to random people on planes and other places willingly. Most conversation is fine so long as the other person is reasonable, and halts when I ask the conversation to stop.
I wonder how we would react if the person were a man, and weren't that presentable.
It's very, very hard to say when it becomes offending/harassment. There being clear cases like the linked video in the article, doesn't change this.
I'm not saying that that guy in the video should get away with it just because we keep bike-shedding about where the line is, but it is something we need to think about as well.
Sure, sometimes it might work out fine for both parties. In almost all cases it doesn't. If that woman feared retribution due to harassment laws, and she wouldn't have approached your wife, then the world now would be poorer by one anecdote, but at the same time much safer and more welcoming to billions of women. It's not a hard choice at all.
That's not a defence against another person behaving questionably.
Anyway it's generally understood that there's differences in the appropriate behavior of men and women. For instance, it's okay for me to come up and piss next to a guy who's pissing but probably not okay for me to come up and piss next to a woman who's pissing.
So even if her behavior was accepted as reasonable however odd it was, it's not proof that every guy doing that would also be accepted as reasonable.
You're not responsible for the behavior of other people, but you do have to take into account other people's behavior (to the extent it's known to you) and your own past behavior, when you're deciding how you should interact with other people.
These aren't new ideas. They're the basic principles of manners that have always been part of our society. Criticise pushing them into law as much as you want: but don't act like they're coming out of nowhere and impossible to comply with or enforce.
This law is clearly not targeting any potential romantic interaction between strangers on the street. “You’re attractive” can be harassment in a workplace setting (where power dynamics and standards of professionalism are different) without being harassment in a different setting.
This law is targeting catcalling and men who will follow a woman down the street. These behaviors are power plays and are intimidating in a way that a polite and respectful approach is not.
You may never have been the target of such behaviors, but if she travels frequently on foot, your wife almost certainly has been, and can likely tell you just how awful it is to be the target of them - ranging from disempowering to mortifying to terrifying.
No that's not harrasment. You're reducing a clear issue that women face daily to your concern about being falsly accused over a smile.
https://youtu.be/b1XGPvbWn0A
Are you entitled to feeling safe? Yes, without infringing on the rights of others. Are you entitled to not being offended? No, that is not a right. You cannot legislate civility and decency in a free society. You cannot legislate emotional well being and fortitude.
Disclaimer: American, supporter of unrestricted free speech
https://youtu.be/iQBjhZtLtRk
Disclaimer: Brit, supporter of reasonable speech
The following wouldn't be a strong argument for removing the laws against robbery:
What if I accidentally get accused of robbery because I pick up someone's belonging to return it to them when they had left it somewhere.
I would rather have robbery laws and deal with these cases as they arise than not have robbery laws at all. Same goes for harrasment.
However I do not support unrestricted harassment. I'm a guy. I have a dick between my legs. I think it's easy to forget that if you DON'T have a dick between your legs, you often times are verbally abused, followed, and otherwise harassed, even if you're pre-pubescent.
It's all fine and dandy to say "If I don't support someone's speech, I'll just ignore it!" until a person twice your size is following you down a dark street at night talking about the sexual things they want to do to your body.
Someone talking about a political opinion making me feel "unsafe" is a stretch, and I wish people wouldn't confuse exchange of ideas with safety. However, someone following me around harassing me and verbally sexually abusing me isn't free fucking speech. It's harassment.
Granted, I don't know what this law will do about it, because I'm assuming harassment is illegal already in France, but I just wanted to point out that the speech you are arguing in defense of is not an exchange of ideas, it's threatening and bordering on sexual violence. I also want to point out that unless it has happened to you personally, it's easy to say things like "just ignore it."
It’s enjoyable to get other perspectives, but at the end of they day, I support candidates and judicial nominees who maintain rights as freedoms as unrestricted as possible (speech, firearms ownership, etc). Because you never know who is going to be in power next, and how they will weaponize the exceptions to fundamental rights.
There is a cost to a free and democratic society.
People don't follow people through streets decrying "oh baby do you know about the 1st amendment". This isn't a big problem.
Anyone making this about political speech is not arguing the actual issue of harrasment. Derailing the conversation to discuss some imagined "what if" scenario that isn't real.
If these laws were used to stop legitimate protest then that would be a problem but that isn't even close to happening in France where people protest as a national past time.
So a person twice your size following you down a dark street at night not saying anything is OK?!
I also wonder if this would be something that cities in the US like San Francisco would adopt. Not just harassment against women but just harassment in general. I do get harassed once in a while while walking in SF, but my wife definitely experiences a lot more of the catcalling and harassment than me. It just makes it uneasy to walk around in SF, day or night, when it's such a beautiful city.
Also, as far as I’ve understood, for the « long, sustained look », it has to be witnessed by a policeman directly. Therefore I don’t believe we can have many fines for this category. They said they’ll start the fines in September.
Another specific thing to know about France is, police doesn’t act. They might witness a skin-head peeing on the Hotel de Ville de Lyon, they won’t act. I’ve also never seen two people fighting on a street where cops would intervene, leave alone come (I should know, I get assaulted once a year, make a point of calling the cops, never seen them, even after the 4th call. I had to write the city mayor to make them act against a drug dealer who was doing parties in my street). They have sirens in all the time, but it’s just on the way back to the station for lunch time and at 5.30pm.
So, if one girl succeeds in having the fine applied, it’s already unfair.
I remember that point being a main part of the debate a few months back, how exactly do you draw the limit? It's different for each women, some of them will enjoy a stranger smiling at them, some others will immediately call it harassment.
Also do you need witnesses? A police officier to witness the harassment? Or just the word of the plaintiff?
I'm at work and I can't dive into the legislation right now, but I doubt they managed to precisely define what constitutes harassment. The secretary for gender equality has been... disappointing, to say the least.
The truth is if people find you attractive, the chance is much lower that they will consider it harassment (even if it may be) and just let it slide. I am sure that these laws will just backfire on the very people it were designed to protect.
If you've been approaching complete strangers in the street with sexual interest, there's no "perhaps" about it. That's sexual harassment and always has been.
Your kind of thinking is dangerous.
This law is mainly a PR move. It is a very common thing in France to pass law that will almost never be used because they are impossible to enforce. They only purpose is for the gov to say "look, we did something !".
That's the government that's supposed to change that normative behavior. Or at least, that's the part of the government that actually interacts with the majority and enforces the laws.
As an consequence of this, less sexually wanted races are disproportionally affected.
(Not commenting on my opinion of the law itself...)
I don’t think this law will be enforced against « racailles » (=gang members). I think only white people will get fined. « Racailles » get away with drug dealing and beating up Asians, who would think they’d get —finally— be fined with harassment. Nap, won’t happen.
In pedestrian areas, sometimes the offender will walk with their target for a block or more, saying rude things, directly asking for a f++k, etc.
And believe it or not, sometimes a driver of a car will slow to the speed of the pedestrian and one or more people in the car will harass the pedestrian in verbal sexual ways.
Even if a law is not easily enforcible, at least if a cop happens to witness this they can step in and fine the offender. That just might start to have an impact on the problem.
It's a real nasty situation, particularly for women, especially when they are walking alone (even in the middle of the day). Some of the offenders have no sense of civility.
Someone might quite literally just want to start talking to someone without having any way of knowing where someone's head is at.
I'm thinking particularly of more gray areas. Like outside of a nightclub. Or with a women who is just trying to cause trouble by baiting men (which is a REAL possible outcome of instituting oppressive laws like this!)
Laws have to be clear about what is acceptable behavior and what isn't, and cannot be subject to interpretation.
We may as well just ban all flirting between men and women if that's where this is headed, because this looks like another insanely evil marxist law designed to subvert our natural ways of dealing with social provocations, that mother nature has enshrined us with, and probably leading to more social imbalances than those even posed by original problem!
If they are baiting, well perhaps this a pathological response to constant lifelong harassment. Perhaps not being harassed for sex from the time they are pre-pubescent will actually change the dynamic. If people get off on the give and take of sexually threatening roleplay in a public setting, perhaps they need to check themselves before worrying if that 'right' will be taken away.
Law definitely does not have to be clear (show me a law that is black and white). Once again, the important thing to remember here, and the issue men seem to have a problem with, is that this kind of change does indeed shift the power dynamic. Suck it up, sweetheart!
Assholery knows no gender. Don't give it one and pretend you are debating in fair faith.
All of us have been in a situation that we wanted something from a shop but couldn't have it because we couldn't afford it or for other reason -- how many has taken it anyway? And furthermore, how many of those who have did expect to be pardoned because they were "baited"?
Just stop it and grow up. Please.
Typical mob mentality and it's pretty obvious to me that this is the real reason behind these kind of laws.
I'd say for me it's real clear where the line goes: consent. If a person says you are not welcome or just doesn't react to you at all after a couple of sentences, just go on your way. If you fail to do so and continue to get in the person's way or head, then it's harassment plain and simple.
A cat call is the most obvious example of this, but there are many less obvious others.
Frankly, once I understood what terror being a woman in a public space can sometimes be, I was baffled that it is allowed to happen by the modern society. To offset this crap, I always behave in the most politest way possible and don't even hold my gaze for too long just to avoid contributing to this.
The issue really is that some men think that it's okay to lightly harass women on the street, so like many other laws, it would have tremendously benefitted from some kind of educational material aimed at the offenders which shows how and why this is not okay.
Well, now that this comment is long anyway, I think that much of liberal legislation would be much better received if it was deployed along with some kind of education stuff which explains what the problem really is, refutes common misconceptions etc
Does this actually work? Like, will car thievs just stop stealling cars, as soon as you explain to them that it’s actually not OK?
And to be quite frank: This problem is mostly with immigrants.