I thought those days were over. You’ve got to wonder what was going through the head of those men… I mean asking a woman to move to the back of the bus doesn’t exactly have the best track record. Then you beat her for refusing? You’ve got to figure that’s going to play really, really badly in the media.
Where? Why the middle east of course. This time, though, it was Israel:
Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women’s organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.
In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women.
Of course, she may have deliberately provoked this; maybe she’s lying, but a purportedly unrelated (male) witness backs her story. The bus driver doesn’t, though if she’s telling the truth, he’d certainly have motivation to lie since he did nothing to stop the attack on her.
From the sound of it she’s an annoying uppity feminist.
Well, in places where women are being told to move to the back of the bus on public transportation, maybe we unfortunately need a few annoying uppity feminists.
NB- I don’t care if a private religious orthodox bus line wants to segregate by gender, but not if it receives a shekel of public funding. Indeed, if a private bus line wants to refuse to carry women at all, that’s fine with me. (Before any yelp at that, the 3 gyms nearest me are all women-only. I don’t like that, but I support their right to do it).
-wolfe
