Esraa Yousria Saleh was walking down El Hussein, a busy street in downtown Cairo famous for its souvenirs and tchotchkes, when a man in his early 20s made eye contact with her. He followed her, circled her, then suddenly — she felt a hot breath in her ear:. Saleh, 28, a feminist and activist based in Egypt, was furious.
Why did that man feel like he could look at her? Follow her? Say those lewd words to her? A May study from , an international research group, and sheds fresh light on men's motivations for harassing women on the streets in four areas in the Middle East: Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and the Palestinian territories.
The report found that of the 4, men surveyed, as many as 31 percent in Lebanon to 64 percent in Egypt admitted to having sexually harassed women and girls in public, from ogling to stalking to rape. Of course, street harassment is a global phenomenon.
Studies have shown that vast majorities of women across cities in Brazil, India, Thailand and the U. And the U. But there are a couple of things that stand out about street harassment in the Middle Eastern areas, according to the Promundo report.
In the Palestinian territories, Morocco and Egypt, young men with secondary-level education were more likely to sexually harass women than their older, less-educated peers. The researchers were surprised by the findings. Generally, men who have finished high school or college hold more enlightened attitudes toward women than those who have had no primary school or schooling at all, says Barker, who has studied men and gender equality in over 20 countries.
