Confinement reinforces the insecurity of women in the public space. In fact, with fewer people on the street, no open place to take refuge ..., women testify that they are "as scared by day as by night". In the middle of the day, Fatima Benomar was followed "by a group of young people", rue de Rivoli, in Paris. "They stuck to me because I did not respond to their advances, insulted me, threatened and followed me shouting" anyway, it shows that you are a slut "", says she at AFP.
The 36-year-old feminist activist says "I was really scared": "I couldn't take refuge anywhere, all the shops were closed and I could ask anyone for help". Since then, to go to work, she has taken the small adjacent streets.
It's "clearly worse"
Laurène Martin, 28, "had never been afraid in Ile-de-France". Since March 17, this nurse's daily commuter-Paris journeys have become a nightmare. “On the second day of confinement, guys jumped on me in the metro to steal my phone. I shouted, they left and the only other passenger on the train, a man, came to stick to me and asked me if I had a husband… ”, she relates.
After accumulating unpleasant experiences, she started cycling. "It's better, even if all the men look at me as if they had never seen a woman," she wonders. In his eyes, it "is clearly worse" than before: "there are fewer people to attack, fewer witnesses, and the groups of men who stay outside are those who absolutely do not respect confinement".
“We are locked up at home, so normally outside exits, to see the sun, are breaths of air. However, they turn into moments of anxiety and women quickly reconfigure themselves out of fear, ”notes Géraldine Franck, 37, a feminist activist, who has seen testimonies swarm on social networks. "The day becomes the night, there is no longer any difference for women".
In Seine-Saint-Denis, last week, two women were raped within 24 hours on the public highway, one in a park in Aulnay-sous-Bois, the other in a street in Montreuil.
Reflexes to stay alert and protect yourself
For anthropologist Chris Blache, the period of confinement offers "a precipitate of what we usually know" in terms of domination of men in public space. "When we empty the public space, mechanical principles come back: the owners of these spaces test their right to property", adds the co-founder of the laboratory "Gender and city", referring to "impunity / immunity" against coronavirus in men for whom "it is easier to play cat and mouse" in these deserted spaces.
Every day, since mid-March, Daniella Corallo-Martin has been subjected to insistent glances and smiles in the metro, having to respond regularly with "fingers of honor". "I necessarily have an interaction with a guy during my trip," she regrets.
Also evoking "a fear" that she feels "normally at night", she adopted reflexes: "I pay attention to the people who follow me, on the subway platform I always put myself next to someone, I never ride in an almost empty train and I don't put music in my headphones. "It is a very particular setting, zonards, madmen, people who are normally drowned in the flood," she affirms.
Fear of "a wave of sexual violence at the deconfinement"
Secretary of State for Gender Equality Marlène Schiappa, who deemed it useful to recall that street harassment remained "obviously prohibited during confinement", said Thursday feared "a wave of sexual violence at the deconfinement", pointing finger "the feeling of impunity of the aggressors combined with the phenomenon of decompensation".
In order to "inform public action" for the future, the State Secretariat created a reflection group made up of experts a month ago, he informed AFP. Lawyer, psychiatrist, author, artist, advertiser, two neuro-scientists are among the dozen personalities who will have to prepare a report on the measures to be taken to protect women after May 11.
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- Covid 19
- Rape
- Confinement
- Coronavirus
- Violence against women
- Insecurity
- Society