A few weeks ago, Guardian shared a story about a new trend that had gone viral on TikTok. It is called “subway shirt”, translated from English it means “subway shirt”.
What is the “subway shirt” method
The concept, as we said, has gone viral on TikTok, and it has been the users of the New York subway who have made it fashionable. The “subway shirt” or “subway shirt” method consists of the woman carrying a shirt in her bag that hides the clothes she is wearing In fact.
@screenshothq Will this New York trend move across to the UK this summer? Women have been sharing their ‘Subway Shirt’ outfits on social media and teaching others about the purpose of them. #subwayshirt #outfitdampener #nyc #london
♬ Winter / Chill / R&B_No517 – table_1
The reason is that with the heat and high temperatures, dresses and suspenders come out of the closet and with them sexual harassment increases. The comments disguised as compliments, the insistent and leering glances, and the unwanted physical contact that millions of women suffer every day on public transport.
According to the latest macro-study published by the Ministry of Equality 60.5% of women between the ages of 16 and 24 have experienced sexual harassment, and of these, 3 out of 4 (75.2%) state that sexual harassment has occurred more than once. One more fact, 73.9% of stalkers are unknown. Like the people you meet on the subway.
The solution to bullying is not to wear a “subway shirt”
Is the “subway shirt” the solution to stop being harassed in summer? No. Not even a remedy. Normalizing the “subway shirt” is assuming that we are to blame to wear summer clothes in summer (crazy, who can think of it?) and she turns her gaze back to the victims and how they dress, looking for a solution that ends up going through us.
This method points us out as guilty of something that is not our fault, and normalize bullying without hardly noticing. And although it may seem like a good idea to avoid harassment, it is still a measure that the victim takes to prevent it from happening (again) and that does not ensure that it will not happen. I speak from experience when I tell you that I have been harassed wearing the dirtiest tracksuit in my closet, with a washed face, in a dress, with shorts, with jeans and in a bikini. The problem that we suffer bullying is not the clothes we wear. Never.
Perhaps the solution is first to not normalize bullying. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told something on the street and I’ve lowered my gaze. And I don’t know how many times any of my friends have lived through hell on a subway ride. Or in line at the supermarket. Or in the Bus stop. Or on the train. But we see it as normal.
What the “subway shirt” method demonstrates is that bullying is a real problem whose solution should never be in the hands of the sufferer. It is not a method that protects women, it is a demonstration that we are not doing it right.
It happens to us with bullying, where the first of the problems with this issue is the conceptualization that society makes of it. Carmela del Moral, legal analyst for children’s rights from Save The Children, explains that with bullying “There is a permanent discourse that says that this is something for children and that it has always happened, when the reality is that it is a form of violence.” Something similar happens with the harassment that women suffer. As a society we have normalized this form of violence against women and we are the first to prepare to leave home with a shirt in our bag to avoid harassment by a misogynist.
Not only legal measures are needed, but also social measures, such as getting used to pointing fingers at bullies, rebuking them for what they do and not looking the other way or suffering in silence. Look for strategies to intervene if we witness street harassment. And of course, we need to educate so that it is recognized as the violence that it is.
Perhaps this viral trend is actually the excuse to reflect. If in 2023 we have to wear one oversized shirt to hide our cleavage if we go on the subway as the solution to the problem is that as a society, we are not doing it well.
Photos | Camille Minouflet, Priscilla DuPreez and Ian Libery in Unsplash
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