'I refused to be demeaned': Woman hit in the face after she tells catcaller to 'shut up,' video goes viral
Marie Laguerre, a 22-year-old student in Paris, was walking home from class when an unidentified man began to whistle at her and make provocative comments, according to her Facebook post.
Laguerre yelled back, “Shut up!” at the catcaller. The man picked up an ashtray from a nearby café table and threw it at her.
“I refused to be demeaned. It was humiliating. I refused to look down, I looked him right in the eyes, I was not going to apologize,” Laguerre said about the incident, according to the Daily Mail.
Then, in broad daylight, in front of a busy café, the man walked up to her and hit her in the face.
The young woman has shared the incident on Facebook and said that this type of harassment, both sexual and physical, is unacceptable.
While onlookers appear shocked at the assault, it appears that they did not know how to handle the situation. However, Laguerre came to their defense in her edited Facebook post.
“[To] all those who say that witnesses have not reacted enough — everything happened very quickly and they did not have time to understand the situation. The attacker was dangerous. After the assault, I came back and witnesses were very supportive,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
She continued, “This is not the only incident. Harassment is every day. To those men who think anything goes in the street, who allow themselves to humiliate us and who can not stand being offended, it is unacceptable.
“It is time for this kind of behavior to STOP. #AllWomenTogether.”
When Marlène Schiappa, the French equalities minister, saw the video, she said that she was “outraged … but not surprised, unfortunately” by the attack, according to London’s Guardian.
Schiappa encouraged the Assemblée Nationale to pass legislation in May that would introduce fines for sexual harassment on the street and public transportation. The bill is scheduled to be adopted next week and outlaws “annoying, following and threatening” a woman.
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