Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Jerusalem Bridge causes another ruckus

A Guest Post by Rafi G.
originally posted on LII

The Calatravva Bridge is a bridge that has been trouble since day 1, with the main debate being whether it should ever have been built, considering the high cost.

Regardless of that, the newest issue to arise is one in which residents are complaining that in certain areas near the bridge, one can look up and catch a upskirt view of females above.

The newspaper article is comparing this to the fiasco of the dance troupe at the inaugural party of the bridge a few months ago in which women participants were forced to wear sacks and hats to cover their body shapes. That was a true fiasco, because that is something that should have never happened, and whatever solution was going to be implemented should have been dealt with in advance, not at the last minute.

The truth is though, that this problem has nothing in common with that fiasco. that fiasco was part of the battle of the extreme Haredi against the secular over the atmosphere and style of Jerusalem. This is just a problem. It is not just Haredi women who do not want men looking up their skirts. Any woman who wears a skirt would not want to be exposed like that.

Maybe they compare it because secular women generally wear pants and not skirts. But that is not true - they wear miniskirts, and plenty wear skirts as well (even if only on occassion), and they do not want to have people looking up their skirts.

I remember when the cellphone industry had first started putting cameras into cellphones, there was an issue in Japan, and maybe other places (but I remember reading about Japan). They were forced to change certain standards and abilities because women were complaining that they were catching men on buses and trains taking upskirt pictures of them.

So it is not just Haredi women who have a problem with this, and this should not be portrayed as a fight of the Haredim against the secular.


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