Women around the world groaned in recognition when a Twitter campaign against
men who violate women's personal space on public transport took off in Turkey
last week.
The 'Close Your Legs' campaign was an initiative of the Istanbul
Feminist Collective (IFK) to highlight harassment in public places. In
response, countless women shared photos of leg-spreading offenders on
buses and trains and the hashtags #bacaklarinitopla (“Close Your Legs”) and
#yerimisgaletme (“Don’t Occupy My Space”) started trending on Twitter, according
to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet.
The New York Times noted that the campaign poster uses a picture from the New York subway,
highlighting that men who spread out in public live everywhere. In fact, there's
a whole "Men Taking Up Too Much Space On The Subway"
Tumblr account documenting worldwide offenders.
While some of the women participating in the campaign described harassers
deliberately violating their personal space, sociologists note that even on a
subconscious level, gender stereotypes impact men and women's body
language in public places.
As one Turkish activist from IFK told the website Bianet: "This situation is
just men ignoring women and believing they own all public spaces. Trying to have
the majority space is completely related to desire of power."
The outpouring of "Close Your Legs" tweets last week also served as a pointed
reminder of the futility of Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan's efforts to block Twitter in the country. After briefly
disrupting the service last month, a Turkish court ordered it back online on
April 3, saying the ban breached constitutional
guarantees on free speech.
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