Learn the steps to sexually harass someone in Shanghai!

Shanghai Visitor’s Bureau: Come visit the beautiful Shanghai!

Where the men are all pigs and the women leave their clothes and respect at home! Take a tour of our infamous metro station! See where the One-With-The-Too-Short-Skirt once stood! Drool with the locals and allow your eyes to glaze over onto all of the Ones-Just-Asking-To-Be-Sexually-Harassed! Better yet, learn how to sexually harass just like a local! Take home a beautiful Sexual Harassment For Dummies poster for your bedroom wall! Come, be amazed!

I was slightly disturbed when I read today someone posted on the Shanghai subway’s Chinese-version-of-twitter account a photo of a “scantily clad” woman with the remark, “If that’s what you wear on the subway, then no wonder you will be sexually harassed! […]“ Why stop there? Why not blame victims for being raped, while we’re at it?

Now, now, let’s be fair. If we’re going to pick on chicks for being slutty on the subway (because they dress provocatively just to get on the trains, and change their outfits as soon as they reach their destinations) then we need to put a check everyone else, too. What about the fat people who wear their clothes 16 sizes too small, or the goths who cause you to wonder if they have an AK tucked into their trench coats, or the thugs whose pants hang around their ankles, or worse, the wannabe fashionistas who are still wearing last year’s SO-bad fluorescents?

To be honest, I don’t blame any women for wearing too-short shorts or barely-there tops. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. (I can only say that because I’ve got nothing, which makes me sad and a tiny bit jealous I have nothing to show off to my community.) That metro worker must have had too many underground shifts in a row.

When he comes up for air and realizes he can’t breathe because of the extreme and almost intolerable heat we’re experiencing as of late, he might reconsider his comments as he’s stripping layers off.

I’m also shaking my head at the metro’s press officer defense response saying the subway has the “responsibility to warn women of potential danger of sexual harassment on the subway.” Really? I didn’t want to have to go here, but these are not the girls we need to be worrying about.

In fact, when approaching a scantily-dressed woman and an average man, the first person I wouldn’t mess with is the chick. That girl doesn’t care what people think about her (unless you think she’s hot) and she’ll whoop your ass if catching you give her the stink eye. Enter the origin of the stiletto. You think we walk all day in 4-inch spikes* for fun? (*8-12 inches if you’re Chinese.) No way. Here’s a girl code secret:

Stilettos are more lethal and less illegal than guns. Harass us? You’ll get a little stiletto-surgery done on your face.

The most disturbing part of this story is a PSA the Zhejiang province police issued to show women where men will look when you are dressed in anything other than a nun’s garment, which *gasp* may lead to sexual harassment. To view the PSA, click here. (Note: You do NOT have to be fluent in Chinese to view this website thanks to the excellent diagrams provided!)

………………..Really? This is something we need to DIAGRAM?? We don’t know by now that short skirts will likely get our asses checked out? (My bad, I thought he was looking at my shoulder.)

If anything, the women of Shanghai should be insulted for being regarded at the intelligence level of a herd of cows.

The only group of women this diagram would be appropriate for is the Wal-Mart regulars. I think I read something about the superstore working with the Zhejiang police to get this poster printed in English to have the greeters hand out…

All Things Unlearned chronicles my journey in unlearning everything I already thought I knew through my experiences as a wife, a mother, and an American through funny, overly-opinionated, witty, sometimes offensive, and yet always entertaining banter. Come be amused.