25 Jul (1) Musician Stops Show Mid-Performance To Stop Sexual Harassment

With sexual harassment appearing to be more of a ubiquitous experience with each year that passes; women’s bodies can’t seem to catch a break, whether they are on public transport, wandering the streets or out at a nightclub. This is nothing new: women have been lauded as objects of desire since the dawn of humanity – an unfortunate maxim which persists through to today

Certainly, it wouldn’t be bold of me to assert that men don’t face such blatant objectification. Whilst it is perfectly acceptable for men to wander around topless, women’s breasts have become such sexual symbols that some consider it inappropriate for women to breastfeed their babies in public. Our very modern world then constantly revokes the control that women have over their bodies with each purported “harmless” act of catcalling and the like.

The charity Stop Street Harassment (SSH) commissioned a 2,000 person national survey in 2014 which found that a whopping 65 per cent of American women had experienced street harassment. Of these women, 23 per cent reported being touched in a sexual manner. Statistics such as these are alarming and highlight that more needs to be done to educate young men to respect women’s boundaries and seek consent when it comes to making sexual advances. Now, of course, there are men who refrain from engaging in this kind of behaviour. One such example is Circa Survive bassist, Brendan Ekstrom. Ekstrom suddenly left the stage whilst performing in Missouri this weekend when he saw a woman being sexually harassed in the audience.

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