A women’s march is set to take place in Bnei Brak on August 24th in protest of continued discrimination and exclusion of women in Israel, following recent events in which women were kept from utilizing various public spaces nationwide.
“They want to throw us into the back seat of the bus, they demand our daughters cover up, they fired all the women who were CEOs of government offices, they want only us to be anxious mothers to serving soldiers,” The statement from the women’s movement regarding the march read.
“We will not agree, our children are not worth less! They want to take the women back hundreds of years. Whoever thinks that we will let them humiliate women and girls, whoever thinks that they will succeed in excluding women from the public sphere and positions of influence – is not only wrong but will receive us on the streets.”
The march will take place on August 24 at 20:30, in Bnei Brak. Among the movements that support the march are the Kaplan Force, the High Tech Protest, Building an Alternative, The Pink Front, The Black Robes, and more.
What are some of the incidents that have caused women to speak out?
On Sunday, a group of teenage girls trying to get on a bus in Ashdod were told by the driver to cover up because they were wearing clothes that revealed their arms and legs. The girls were told to sit at the back of the bus.
“We were in shock,” said the girls after the incident. “Everyone looked away from us to the floor. There were only haredi people on the bus, and they didn’t react. We felt helpless and humiliated.
The State of Israel is a free country, where no one can limit who gets on public transportation and no one can dictate where she or he sits. Whoever does this is breaking the law and should be punished for it.
PM Benjamin Netanyahu
“We tried to speak to the driver, but he said we were naked and that we don’t understand anything. We were scared, so we didn’t say anything.”
Footage shared from the incident showed that the driver also wouldn’t allow two boys who got on with the girls to sit with them, forcing them to sit in front. When asked in the video why the driver was behaving this way, he responded that he drives haredi passengers and that the girls have to respect them.
This was not an isolated incident, Israeli media reported. On Sunday in Ashdod, a woman trying to board an Elektra-Afikim line 86 bus was told that it was a line that was “only for men”, according to Kan. This is at least the second such incident in Ashdod involving the company. In May, a woman trying to board the company’s line 80 bus was told the same thing.
Meanwhile, according to Kan, a woman and her husband boarded a Dan bus in Ramat Gan, and when the woman tried to ask the driver a question, he ignored her. After a number of attempts, the husband asked the driver why he wasn’t responding, and he answered that he doesn’t “talk to women.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned several incidents where women were refused entry to buses or forced to sit in specific spots on Sunday, stating “The State of Israel is a free country, where no one can limit who gets on public transportation and no one can dictate where she or he sits. Whoever does this is breaking the law and should be punished for it.”
Transportation Minister Miri Regev stated in response to these incidents that “there will be no exclusion of women in public transportation. Every incident in my opinion is something that must be treated with the utmost seriousness!
“Millions of passengers use public transportation every day, and as far as I’m concerned, not even one single case like this should happen. In the cases published in the last few days, the drivers were immediately suspended from their duties until the end of the investigation.”
Ariella Marsden contributed to this report.
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