With each return of summer, the observation is the same. On TikTok as on Instagram, more and more young women report a significant increase in street harassment they experience as soon as temperatures rise. This phenomenon is far from anecdotal\u2014and its psychological consequences are very real.<\/p>\n
One of these videos<\/a> particularly resonated. \u201cThe sun is out, it\u2019s tank top season, men are calling out to women from their cars and bikes. I think summer has arrived,\u201d wrote the author of the post, immediately sparking a wave of unanimous responses: yes, as soon as the warmer weather returns, the whistles, honking, unwanted comments, and persistent stares multiply. In the comments sections of numerous TikTok videos on the topic, testimonies abound. Some talk about the sidewalks they now avoid, others explain that they pull out their \u201cwinter clothes\u201d in the middle of June, or that they forgo wearing dresses above the knee all summer long. Far from the fantasy of the return of \u201cwarmth,\u201d the first heatwaves are, for many, a return to vigilance.<\/p>\n The phenomenon is, in reality, nothing new. Several feminist publications have already documented it in recent years. The British magazine Stylist<\/a> pointed out as early as 2019 that "there is a direct positive correlation between the amount of visible skin and the number of men who think they have the right to comment on it." This reality has been confirmed by numerous associations, as well as by the accounts of waitresses, students, nurses, and ordinary passersby, all of whom observe the same thing: their daily lives change with the weather.<\/p>\n The reasons given are numerous. More people in the streets, crowded terraces, passersby loosened by alcohol in the early evening, and above all, the persistence of a notion that lighter clothing equates to tacit approval for comments. A deeply outdated interpretation\u2014and legally, completely unfounded.<\/p>\n On the legislative front, France acknowledged this reality with the Schiappa Law of August 3, 2018, which established the offense of "sexist insult." This law allows law enforcement to issue fines, immediately and without a prior complaint, to perpetrators of street harassment: whistling, inappropriate remarks, persistent soliciting, etc. The fine can reach up to 750 euros, and several thousand tickets have been issued each year since the law's implementation. However, in practice, the vast majority of incidents still go unreported. Fear, weariness, the absence of witnesses, or simply the feeling that "it won't do any good" explain this almost systematic silence. It is precisely against this silence that viral videos attempt, in their own way, to combat it.<\/p>\n Finally, it is important to reiterate a truth that social scientists have been emphasizing for decades: the responsibility for street harassment never lies with the victim, nor with what she is wearing. Whether a woman is wearing a tank top, sweatpants, a winter coat, or a long skirt, the harasser remains solely responsible for his behavior. Attempting to explain the phenomenon solely by summer clothing would amount to blaming women for their own aggression.<\/p>\n As a new wave of testimonies floods social media, these accounts underscore the urgent need for collective awareness. Street harassment is not inevitable; it is a daily, illegal form of violence, deeply rooted in a culture that still needs to be fundamentally dismantled. And this is true regardless of the weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With each return of summer, the observation is the same. On TikTok as on Instagram, more and more...","protected":false},"author":8394,"featured_media":443885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_msn":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-societe"],"image":{"medium":["https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Avec-la-hausse-des-temperatures-ces-femmes-disent-subir-davantage-de-harcelement-de-rue-200x113.jpg",200,113,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Avec-la-hausse-des-temperatures-ces-femmes-disent-subir-davantage-de-harcelement-de-rue-500x281.jpg",500,281,true]},"custom":{"td_video":"","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Avec-la-hausse-des-temperatures-ces-femmes-disent-subir-davantage-de-harcelement-de-rue.jpg","author":{"name":"L\u00e9a Michel","avatar":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1721220128171-96x96.jpg"},"categories":[{"term_id":5678,"name":"Society","slug":"societe","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5846,"taxonomy":"category","description":" The Society section of The Body Optimist unpacks the debates that shape women\u2019s lives: equality, discrimination, beauty standards, social ties and the place of bodies in public space. Its analysis, first-person stories and practical advice are for anyone who wants to understand the pressures of everyday life and push back, with an inclusive, body-positive and judgment-free perspective.<\/p>\n Beauty standards are a social issue because they are neither natural nor universal: they shift from one country to another and from one era to the next, as our article on how beauty standards differ around the world<\/a> shows. Yet these ideals of thinness, youth and flawless skin have very real effects: comments starting in childhood, pressure to watch your weight, unequal treatment at work and in health care, online harassment. Recognizing that a norm is constructed helps you take a step back, spot the messages designed to make you feel guilty and choose what you want to keep. That is the common thread of this section: connecting individual experiences to the collective mechanisms that produce them.<\/p>\n If you experience discrimination or online harassment, the first step is to keep evidence, then to turn to the right people, who will depend on the country you live in:<\/p>\n Born from a plus-size fashion site, our magazine looks at social issues through the lens of the body and representation. We give a voice to the people most affected, we explain the words before debating them (sexism, fatphobia, trans identity, consent) and we favor practical ways forward over outrage alone. Our articles start from everyday experiences to shed light on broader patterns, without moralizing or pitting women against each other.<\/p>\n Discrimination is unequal treatment based on a characteristic protected by law, in a specific area such as employment, housing or access to goods and services. Protected grounds vary from country to country, but they often include sex, race or ethnic origin, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. Some places also protect physical appearance or weight.<\/p>\n Intersectionality describes how several forms of discrimination can overlap in the same person and reinforce one another. The American legal scholar Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw coined the term to describe the experiences of Black women. A woman who is both fat and lesbian, for example, may face sexism, fatphobia and homophobia, which compound one another rather than simply adding up.<\/p>\n Diet culture is the set of beliefs that equates thinness with health, success and personal worth. It shows up in foods labeled \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad,\u201d compliments on weight loss and the shaming of fat bodies. Our magazine prefers a weight-inclusive approach to health, at every size.<\/p>\n Want to go further? Our Culture<\/a> section explores how bodies and identities are portrayed in movies, TV shows and books, and our Psychology<\/a> section supports you with self-image, confidence and emotions.<\/p>","parent":0,"count":1538,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5678,"category_count":1538,"category_description":" The Society section of The Body Optimist unpacks the debates that shape women\u2019s lives: equality, discrimination, beauty standards, social ties and the place of bodies in public space. Its analysis, first-person stories and practical advice are for anyone who wants to understand the pressures of everyday life and push back, with an inclusive, body-positive and judgment-free perspective.<\/p>\n Beauty standards are a social issue because they are neither natural nor universal: they shift from one country to another and from one era to the next, as our article on how beauty standards differ around the world<\/a> shows. Yet these ideals of thinness, youth and flawless skin have very real effects: comments starting in childhood, pressure to watch your weight, unequal treatment at work and in health care, online harassment. Recognizing that a norm is constructed helps you take a step back, spot the messages designed to make you feel guilty and choose what you want to keep. That is the common thread of this section: connecting individual experiences to the collective mechanisms that produce them.<\/p>\n If you experience discrimination or online harassment, the first step is to keep evidence, then to turn to the right people, who will depend on the country you live in:<\/p>\n Born from a plus-size fashion site, our magazine looks at social issues through the lens of the body and representation. We give a voice to the people most affected, we explain the words before debating them (sexism, fatphobia, trans identity, consent) and we favor practical ways forward over outrage alone. Our articles start from everyday experiences to shed light on broader patterns, without moralizing or pitting women against each other.<\/p>\n Discrimination is unequal treatment based on a characteristic protected by law, in a specific area such as employment, housing or access to goods and services. Protected grounds vary from country to country, but they often include sex, race or ethnic origin, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. Some places also protect physical appearance or weight.<\/p>\n Intersectionality describes how several forms of discrimination can overlap in the same person and reinforce one another. The American legal scholar Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw coined the term to describe the experiences of Black women. A woman who is both fat and lesbian, for example, may face sexism, fatphobia and homophobia, which compound one another rather than simply adding up.<\/p>\n Diet culture is the set of beliefs that equates thinness with health, success and personal worth. It shows up in foods labeled \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad,\u201d compliments on weight loss and the shaming of fat bodies. Our magazine prefers a weight-inclusive approach to health, at every size.<\/p>\n Want to go further? Our Culture<\/a> section explores how bodies and identities are portrayed in movies, TV shows and books, and our Psychology<\/a> section supports you with self-image, confidence and emotions.<\/p>","cat_name":"Society","category_nicename":"societe","category_parent":0}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444521,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443884\/revisions\/444521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ma-grande-taille.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} A correlation long documented by researchers<\/h2>\n
In France, sexist insults have been recognized since 2018<\/h2>\n
A responsibility that is never found in clothes<\/h2>\n
What you\u2019ll find in the Society section<\/h2>\n
\n
Why are beauty standards a social issue?<\/h2>\n
What can you do about discrimination or online harassment?<\/h2>\n
\n
Our approach: connecting the personal and the collective<\/h2>\n
Articles to start with<\/h2>\n
\n
Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n
What counts as discrimination?<\/h3>\n
What is intersectionality?<\/h3>\n
What is diet culture?<\/h3>\n
What you\u2019ll find in the Society section<\/h2>\n
\n
Why are beauty standards a social issue?<\/h2>\n
What can you do about discrimination or online harassment?<\/h2>\n
\n
Our approach: connecting the personal and the collective<\/h2>\n
Articles to start with<\/h2>\n
\n
Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n
What counts as discrimination?<\/h3>\n
What is intersectionality?<\/h3>\n
What is diet culture?<\/h3>\n