Women say they can do without metro telling them how to dress

Shanghai subway authorities apparently thought they knew best what women passengers should wear when they urged them to avoid sporting revealing clothing, in the interests of self-respect and to avoid sexual harassment.

To drive its point home, the operator of the city's metro posted an entry on its official microblog that featured a woman passenger wearing a see-through blouse with her undergarments clearly visible. Such attire, the subway chiefs said, could make women subject to sexual harassment.

'There can be many perverts on the subway and it's hard to get rid of them, so respect yourselves please, ladies,' the June 20 entry said.

The posting has been condemned by women's groups and lead a wide debate among the mainland media and public about whether the subway management had overstepped its bounds. Was a dress code appropriate if it lead to fewer incidents of harassment?

The China News Service reported on Monday that two young women dressed in clothes resembling a burqa, the traditional attire for Muslim women, protested inside a Shanghai subway station with placards that read: 'We can be sexy, but you cannot harass us' and 'We want coolness, but not perverts'.

In a signed commentary in the Beijing News, Yao Jing wrote on Tuesday that there was no legally enshrined dress code for women, so the move by the subway was inappropriate.