Women and their allies are taking bold steps towards achieving gender equality in the workplace. One teenage girl considered suing a police officer for sexual assault after he allegedly touched her chest during an altercation. Over 2, tear gas canisters have been fired throughout the protests, compared to just 87 in the Umbrella Movement , with two incidents of shootings of teenagers by police officers with live rounds in the past week marking the most severe use of force so far.
Police said that the report was missing context, and have defended their actions as restrained in the face of life-threatening actions from protesters. Some of the most serious injuries have been inflicted on women, including on a volunteer first-aid provider who was shot in the eye by a projectile outside a police station during a protest in August, inspiring a campaign in which protesters covered one eye in solidarity.
Police say the incident is being investigated. The allegations of police brutality include multiple accounts of sexual assault directed against women, including one from a protester who has accused a police officer of conducting an invasive naked body search after she was arrested. In response to those allegations, protesters organized a MeToo protest in a central Hong Kong square in August, with tens of thousands of black-clad supporters turning out in a city where the global anti-sexual-harassment movement has had a minimal presence.
The police force has defended the use of full-body searches as necessary but said it would follow up on other allegations of mistreatment seriously. Now, a newfound respect for Hong Kong women can be discerned.
Who cares if we do all the stuff that people say we do? Jane Chan, a lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University who has studied the Kong Girl phenomenon, and has students who have taken part in the protests, said that the high participation of women in the protests is because many simply believe they are entitled to the same opportunities as men when it comes to standing up for their beliefs.
