A man has been convicted of sexism in a public place for the first time under a new law in Belgium, reports The Independent. A court in Brussels charged the man over $4,000 for insulting a police officer due to her gender. He was stopped for breaking a highway code, and is reported to have told the female police officer that she would be better off doing a job “adapted to women.” There were witnesses to the scene. He was found guilty of three charges: contempt of a police officer, making threats and sexist remarks in public, and a serious violation of another person’s dignity because of her gender, according to The Independent. If he does not pay the fine, he will have to serve a month prison term. “This is the first time we have used this law to prosecute someone,” said Gilles Blondeau, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, to The Independent. “It is quite common for people arrested by the police to insult and threaten. But to personally blame a policewoman because of her sex is different.” The law came about in 2012, after a documentary titled Women of the Street revealed of common sexism in public was in the country. Under the law, any behavior expressing “contempt towards a person, because of their sexuality” or treating a person as “inferior or as reduced essentially to their sexual dimension” is punishable by up to a year in prison and/or a fine.
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