Several rights groups have criticized the Egyptian movie industry lately. Calls for boycotting film screenings have spread on Facebook and Twitter to protest how Egyptian cinema is portraying women: by allegedly insulting them and legitimizing their harassment.

A group calling itself Shoft Tahrosh (Harassment Seen), which fights harassment of women in Cairo, has asserted that filmmakers have badly portrayed women in this season’s films, which were first screened during Eid al-Adha.

The group, via a statement released on its Facebook page, also said that some films deal humorously with the female body, legitimize harassment of women and discrimination, and justify anti-woman physical and verbal violence. The filmmakers do so by means of simple comedy films that the filmmakers think is harmless. Shoft Tahrosh said that such comedic scenes are not merely playful scenes that entertain the audience, but also suggest to the audience what is acceptable and normal. According to the group, just as cinema is influenced by reality, reality is also influenced by cinema.

The group stressed that it respects the film industry’s freedom, opposes government and popular censorship in any form and opposes banning films or deleting any part of any film. But the group called for an age-based movie rating system and asked filmmakers to take into account their responsibility toward children and how their films depict women and girls, especially in light of the dire situation of women and girls in Egypt, where women suffer sexual and domestic violence as well as and discrimination in public and private life.