A 30-year-old woman from Sandwell has spoken of her distress after being subjected to a tirade of verbal abuse outside an Asda supermarket in Tipton, an incident she says left her feeling "vulnerable and violated."
Rasheeda Hayaat, who runs the skincare brand Skinaline, was heading into the Asda Great Bridge Supercentre on the afternoon of July 20 when a man began shouting at her. The encounter, which lasted several minutes, involved religious slurs and personal insults, and has prompted Asda to ban the individual from all its stores.
What happened outside Asda Great Bridge?
Rasheeda had left her home in Sandwell expecting a quick trip to the supermarket to pick up gloves for her business. She arrived at around 1pm and was walking towards the entrance when she heard a man's voice.
"[A man] said something along the lines of 'excuse me sister, are you okay?'" she told BirminghamLive. However, as a woman, she explained she often ignores such approaches for safety reasons: "Being a female, I know it sounds a bit rude, but I tend to ignore the men, because it helps in regards to, I don't have to have a conversation I don't want to have. When I've been nice to people in the past, they've followed me home, they've waited at the same shops."
She walked past him and into the store, but moments later heard him swearing. "What I'm hearing is 'you stupid b****, I don't know who the f*** you think you are?'" she recalled. Shocked, she turned around and confronted him, asking what his problem was.
Abusive rant about Muslim women
The man then launched into a rant targeting her faith and appearance. Rasheeda, who wears a jilbab, said he told her: "You Muslim girls, you think you're so nice. I bet you don't even know how to pray, you wear this, you probably married a P***, that's why you're even doing this." He also quizzed her on whether she knew the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith, and called her a "s**g" and a "b****."
"Honestly, I'm like what is your problem? All I've done is walk past you, and now you're shouting in my face," she said. She asked him to stop and leave, but he refused, saying she couldn't make him. "He's got his fingers in my face and he's like, who do you think you are? You're lucky I tried to talk to you," she recounted. "I'm thinking to myself, what the hell? I'm looking around me and no one's doing anything."
Security guard intervenes
The altercation escalated until a security guard came out of Asda to intervene. Rasheeda told the guard she did not know the man, and the guard instructed him to leave. When she left the store later, the guard allegedly told her the man would not be allowed back.
Reflecting on the incident, Rasheeda said it left her feeling "helpless," "vulnerable and violated." She said: "It made me feel quite vulnerable and violated at the same time. It made me feel intimidated in regards to going back to that Asda." The next day, she stayed indoors, but forced herself to return to the store shortly after to overcome her fear: "The day after it happened I didn't leave my house. The next day I made myself go back because I thought if I don't bite the bullet and get over that fear now, I'm going to end up limiting myself based on somebody else's actions."
Call for men to 'do better'
Rasheeda, who is a mother, said the incident has left her with a lingering worry every time she visits Asda, as she fears bumping into the man again. She also spoke out about the broader issue of abuse towards women: "I was just like, men need to do better. We're not obligated to respond, we're not obligated to have a conversation. You have to understand that there will be women who won't want to respond, and then that doesn't justify your erratic or disrespectful behaviour."
She urged men to challenge such behaviour: "People need to check their brothers, their cousins, their uncles, their friends, because I think a lot of men enable this behaviour and look at it like women deserve to be disrespected if they're not in the house, or if she's dressed a certain way or if she talks a certain way." She added: "I just thought [the man] probably didn't have good role models, because you can see a big difference from men that have good role models and men that don't."
Asda responds with ban
An Asda spokesperson confirmed the company has taken action: "We have zero tolerance for abuse of any kind, and as soon as we became aware of this incident, the individual involved was banned from our stores. We want everyone who visits our stores to feel welcome and safe, so we were sorry to hear about this customer's experience and would be happy to meet with them should they wish to speak to us about it."
The incident has sparked renewed calls for vigilance against harassment in public spaces, with Rasheeda's story resonating with many on social media after she shared it on TikTok.
