I am literally overwhelmed with the response to this post. Thank you, ladies and err gent ;). While I am glad that women don’t fear to speak out anymore, I am also frustrated that they still have to go through this today in 2009. As opposed to getting better, things only seem to be getting worse. The school I attended when I was in India during my Grade 8 – Grade 10 had a skirt and a shirt as the school uniform for girls. Now, 10 years later, the same school has changed the uniform to a more conservative salvaar-kameez. I have questioned it before too … here. Not that there is anything wrong with wearing salvaar-kameez, it’s the fact that school administration thinks it pertinent to change the dress code as soon as girls hit puberty is unsettling. For what? To save them from prying eyes? Of who? Of men eh? Aren’t these men who ‘pry’ a part of the same society? Wouldn’t it be easy on all if something was done do stop them from prying than putting women under control every given chance? No efforts are made to stop the ‘prying men’ but women are curtained, cordoned, chained, covered, their freedoms curtailed – what not – under the garb of their need to be protected. Pathetic!
If you don’t mind, I am going to post bits and pieces of the comments I received from the posts for the last couple of days. These views need to be highlighted.
Nita wrote: There was an experiment and counselling done by a social group about which I have written on my blog. Here the young men dressed up as women and the girls stared, made comments, and treated them generally the way they usually treat girls. At the end of 10 days, these boys were suitably ashamed and said they had not idea what it felt like!
SMM: It is sad statement but it is a fact, that when one of my friends got eve teased a few days back, the first thing I asked her was, “What were you wearing?”
Namrata: just ready to bash out at any-fuckin-body led to a lot of rage inside me..guess what..I came to the US and my husband finds me too aggressive at times..well thats what the streets [in India] make u …
Laksh: I did not dress “provocatively” yet I was subject to ‘eve teasing’, groping and generally lewd behavior on the streets. Over time you learn to take it in your stride and lose a part of yourself in the process.
Nandini: Not ONLY YOUNG and SEXY women face it. ALL WOMEN. Irrespective of whether or not they are conventionally sexy or not.
Kriti: It is always the women who are questioned while no one lifts a finger to try to ask why men are depraved and cannot control themselves.
Shefaly: I have once beaten an old man with my umbrella for molesting my friend. [...] he was old enough to have had grand-daughters our age.
Manpreet: If at all anyone has to make a ‘blank’ noise, it should be those with blank stares. We are not embarrassed about the issue, they should be.
Kanupriya: And yes, despite we being known as developing nation, women esp. growing girls in India are far unsafe than most of the parts of globe!
Tara: It pains terribly to see that freedom of the kind you spoke is a fight in my country in spite of all the positives one can think of.
Balvinder Singh: It is a tight slap on the faces of us Indian men. I hang my head in shame for the treatment that we mete out to our women and girls. That too without any provocation.
IHM: roop tussi great ho! (LOL of course that was the best part of IHM’s comment hehehe … what? narcisisst? me? naaaaah ;pp … anyway, moving on.)
Pinku: without [freedom] we are as good as vegetation.
Alankrita: One of the commenters to my post talked about “running away is not the solution, one must do something”. But what should one do? No one supports women in India- not the police( you kidding me, go to the police, be harassed more like), not the NCW( counseled the molesters indeed), not the government( pub culture is against our culture- give me promiscuity and alcohol to the Indian culture they are selling) and not the wonderfully -valued Indian families( how many families have scolded girls for being followed home- or trying to fight back). We cannot do anything. Except leave with our sanity intact.
Vijaya: For each spurt of growth that India has, it seems as if there are enough “sainiks” to bring it further down.
Malvika: No thank you, I DO NOT need this culture. I WOULD RATHER BE FREE!
Imp’s Mom: (very profound) Funny how we just know it is our freedom which will be curtailed, even when it happens the first time!
Jasdeep: I don’t think there was any significant women’s liberation movement in India, but it was there in the west..indian women have not fought for its right.. and ‘Mannuism’ still prevails.
Mahesh S: I wish every male (so called man) reads this. I want them to know what effect their heroics have on the psyche of a girl. Its shame on us all.
Solilo: It is high time us educated Indians do seriously something to stop such goons and fanatics. How? I am not sure myself :(
Nandini V: Such stuff I can go on and on for ages. So much that people ask me to shut up. They say take it in your stride and move on. Show strength – is something I’ve heard :).
La Vida Loca: One of those things where there’s so much to say yet, it remains unsaid.
Kiran in NYC: Perhaps the day that women in India are liberated from the devi/devdasi categorization, is the day they will be treated with the dignity than any human should be accorded.
(those I haven’t quoted … my apologies … i had to stay true to the topic of this post … sans IHM’s comment of course ;p)
15 comments
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February 3, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Allytude
Did you read the latest gem from the High Court in Delhi?
Apparently it is no longer an obscenity if a married couple kiss each other in public. It was till now.
Of course we have double standards. A gesture of affection is obscene, while molesters go scott free. I wonder their brains do not go into insta-freeze mode.
yeaah i know ehh!!! i couldnt help laughing. thank law for letting me love someone. :/
February 3, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Solilo
@ Alankrita’s comment above.
So we need a court to tell us that it is okay if a married couple kiss in public.
Even that isn’t going to stop the lunatics on Feb 14. They are already preparing for it and then later these goon leaders will take a brief vacation with their wife/gfs/other women abroad where PDA is okay.
hush sol!! u shouldn’t be speaking disrespectfully of the sainiks! :P
February 3, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Nimmy
More gems waiting for us honey..
Hooliganism in the name of ‘‘Indian culture’’ is still thriving in Mangalore. Local goons there have now issued threats to young women to
desist from wearing ‘‘noodle straps’’ and ‘‘tight jeans’’ or face action, indicating that local authorities have done little to curb vigilantism unleashed by extreme right-wing groups.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4072291.cms
urgh argh oorgh m f a! :<
February 3, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Nimmy
This will not stop until women themselves start opening up and stop driving away femenists,who are labelled anti-cultural and ‘western’..When you don’t have support from within the community,how do you fight the inequality and the unfair system..??
so totally true. Feminism gotta lose its negative meaning!!
February 4, 2009 at 12:22 am
Imp's Mom
yea roop, that one line in itself can be a whole post!
nice header :P
February 4, 2009 at 3:45 am
Poonam
Well, this dress change happened in my school reign. I still remmeber my silly principal announcing “ab pair nahi dikhana’. THere was lot of outrage at his remarks and also change of dress. Eventually chnage was successfulyl implemented. Another gender discrimination that was gradually accepted. :(
February 4, 2009 at 3:47 am
Nimmy
Just as i went back from here,smiling at your new nice header,i read this news…
Man assaults jeans-clad wife for dressing up like men
a man kicked and stamped his wife because she was dressed
“as a man”.
Adding insult to injury, the police promptly dispatched the battered woman, who suffered the ignominy in full public glare, to her in-laws house, terming it as a “family matter”. No case was filed.
The shameful episode was played out in the Dabwali market on Monday when a 23-year-old jean-clad girl accompanied her parents on a shopping expedition. “She was accosted by her livid husband and beaten for ‘bringing a bad name to the family”.
He kept screaming at her “Is this the way women from respectable families dress?” a shopkeeper, who witnessnessed the incident and helped rescue the girl, said. A PCR van which reached the spot, took the couple to the police station, he added.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4072709.cms
We have ‘good’ times ahead..
February 4, 2009 at 4:33 am
SMM
Roop check out my latest post and plz to give comments. I have linked it up a news item today in ToI
February 4, 2009 at 4:33 am
SMM
Then we’l talk about double standards
February 4, 2009 at 4:35 am
SMM
Btw Nimmy, the link can’t be found
February 4, 2009 at 4:35 am
SMM
Roop link found – plz delete this and the previous comment
February 4, 2009 at 11:48 am
Vijaya
You are so right! Unfortunately, even with so many of us speaking out, i am not too sure anything can be done about such people. Although one really important thing to note here is isnt it always politics or politicians who are the cause for such insults? I understand that roadside eve teasing is more due to individuals or the society, but incidents like the mangalore pub scene : isnt the agenda always political gain?
February 4, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Sandy
The double standard is this…we tell girls they are responsible for not only their behavior but the behavior of others…yet boys are told they can do what they want when they want.
They grow up thinking these things and even if they don’t believe in it…even if some of them don’t practice it…they allow others to act that way or not defend those subjected to such behavior.
It isn’t just Indian girls and boys. It is women all over the world.
When MEN start stepping up and telling BOYS that this behavior is UNACCEPTABLE then a lot of this harassment will end. Women have been complaining for years and nothing has really happened…MEN need to step up to the plate and let the young boys know that this is UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR NO MATTER WHAT THE GIRL IS DRESSED LIKE OR LOOKS LIKE.
Silence is the enemy here. When you don’t speak out against something, you condone it.
February 6, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Human first, Woman later « banalities of life
[...] there whilst most of mine was in Canada) emailed me yesterday upon reading my blog that I wrote on my ex-school changing their dress code to salvaar-kameez for girls from skirts that we had 10 years …. The email-versation went as [...]
September 5, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Deborah
The term ‘Prying Men’ is a perfect phrase to describe the forced inability of women to be who they are, where ever they are. Yet as you say, no (or little ) effort is being made to stop the killing of women’s freedoms and the hideousness of this is that it IS getting worse.