On what we wear

As a part of those 90-minute shows we just finished, once, I had to prepare a public service message as an insert in the programme. For someone who sits up immediately when she hears people talk of gender and women’s rights, ‘self-defence by women’ as a topic for the insert was a natural choice. To find out more about how women can protect themselves when faced with danger, I went to a nearby police station.

For the uninitiated, ‘Tamil Nadu has the largest strength of women police personnel in the country. It also has the highest number of women police stations in the country.’- Tamil Nadu Government website. The state also does well with respect to social indicators such as sex ratio and literacy among women when compared to northern states.

So beaming with pride, I walked into the police station and asked if I could meet a woman inspector. After some curious interrogation in their broken English and my broken Tamil, they were finally ready to give me the required information. The policewoman on duty kept on saying ‘Learn Karate’. Then, after much probing, she gave me some practical tips about moving around in groups as far as possible, keeping pins at hand, using pepper spray etc.

What she said next punctured all the confidence I had in how women in Tamil Nadu were emerging as strong and capable individuals. ‘Women must dress decently,’ she said with much contempt. She didn’t approve of the clothes college girls wear these days. She intended to suggest that the clothes we wear provoke men to harass us.

I appreciate the policewoman’s efforts at warning me about my safety. But could someone please explain to men AND women that sexual harassment takes place not because women ‘ask for it’ but because men are ‘sick’ in their minds???!!! And if that’s not it, then I hope to find out why men commit such heinous crimes when I study Gender next semester or in the future.

It is disgusting how the victim is held responsible for the crimes committed against her. Even our judiciary has been biased in delivering some of its judgments in case of serious crimes such as rape.

Every woman comes across sexual harassment in the streets. The age of the woman does not matter. And the clothes she wears certainly don’t!!!

Someone is attempting to prove just that and more. Her name is Jasmeen Patheja and she is from Bangalore. I read about her yesterday [27^th November] in The Hindu Magazine and just had to visit her blog today. She is raising her voice against eve teasing…something every woman puts up with every single day. That’s the problem! Why do we put up with it?

Jasmeen is using her talent as a student of art to speak out against those ‘sick’ guys women come across in almost all public places. She asks women who have been harassed in the streets to send the clothes they were wearing at the time of the incident. She obviously proves that women don’t provoke men with their clothes.

There’s more to come on this issue on my blog…