As I work on this post, the Supreme Court confirmation is probably underway, but my post is related to that in a very very distant way I can assure you.
I opened our local newspaper yesterday and flipped through the pages and landed on the inner side of the last page. It was devoted to women speaking up about sexual assault. Not in a general way, not their opinion. Their experience.Each one’s experience.This was but a handful. More of these were available online. I start reading and my eyes welled up almost at once.
The first lady who wrote in was abused by her father.
Wednesday’s paper advised women to talk about their horrible experience to their father, their brothers, just so men can understand the impact of these experiences.That they need not be spared the pain their daughter or sister underwent. That, this would create more empathy on the part of the men and more incentive on the part of the women to speak up rather than hold back.
Who does a woman, who is being abused by the very person who needs to protect her, go to for help?
There were instances where the mother is hesitant to act, and even casts doubts on the daughter’s version of events.
Almost every woman, at some point in her life, will have been subjected to unwanted looks, words, or physical contact. Even if actual sexual assault didn't happen, the intent is sexual.
Getting on a local bus in Chennai was torture back in the days. They were almost always crowded beyond belief and unless you managed to snag a seat, you were in for a tough time. The jostling
crowd almost always had a couple of perverts taking advantage. My father hated the fact that my sister and I had to use public transportation to go to college and back and anytime he had a chance to pick us up from college, he would. My sister did her Masters at a place almost an hour’s drive away
from home and involved changing two buses. But whenever he could, my dad would make that drive on his motorbike to pick her up. Her classmates used to tease her about it, but his love and concern for us was beyond measure and he would do it all over again if you ask him now. Funnily, the last time I was in Chennai, I went to a reunion with friends and was late coming back home and was in an Uber, and called my husband to let him know I was on my way home, but my dad gave me this look when I finally arrived home.That Dad looking ‘daggers at his teenage daughter for having broken curfew look’ ?! I was forty five years old for heavens‘s sake! With a teenage son myself to boot!!
But I have never shared my experiences with him. Ever. It would cause him enormous pain, It would anger him. It would make him feel guilty, that he couldn’t keep us safe from those perverts.
Every time I was subject to such experiences( my worst one was when some idiot standing behind me in a crowded bus that was swaying at every turn, started rubbing his erection on my back), the anger that welled up in me would make me imagine massive acts of violence against the pervert. But as quickly as it came, my anger welled away. The impracticality of expressing my anger hit me. Why draw attention to yourself? Why have more people look at you with those gauging eyes, wondering what made the pervert pick you in the crowd? Eyes that would immediately objectify you, check out your attire, you body, because, obviously, you had to have caused that response in that guy.
Twenty five years later, and a continent away, we are still having that conversation.How the clothes women wear, the way they behave, the attitude they have, somehow absolves men from having given in to their primal response. The women ask for it.
And the hypocrisy of calling women in hijab backward? So what if men want their womenfolk hidden away? Makes sense to me. The same forward thinking, educated, ‘land of the free’ that points fingers( wrongly, I should add) at a religion that supposedly insists on hijab for women, is currently embroiled in this enormous catfight about how ‘ boys will be boys’ and juvenile indiscretion shouldn't be held against anyone... not anyone, just men in power. And that women are at fault. There are perverts online who try to make these women (who make these accusations) out as deserving of such treatment because they were, in some way, asking for it.
Everyone does silly stupid stuff in their youth. But non-consensual sexual activity is definitely not in that category.
Women can make huge inroads into the realm of male power.We can be as educated as men, work as hard, play as hard. But this is what men hold up against women. The power to wound them- physically.
And, now when it seems that this whole last couple of weeks were in vain, there is a ray of hope- that women can somehow shed that shame at being assaulted and rightly understand that they were the victims and not in any way the cause for such assault. That the girls of this generation never hesitate to come out with any incidences of assault without having to worry about being believed.
Here's to that hope!
I opened our local newspaper yesterday and flipped through the pages and landed on the inner side of the last page. It was devoted to women speaking up about sexual assault. Not in a general way, not their opinion. Their experience.Each one’s experience.This was but a handful. More of these were available online. I start reading and my eyes welled up almost at once.
The first lady who wrote in was abused by her father.
Wednesday’s paper advised women to talk about their horrible experience to their father, their brothers, just so men can understand the impact of these experiences.That they need not be spared the pain their daughter or sister underwent. That, this would create more empathy on the part of the men and more incentive on the part of the women to speak up rather than hold back.
Who does a woman, who is being abused by the very person who needs to protect her, go to for help?
There were instances where the mother is hesitant to act, and even casts doubts on the daughter’s version of events.
Almost every woman, at some point in her life, will have been subjected to unwanted looks, words, or physical contact. Even if actual sexual assault didn't happen, the intent is sexual.
Getting on a local bus in Chennai was torture back in the days. They were almost always crowded beyond belief and unless you managed to snag a seat, you were in for a tough time. The jostling
crowd almost always had a couple of perverts taking advantage. My father hated the fact that my sister and I had to use public transportation to go to college and back and anytime he had a chance to pick us up from college, he would. My sister did her Masters at a place almost an hour’s drive away
from home and involved changing two buses. But whenever he could, my dad would make that drive on his motorbike to pick her up. Her classmates used to tease her about it, but his love and concern for us was beyond measure and he would do it all over again if you ask him now. Funnily, the last time I was in Chennai, I went to a reunion with friends and was late coming back home and was in an Uber, and called my husband to let him know I was on my way home, but my dad gave me this look when I finally arrived home.That Dad looking ‘daggers at his teenage daughter for having broken curfew look’ ?! I was forty five years old for heavens‘s sake! With a teenage son myself to boot!!
But I have never shared my experiences with him. Ever. It would cause him enormous pain, It would anger him. It would make him feel guilty, that he couldn’t keep us safe from those perverts.
Every time I was subject to such experiences( my worst one was when some idiot standing behind me in a crowded bus that was swaying at every turn, started rubbing his erection on my back), the anger that welled up in me would make me imagine massive acts of violence against the pervert. But as quickly as it came, my anger welled away. The impracticality of expressing my anger hit me. Why draw attention to yourself? Why have more people look at you with those gauging eyes, wondering what made the pervert pick you in the crowd? Eyes that would immediately objectify you, check out your attire, you body, because, obviously, you had to have caused that response in that guy.
Twenty five years later, and a continent away, we are still having that conversation.How the clothes women wear, the way they behave, the attitude they have, somehow absolves men from having given in to their primal response. The women ask for it.
And the hypocrisy of calling women in hijab backward? So what if men want their womenfolk hidden away? Makes sense to me. The same forward thinking, educated, ‘land of the free’ that points fingers( wrongly, I should add) at a religion that supposedly insists on hijab for women, is currently embroiled in this enormous catfight about how ‘ boys will be boys’ and juvenile indiscretion shouldn't be held against anyone... not anyone, just men in power. And that women are at fault. There are perverts online who try to make these women (who make these accusations) out as deserving of such treatment because they were, in some way, asking for it.
Everyone does silly stupid stuff in their youth. But non-consensual sexual activity is definitely not in that category.
Women can make huge inroads into the realm of male power.We can be as educated as men, work as hard, play as hard. But this is what men hold up against women. The power to wound them- physically.
And, now when it seems that this whole last couple of weeks were in vain, there is a ray of hope- that women can somehow shed that shame at being assaulted and rightly understand that they were the victims and not in any way the cause for such assault. That the girls of this generation never hesitate to come out with any incidences of assault without having to worry about being believed.
Here's to that hope!
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