Everyday in our life we experience some problems some are negligible and some are not.
If you are male, you struggle to get through your exams, find hard to get a job looking for classifed columns and you face lot of financial problems even if you get the desired job .
Suppose you are a girl .then what problems you might have faced apart from your childhood.
You are waiting at the bus stop early in the morning, minding yourbusiness as usual, when a group of guys, (roadside romeos) sitting on a wall behind thestop, as if on cue, burst out into a loud voice singing "Chholi kepeeche kya hai, chholi ke peechey!" and making indecent gestures and/or postures, obscene remarks atyou . You valiantly try to ignore them and jump into the next bus which comes along .
To your dismay, the bus is extremely crowded, and to top it off, an oldman cannot keep his control touches you and if the bus driver applies the brakes and to make matters worse you can feel him getting a hard on. You have had enough and you decide to get down at the very next stop, but you have to fight through the huge group of guys hanging off the footboard of the bus and you get groped on your way out on a crowded bus.
You are left feeling violated, but you have to go towork/college/school, so you call an auto and get into it and heave asigh of relief. But your relief is short lived as you notice the autodriver adjusting his rear view mirror to catch glimpses at you, and youtry your level best to keep a somber expression and you stubbornly lookat the road instead.
Finally you reach your destination and take a hard breath and when you go home you will take a shower and say yourself "Thats it for the day " .
Have you ever encountered these problems which outrage your modesty ? If so, you have justbeen a victim of ‘eve teasing’.
Women in India mostly are oppressed, rich or poor . Full stop. But you cant expect the whole male Indian population to rise up one fine hot Chennai morning and allow women to sit in PTC buses or give them way in the crowd or even not utterly misbehave when in close distance. No, it won’t happen in chennai or anywhere else in India .
Women are harassed emotionally or sexually at roads, shopping malls, cinema halls, restaurants, buses, offices, schools, colleges, universities — everywhere .
What do you call this act? Eve Teaser . Actually this is called Slur and it comes under Sexual Harrassment . Who does this? It can be anyone, a stranger, a boyfriend, or your co-worker . Psychologically, Eve Teasing is the act done to prove their superiority over women.
It does not matter what the female in question is wearing. Whether she is covered from head to toe in a burka, or wearing a loosely fitted shalwaar kameez, or is donning jeans/t-shirt, a female who has dared to venture out on the street is definitely going to receive catcalls from the males in that vicinity.
Even while wearing a niqaab and an abaya, there have been remarks like “Chalti hai kya nau se baara” to “Kya haseen aankhein hain”(and that too when one is wearing spectacles!). And if you have dared not to cover your head with a dupatta, beware, you have committed the biggest sin of all time. Comments will range from ‘haseen zulfain’ to ‘kya maal hai’ to more sexually explicit ones.
I think most of you watched Darr Movie, where Shahrukh khan sings “Tu haan kar ya naa kar, tu hai meri Kiran” . If your name is kiran, and when the movie was released, you might have experienced few guys singing the song while you are passing them .
Every action is performed with an intention. The intention of Eve teasing is to get girl’s attention and the boy’s attitude of being "Boys are Boys" further take this behaviour.
Who can you blame about? of course everyone will blame men for their attitude. But you dont blame the society isnt?
If you are a girl , you must have gone through the grandmother’s comment that "Being born a woman is a curse" and "Male means ‘powerful’, while the female is always the ‘weaker sex’.
Your parents ask you to wear only salwars or saris, with the duppatta of the salwar covering completely. They dont like you travelling after 6 pm . Also they will ask you to accept that molestation and groping in public places, and tell you thats a fact of life we have to live with, and go about our business. It causes the fear and inferiority among women and they dont know how to handle the situation .
Most men take this as granted , and consider eve teasing as a joke or prank and claim that they just do it for ‘fun’, and do not mean anything serious by it and actually it gets nerves of the victim . In severity, some have to deal with the life longscars of acid thrown in their faces, and they attempt suicides or brutally murdered. Its cruel isnt?
So what are you supposed to do?
1) Prepare for it mentally . Do not be insecure or nervous, that is your downfall. Be cautious and alert instead.
2) IGNORE all the "good advice" from people, who say that you have to dress in a certain way.
It is as baseless as saying that you got robbed because you were carrying a lot of money. Poor robber what was he supposed to do? He couldnt control himself, because you were carrying a lot of money so its your fault, not the robber’s. It is as absurd as that. So wear what you want.
3) Grow long nails. Very useful.
4) Carry a huge handbag and fill it up. Hit him with that in the groin area ( most dont like this but it is effective from men’s point of view) .
5) Scream. As loud as you can.
6) Walk as if you know where you are going, even if you don’t. A potential eveteaser can always pick out a girl who is nervous or insecure or lost.
7) Take that innocent look off your face. You are only asking for trouble.
8) File a complaint if you are brave enough.
You should learn to give as good as you can get. And what have you got? Harassment.
So isnt it time you learnt to fight back? To give back?