I don't generally read the news, because I claim it depresses me. I was actually gonna start again, but I don't think I'll bother.
Ok, First I link you to Rushi who's angrier about it than I am, and with good reason, he lives in Mumbai, he knows about the whole new year molestation thing......
Also linking you to Annie Zaidi's post dated 2 jan.
These Mumbai Molestations......I heard about it from a friend, she told me about these two ladies who'd been molested by some 80 men on their way back from a new year party.....and it still didn't hit me then. It's hit me now, when I heard the anger in Rushi's voice.
A lot of people (including me) live in a dream, in a beautiful bubble which says Mumbai's really safe, Mumbai's friendly......sometimes you have to live in your bubble if you don't want to be looking over your shoulder all the time.....
Well, pop your bubble, ladies and gents....that up there, that's the ugly side of Amchi Mumbai. That is the exact reason why we're living in the bubble.
I've never been molested (thank-god-touchwood-may-it-never-ever-happen) but I have been touched (pinched, actually, on my butt) and I remember the look the guy gave me, as he walked off.....he was smiling, the hard cold smile you give when you know the other person is helpless.....
and damn was I helpless.....I still regret not hitting the guy then and there. It wasn't even in mumbai dammit, it was in Bhopal I think, at a stadium. And the guy was a student. A student! Hardly 18!
And it wasn't just him, it was a lot of these shifty guys, just looking, and something in their looks made us slowly shift our position and go warm up somehwere else. And this when we were covered from head to toe.
But here it is, this is the ugly side of Mumbai, and all men, believe me. According to Hindustan Times (I read it in Rushi's post) aome 60% of Indian men feel that if women wear provocative clothes they're practically asking for molestation.
Bings back memories of some child rape case I'd read about last year, This 10 year old girl in England was raped, I can't remember the sentence given to the rapist (it was peanuts) but I kinda remember what the judge said.....he said, the girl didn't look 10, she was wearing clothes too old for her age, she looked about 14......
Right.you call that an excuse? YOU CALL THAT A FUCKING EXCUSE??you're supposed to be THE LAW dammit, and if the lae's this bad, how bad are the people???
So, what, must we women always be looking behind us as we walk? Must we be always in fear of the men, those people who think they own us?
Me, I get the good end, it ain't that bad here, even though there are always taxis crowded below my building and I always get the "Ello 'ow are you"s and the looks from the Omani football guys when I do my beach run (But just maybe it is a point that a 16 year old running in shorts in a Muslim prevalent country is a slight oddity. But there isn't any law preventing shorts on the beach.)
Oh isn't this great! I'm on about six sites now, very pissed, looking for hindustan times Mumbai edition. I chance upon Delhi edition for today, what do i see on the front page?
"Woman Molested In Gurgaon Mall"
Brilliant. It's everywhere, It's frikkin everywhere.
What is it, this THING that makes men go crazy, that makes them stare at women, even the ones who're not pretty, even the ones with no figure (me.).....and not just stare. Follow. Catcall. Like my mom told me about. After the guys following her in Mumbai, even now, more than a decade later, she's still paranoid on the street if there's someone behind her.
Not just stare. More. touch. grope in crowds.
Why do you, you men, why do you feel that women are your.........things? Things, I tell you. All this women injustice thing is rushing into my head now.......
Of course, it's not all men, some of you are nice guys, some of you actually love women for what they are, some of you see women as equals.....not all of you though.
Not the student boys who say :
"Girls should not party or drink. The ones who do cannot be decent. Girls cannot be boys. They have to stay at home. After all, they have to get married."
I have no words to this. Just shock.
Not the other Mumbai student who says:
"Girls who wear tight revealing clothes, hang out with boys and like to party are inviting trouble.Our society allows boys freedom"
More shock.
Not the ones that put anonymous comments on blanknoise.com saying:
"Looking a crime!!! Well well well thats why India's a sexually repressed country. It my eyes...I deceide where to look. The blogger needs to see a psychologist."
No, looking's not a crime, but you see you don't know how much damamge that one lecherous look can do to us.
Not another MCP commenter on BlankNoise who says:
"Hi Folks, i am feeling sad on hearing this kind of time wasting time activity. I am very concerned about the dress sense of the gals.. there is lot of skin showing.. thats provokes guys to stare at them.. First gals u change ur so called attitude then think of other things ok. I hope u people have some maturity to think over it... Thx Goudse"
Not the judge who thinks it's okay to rape a 10 year old if she looks 14.
I'm ashamed to be a part of the same race that thinks this. really.
And we thought humans were advanced. Really, now?
What you don't see is the guilt that comes after you do all this. The mind doesn't let go of such things very easily. THe mind feels filthy.It wants to purge itself. The mind keeps replaying it, on and on, doesn't let you forget.....why was it you, dammit, why?
I can go on forever, honestly, I can.
But I'll stop. There's a lot to say.But............who's listening?
20 comments:
It isn't just Mumbai, in fact Mumbai's supposed to be better. I have friends coming in to Delhi from there who walk around with my number typed out on their phone so that they can just hit 'call' the moment something goes wrong. It's ridiculous, and it's getting worse. When you destroy slums and build malls there, you're going to piss off the rural folk that lived there, and they're going to get sloshed on cheap booze, and take it out on whoever they can.
thank u, renovatio, the problem isnt just the cheap boozers, while they do constitute a large part of the sexual offenders, whats actually scary is the fact that the middle, ad in some cases, the upper middle classes are no better, and yeah ive heard about delhi bing even worse, sorta hard to imagine.
read about the molestations and yeah, was really shocked. the root of the problem is MCP. till men shed their chauvinistic attitude, nothing gonna change. the problem is not the dress ense of women or women partying - it is the mindset of the so called MEN.
When they say gilr shave to be at home coz they need to get married, dont they - who supposed to be the husbands of the women - have no responsability? WTF?
when they say girls ar einviting trouble, why dont they ralise that it is their mindset where the trouble actually is?
it is not only in mumbai, it is there every where, and it will continue to be there every where in the worls till men get over their fucking superiority and chauvinistic attitude.
The essential problem seems to be that most people have no respect for others in India.
"i'll park my car in the middle of the road." "why?" "because i can. just watch me."
"I'll go molest those girls" "why?" "because i can. just watch me."
It's pretty much the same thing everywhere in this country >_<
Such guys are sooo... ugly. We make me sick. :(
You're right Mystique.
I read that same newspaper on Sunday. And before that, it hadn't really sunk in.
What hit me afterwards was real, strong, red, anger. It was like, hold-their-rotten-face-punch-'em-hard kind of anger.
I live in Delhi.
Maybe I'm really oblivious, but I've never really experienced anything like that. It isn't a matter of where you live. It's a matter of who's around you.
Did you read the column next to that particular report? It said that after 2 war-torn African countries, India has the highest number of women dying every year. Dowry deaths, yeah. But illegal, unsafe, late abortions of female foetuses that bleed the mother to death. And who cares?
The guys are the ones in demand. So what if he's a widower? So what if his beliefs and morals are strongly like every other female chauvinist's? So what if he's committed a crime?
So what? Because he'll still be paid to marry the girl.
But you have a daughter who is not good looking, who can't cook, who has been 'touched', and your hopes of marrying her off are gone.
You're right when you ask who's listening. The people who don't think it is a crime will not change. No matter what they do, they'll still be the society's Good Guy. Only because he's a Guy.
What gives them the incentive to change?
'Looking', by itself may not be a crime, but the Fundamental Duties listed in the Indian Constitution says "to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women." It ain't a law. But looking in a way derogatory to the dignity of women is against the basic fundamentals of the Constitution.
Women may have equal political rights. But the society still doesn't view them as they see men.
Where the law calls them equal, men find ways to keep them in the dirt with religion. In Hinduism, Sati was devised to keep women away from inheriting property by killing them with their husbands. They justify it by claiming the woman who underwent Sati is now a god, and they worship her. The family who lost their son builds a temple where the Sati took place, and in comes money, clothes, food, you name it, in the form of offerings.
Islam devised the purdah to keep women under check. They justify that one by claiming women are 'delicate and frail', and need to be kept safe, just as money and valuables need to be kept in a purdah as well.
While Sikhism was devised to remove all caste and gender inequality, to the extent that at the time of the wedding, the guru makes the husband vow to treat his wife as an equal, the most female foeticides take place in the rural, but rich Sikh farmsteads in Punjab, for nothing else but property.
While once women were treated as goddesses and miracle workers for creating life and worshiped, in time the role of the male seed was discovered and female deities were put into control by marrying them off to male gods.
Who's to blame? Male mentality, absolutely. But above and beyond that, when you bring religion into politics with parties like the Shiv Sena who hand kids free hats just to televise them hopping around in front of the camera shouting pro-Shiv Sena slogans, in time these same kids buy into the religious and sexist values of the party, not knowing anything else. This is how the rural classes are brought into the sexist fold, and you read about what happens once they get sloshed. Did you even read about the couple in Saket in Delhi? The guy told them to stop making derogatory statements, and they stabbed him and raped the girl with him.
2 reno:
Exactly! first the condition is so bad that you have to see slums wherever you go. pakka mumbaiites might accept it, but i'm an NRI and i see my city for two months every year, and i hate the state it's in. I hate how it's let itself go so low.
what do you mean about having your number ready to call?
2 Rushi:
The problem's in the mind, love, it's all in the mind. Doesn't even have to be the middle class, the upper class may look decent but you never know what class their minds belong to.
2 xh:
I've heard it's better in some places......it's mostly because of the patriarchial society, and india's long history of women oppression has seeped into the present times, it's ugly, but it plays a major role.....
"it's always been this way, it's our tradition"
well it wasn't our tradition till someone wacked up the brains of the hindu preists and gave them the whole superiority thing.........(history lessons. i actually paid a bit of attention in history last year....)
2 the deletion:
please don't do that......I hate it when people delete stuff they've wanted to say.
2 taurius: no respect for others, no respect for themselves, and most of all........no respect for respect.
it's a fucked up attitude to have.
2 espera:
firstly, I don't read the papers. I don't want to be reminded that I live in a world that allows things like this to happen.
you're right. It is getting better in the cities, i guess, but the more traditionalit parents will still pay dowry, will still wanna get their daughter married off in a hurry.....and of course, they'll teach their daughter how to behave like a lady, how to be submissive, how to cook, how to be a wife, it's sad. it's this view of marriages that ruin the society, it's arranged marriages that ruin the society. even though my parents and a lot of their friends have had arranged marriages and are happy, i still don't believe in them. not with a traditionalist society like ours.
2 reno again:
arranged marriages and religion.and politics. ruins, ruins, ruins.
religion.............take the good part of it. leave behind the bad. let it supplement your common sense....your humanitarian sense.
Even the male seed needs the female womb to bring it up. and vice versa. one may not survive without the other. what would happen if women did to men what men are doing to women? what would it be like if this was a female dominant society? that wouldn't be good either....
the universe has a balance, the scales have already been tipped, but this is going too far.
but no......
people are brought up in different ways. in different, very restrictive and very narrow ways.
the whole idea of judgment is alien to them. what you have been told right from childhood is what is right, and nothing else matters.
i dont mean to sound narrow-minded, but for such people who grow up in such ways, it doesnt help if all they see on television (which is regarded the great deliverer of all things in trend) is so-called 'cool' guys doing the very things they try to emulate and getting giggles and admiring glances from so-called 'cool' girls.
calcutta is so much safer in these respects. i hate delhi and mumbai for that reason. aah, now im being narrow minded.
Exactly, Mystique!
They all want boys, but not girls. How the freaking hell are they going to get their "precious sons" if they'll finish the women from whom they come?
first, its unfair, i give u the topic and u get all the readers.
second, and with complete malice, a guy pinched ur butt?? as in with tweezers?? coz come now love, u do not possess a posterior, let alone a pinchable one.
and third, reno good point, ive been trying to say the same thing on my blog, religion does play an important part in all of this, if not completely responsible.
and i hadnt heard about the saket thing thats pretty fucked up.
When you think about it, there's a bit of insecurity involved too. The real chauvinist guys are growing insecure because they don't like the idea of losing their "authority", of getting competition from people they earlier dominated.
It's like, we gotta teach them their proper place, how can they think they can come out and do stuff like us as well as us?
I have a proposition for you people legalize pre-natal sex discrimination and let simple economics prevail. See as the number of males will shoot the value of the girl child will automatically increase, think about it, this could be a solution and a permanent one too. Look at the state of Haryana it has happened there and now they aren't so discriminating, I guess that in the end this is what we have to do as apparently reform isn't working.
The only other option left is negative stimulation for eg. we could have noted offenders get implants that release a potent tranquilizer whenever someone in the vicinity presses the button, now circulate these among the people and whenever there is anything like this, press the button any previously captured or registered offender will get knocked off, if this doesn't work then I suggest tasering the guy. Hmm this may make a good business you know, ensuring the security of the populous.....
come now anuj, u cant be serious, im not dying a virgin in a country whose parliament has been knocked out by one for ur thingummys
Anuj, the idea is very stupid. The value for a bride goes up. Not for a girl child!! Even though there in Haryana, they are in supreme need of girls to marry off to, they still won't consider giving birth to a girl. It's like, not an option.
And you know what? This "value" word that you're using ... girls will only increase in monetary value (like what has happened in Haryana. Guys are paying a reverse-dowry). They'll still be harassed at home, still be denied rights.
So, your idea was completely and utterly stupid!!
Forget about being shocked, that incident freaked me out!!
The root to these problems are that we men think ourselves to be more superior to females, its how we've evolved, and why it happened that way, i have no clue.
I guess guy won't realise that a girl is a human being with thoughts, feelings, fear pain etc until a girl beats him up, I mean real bad!!!
Or maybe men think they're physically stronger than women, so they assume that they can get away with anything.
The dress code thing, I guess everyone has the right to wear what they want, I mean, you don't see women molesting a man wearing short clothes!!!
About what makes men stare at women so bad, i guess its just the hormones!
And about the partying and drinking, the partyings fine, but I reckon drinking is'nt good for persons from both the sexes, so, if a guy tells u not to drink, return the advice.
And no matter how much humans advance, we'll have to check back to where we came from, because I bet we can learn a lot of decency from our ancestral primates.
And Mystique, molestation seems way gentle when compared to the other things men do, like sati, infanticide and child marriage.
And I guess its high time men realised that without women, we would'nt be here, so where's your respect,they have to remember that their mothers are women too.
And don't think no one will listen to you, you're not the only one in this battle!!
2 confused:
you're very right, the problem's in the upbringing, the parents are brought up that way, it's ingrained in them that this is the right way to go, so they bring up their kids that way. vicious cycle and all that, can only be stopped if someone cuts away from it.
2 espera:
well, someone tell THEM that......
2 Rushi:
sorry. I did link them to you, so theoretically you should be getting all the same readers.....
second: i ignore. i ignore.
whatever happened to "you're beautiful"? you said that. and don't say you didn't mean it because i know you did.
and if you want to do the malice, just scrap me, don't do it here.
2 espera again:
they dominated because they didn't want a chance of competition. now they're in trouble.
2 anuj:
prenatal sex determination. how do you think that's gonna help huh?
it's gonna mean more abortions thats for sure.....but no, i do not see your logic.
as for your second idea........................................that'd be tough. really tough.
2 prehistoric:
absolutely right. i can do nothing here but agree, agree and agree some more.
ok let me explain my proposition what we do is that since child feticide is occurring any way we legalize the tests to find out the gender of the fetus
Effect: People abort the girl fetuses and keep the boy, I personally feel that this will be more humane than murdering a child.
The corollary of the above effect: The no. of girls or as sampoorna pointed out brides drops. Thus a simple supply and demand situation takes place excess on the other and the other side, the females, now gets the power of choice. This would be a nice tidy reversal of roles of course we would have to do something about human trafficking if this move has to have any effect.
The conclusion: As females will be valued more now, it's simple economics after all, the sex ratio will self correct over a period of time and will ultimately become equal.
My point is that they want boys well fine let them have it let’s see how long they can last.
If you see this is perfectly sound any opposition people have to this proposition has to do with irratinality rather than logic. Also, I am sure that several economists have suggested this for a long time.
Well this are The horny side of our country.. and anyways why does it happen to only women cant it be another way around..??
pathetic. PATHETIC state of affairs, i tell you.
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