Disregarding all my grace, I
heaved myself awkwardly on a friend’s bike’s strangely high pillion
seat. He took off in full speed. As the wind hit my face hard, and tears ran
sideways and flew out of my face, I took a second to figure out what I could
see on the pavement on my left: A candle-light march. I did not need to be told
why; It was all India had in mind. I got a glimpse of a placard saying “Women are not objects of sex”. In a second, we zipped past and the protest
was nowhere in sight.
Through the ride, while I was
trying to keep my highly tied pony-tail from staying horizontal cause of the
wind, I pondered over what the placard said. I wondered if that would ever
change or if it could. I still wonder.
 |
| Source : http://everythingethics.wordpress.com |
Let’s not talk about rape or any
kind of abuse here. Men who rape are cruel, cold-blooded, callous, animals.
Let’s talk about humans, not them. Let’s simply talk about how women are viewed
in our society.
We women, we blog, rant and
grumble about how it is impossible to take a stroll on the Indian roads without
being scrutinized head to toe, in detail, by random scoundrel-like fellows. We
get infuriated at the men, at their uncouthness and at our own helplessness. I
grit my teeth when people blame not-so-much covering clothes. I hate that our
attire should be a criterion, but I quite know it is and hence dress
consciously. We all put away the dresses and tank tees while in a conservative town/area
to avoid the stares. But otherwise, we dress at our own accord. There is life
back in our wardrobes; nothing beats the feeling of walking into a party all
dressed up and feeling good about it. Now which girl would disagree? But, hang
on, did someone tell you that men in the city don’t check girls out? NO. You
know for a fact that they do. You know so well that the well-dressed gentleman who
apologized to you more profusely while handing you your clutch that he never caused
to drop in the first place than you would have if you had stepped on his toe
with your stiletto’s heel, was simply trying to hit on you cause of how hot you
looked in that dress. Still, you smiled back; you did secretly enjoy the
attention, didn’t you? You still wondered why all men couldn’t be as
chivalrous. You dressed up to feel good or because you love and want to flaunt your
new dress or cause you wanted to look as good as your girlfriends. You might
not have dressed up to grab the attention of the good-looking man at the bar. Yet,
when your girlfriend told you that her guy friend finds you sexy, didn’t a
small tiny tiny bit of you feel ecstatic? No you certainly did not want to have
sex with him. But it did feel good to be attractive and surely it did feel good
coming from a guy. Now, let me you get reminded of the man in a lungi who
earlier that day, loudly, with no intention of not being heard, articulated “ey
itemmm daa!” and then jeered at you along with his friends. It disgusts you,
the mere thought. Has it ever occurred to you that it’s just the sophistication
in the former that comforts us women? Men are the same, everywhere.
Men in small not-so-modern towns
don’t exactly get to see women attired skimpily or very fashionably. Women in
these places usually adhere to the town’s not-so-modern expectations. A woman
who walks the road bravely dressed in shorts on a summer morning will naturally
cause more than a head to turn. You’d get the gaze not just from the men, the
women too. However, for a city bred man, a woman in a halter necked top would
be nothing new. He’d ‘ve mastered a way to scan the vicinity sub-consciously
and put in some effort to look only in selective cases. Even in those cases, the man would look in a
way where either the lady’d never realize or she would and would covertly relish
the attention. Try a bikini in a city and see how many eyes follow you; even
the sophistication will evaporate then. Or walk into a pub on ladies’ night and
see how many men wait outside and request random girls to help them get past
the bouncers posing as a couple. Why would a man want to pay for a couple-entry
ticket to a pub on ladies’ night, knowing every drink would cost him? Quite
obvious, isn’t it? Let’s leave aside random men; our own guy friends check
girls out all the time, don’t they? Mine do it so religiously like it’s some
duty earmarked to them by manhood. I sit with them either bored or I join them,
only I check out the woman’s outfit. It’s fun, sometimes. We all have such
friends and we find it perfectly okay. Yet, we complain when the roadside men
do the same.
My point of contention here is
that all men are the same; we know it. We are comfortable with the more
sophisticated ones for they never make us feel violated and unsafe. They never
make us wish we had a blanket to cover ourselves up. We secretly seek the
attention of the sophisticated men but we want the other ones to look away. And
that, well, is probably asking for too much.
Probing further, almost every man
watches porn, your brother does, your friend does, they all do. I’m not saying
women don’t, but that’s irrelevant here. Porn’s easily available everywhere.
EVERYWHERE. It’s legal too. Now doesn’t porn objectify women in a sexual way? Of
course it does. And do we women particularly want to illegalize it? No, because
most of us believe it’s normal for a man to want to watch this stuff.
When Katrina dances singing “I
know you want it but you’re never gonna get it, Tere haath kabhi na aani……
Duniya yeh saari mere ishq ki hai deewani”, we dance along, we sing along. Clearly
we aren’t going to demur at this, how can we forget freedom of speech? We are
broad-minded and progressive, it’s cheap to even wonder if this is okay. It
doesn’t matter if she objectifies herself in the song. It’s just a song. Only,
there some men who know they’re really never get it, and can’t take their eyes
off a woman when they get a chance. But forget that, let’s dance to ‘Shieela, Shiela ki
jawaani…”.
Some men who have no exposure
to such women in real life, can’t help that they look at women around in a sexual way,
more so if there is exposure of skin. It’s natural that a woman loves to bring
out her grace, beauty and elegance in the way she goes about things. And it’s
natural that men are attracted to women, more so if she emanates poise and good
looks. I’m neither saying porn should be
illegalized nor that item numbers should be banned. I’m not saying women
shouldn’t dress up the way they want, I love to dress up too. I’m simply saying
women have always been objectified. That doesn’t mean any man
can have sex with a woman when it isn’t consensual. It simply talks about how a
woman is viewed in our world : a sexual object. Knowingly or unknowlingly, we ‘ve accepted it and
we object to only some aspects that we don't like. This is reality and it might just never change.
Or it just might, some far away day. We need to stop doing a lot of crap that we do
in the name of culture. We need to demystify sex. We need to stop rousing curiosity by giving sex the notorious importance that it's given today. It shouldn’t be a taboo
subject at all. The stereotypes associated with women should be disregarded.
People have to stop stopping boys and
girls from hanging out together. It’s important that everyone understands and
learns to handle people of the other gender. No that isn’t bad culture; it’s
such misinterpreted ideas injected into our minds that have gotten us here. Let’s
focus on the right things and let’s hope to see some change some day.
P.S. : As mentioned earlier, nothing can justify any
act of abuse of any kind. No man has the right to cash in on his physical
strength to exploit a woman verbally/physically/sexually. What is a world that
makes half its people feel unsafe and afraid?! Let’s fight for our cause and
not give up till we feel safe. Till that blessed day arrives, let’s walk around
with peper-spray (http://www.chilliguard.com/)
P.P.S. : The ideas in this
article are inspired by that of a friend. I denied and got angry when I couldn’t
refute his arguments. It took a lot of self-debating to convince my feminist
side that he was quite right.
