Women and public space

Here is an assignment I wrote.I had written a very acerbic and unconstructive critique titled 'Why men are pigs' prior to this.But I found that thinking for a while actually helped me in putting my point across.

A few days back,I was travelling by a city bus that was splitting at its seams.Everyone knows it can be very suffocating and painful to remain standing in such a situation,while being sandwiched between the lady whose hair is laden with jasmine and the ubiquitous man who reeks of beedis. Most of us get used to it.

But what I can never get used to is the occasional male who insists on using the crowd to add to your discomfort.He stares, breathes down your neck, or pretends that his hand has no place to rest except a vulnerable part of your anatomy.Both your body and your perception of public space are altered.

Perhaps the most vexing experience I’ve had is on a cold night a few years back during a school trip in Hyderabad.Three of us were walking towards our bus, when three men started following us.Panicking,we started walking faster and then broke into a run.But then, overwhelmed by a mixture of mad rage and helplessness, I turned back and yelled at them,using the choicest profanities I knew.They stopped and faded into the nearby shops.But, my sense of security was eroded.

Women everywhere are forced to accept the violation of the little security that public places provide us, since any recourse by law is tedious.We are routinely leched at, touched inappropriately and then are trained to accept it as normal behaviour.We lobby to be given the right to work night shifts in factories,but forget that the right to safety may not accompany it.

Any attempt to walk on the roads with the simple identity of being just a human being is futile .Most of us grow up actually feeling grateful that we have not faced more than the “usual” or “acceptable” amount of harassment.We never stop to examine what this means and who defined its parameters.

What is worse is that,universities are now setting dress codes to condone popular perception of women.In public consciousness,there will then always exist a clear division between the vamp and the virgin,the woman who can be whistled at because she is 'inappropriately attired', and the woman who will be whistled at even if she is 'acceptably dressed'.

But the irony is that neither category(if you can divide women so rigidly at all) can walk on the road as just another person.The identity of being a woman will always remain. And,not as a positive one.