Keep your hands to yourself...

Yesterday, in a repeat of the horror I felt when I watched the Gurgaon New Year’s Eve molestation incident, I watched another video being shown on a loop on news channels where a young girl, a minor I was to learn later, was surrounded by a group of men, at least 10 to 15 of them, who pawed her, tore her clothes off, groped her and the video was played on a loop. To be fair to the channel, the girl’s face was pixellated on the channel I was watching but apparently Youtube had raw footage of her face clearly visible and the camera man trying to get a close up of her face. I haven’t seen that so I can’t say that it did with any authority, this is just hearsay.
I was appalled. Each time an incident happens I think I cannot be more appalled again, but then I am. I feel my heart clench, my stomach twist and raw anger knot up my intestines. I remember walking down roads being stalked by perverts, being groped while going through my daily routine of bus, train walking to school, to college, to work. Street sexual harassment, I refuse to call it eveteasing, is a reality every girl, every woman in India lives with. We walk quickly down roads, our eyes averted, terrified to make eye contact in case we are perceived as being available. We hold books and files in front of us if we are college going to block the elbows that nudge our chests. We are ashamed if we get harassed, choosing not to talk about it, believing it is something we said, did or wore that provoked it. The men of course, are paragons of virtue. They can never be at fault. It is their god given birthright to brush against you, grope, pass lewd comments, and if you do say anything or resist or if the man who is with you does, well, they return with three autorickshaws full with men bearing weapons and kill them. And no one will intervene, no one will help you. No one will step in. No one will take the risk. No one will bother.
We rush home as soon as we can, try to avoid staying out late at night and get told by those in places of authority that yes, staying out late is what caused it, if you stay out late you are asking to be molested, to be raped.
I’m a mother raising a son. I wonder whether I will be able to raise him to be a man who protects women from being molested. If he is anything like his father, he wont hesitate before swinging his fists and cracking a few jaws if anyone dares misbehave with a woman in his presence. I would like to think that when my boy grows up, he will not think of a woman out of the house as fair game, as an object to be touched and pawed. If I had a daughter, I would dread sending her out onto our roads unescorted today. I would have my heart in my mouth everytime she stepped out, and I would ensure she learnt a martial art and did self defence classes and carried pepper spray with her. But would that be enough to keep her safe?
At the end of it, its not where you are, what you look like, what you’re wearing and how late you are out. It is the men who decide that they want to make you uncomfortable, that you are a sex object. Because they don’t have wives, daughters, sisters. Because the women they molest don’t matter to them. Because they see women as objects not people. Because we women are terrified of being molested and our fear gives them power. Because most of us will never drag a molester to the cops or file a police complaint. And that empowers them, because they know they are going to get away with it. And that, in fact, is our collective shame.

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