Safety Net

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was doing what I do best- reading newspapers. One of the side effects of working in public relations industry- can’t function without reading newspapers now. All newspapers had carried a report that day which calculated that if you take an average, a woman has been raped in every half hour in India since 1977. Shocking statistic. It also disturbed me more since I too belong to the same category – of being a woman.

Molestation, rape, murder, harassment – a paper won’t be complete without any news related to these or better, if a news on each, but that’s different story altogether. What bothered me most was if these numbers were true, we, as women, are indeed in much more trouble than we think. Why is this happening? Who is responsible for this? I can almost visualize all my female friends and colleagues blaming all the psychos, perverts, and men who think they are god’s gift to women. Are all men wolves and monsters? I don’t think so. There are enough nice men out there to support my statement (some of them we wish would do something without asking us first!).Blaming just men may not be an accurate answer. Convenient maybe, but a half truth still. Being completely honest to myself, I think somewhere along the line we as women have faltered too.

Imagine, one day when you wake up and find your husband/ brother/father doing the housework that usually you do or see your mothers do. What will you first think? (‘Wow!’ may come second or third on the list). Most common will be wondering to oneself “Is everything all right?” Some of you may even feel uncomfortable with the whole scenario. Doesn’t suit the conventional image right? There are some women who have families that divide the responsibilities equally, but then we are not talking about those. They are few and far between. Most of us have been bought up in a way where our fathers, brothers, chachas and alike have taken care of things unpleasant and unsafe. Being brought up in a smaller town I remember, for all late night parties (mostly birthday parties of friends. Discos and pubs are still unheard of and visited by girls who are ‘loose’ in character. Even the definition of ‘late night’ differs – nine or ten at night were considered extremely late for visiting anyone), we were dropped and picked up by papa or bhaiya. Sometimes little sister would also beg to accompany and mummy would (horror of horrors) comply and send her along… (better two than one … “you will be coming by 9:30 beta”). Ofcourse this sounds funny when one is living in Mumbai but 90% percent of India is still suffering this. We never protested, or rather were not given a chance to object. Never even thought there is anything wrong in this. They are just taking care of us aren’t they? How many of you women out there, even the self proclaimed ‘modern’ ones think that they can manage any situation by themselves? Hardly few. When we ourselves are not confident with our capabilities of self help, why blame others for taking advantage of it?

Let me give you a clearer example… two weeks back when I was traveling from home to office in a local train, a drunkard got in at one of the stations. Now local trains in Mumbai have demarcated compartments for convenience of passengers – men and women have separate compartments and men are not allowed to travel in the women compartments and most women follow the rule vice versa. Now I was travelling in a ladies first class compartment with around 30 more fellow passengers. The drunkard’s unwelcome arrival was greeted with horrified expressions and exchanged glances. Some women moved away from him. But that’s all. No one came forward and told him to go get lost. Finally three women came forward and shooed him off the train. What gave the drunkard so much courage to get on a compartment full of women? If all 30 of them would have come forward, I am sure he would have the guts to enter. Why do we expect some policeman or some male passenger in the adjoining compartment to bail us out in situations like these? Aren’t we strong enough? If a man has ever eve-teased you, have you ever gone back and shouted at him? If you have, then you know he would have most probably been shocked and then scared by your bold reaction. By not reacting, aren’t we passively encouraging people to take advantage of us? We are our self help, our own safety net and as Kiran Bedi puts it “Self Police”. I am not making excuses for male vile behaviour but at the same time, if we are self victimizing, we have no right to call them the offenders.

There is no place safe enough, no relationship secure enough and no attacker strong enough. We are own help. The day we start believing no one can touch us, no one will.