To Pee or Not To Pee

So, during my morning run a few days ago, I got flashed by a man.

At first, I assumed he was peeing in public, in the park where I go for my morning run. Dawn was just breaking with the sun yet to come up and the light was pleasantly dim. I looked away. But as I approached him - he was right in my way- he slowly turned towards me and flashed his penis at me. I was outraged, and I felt violated.

I've ticked off men peeing in public before. I make a pointed comment, "is this a public toilet?" to men hunched against walls in all kinds of public spaces, along a road, in a park, what-have-you. Not sure how much it helps but my hope is maybe the person will not repeat the offence, at least for a while, though of course, I have no way of knowing.
I was still making up my mind whether to go ahead with it, when he precipitated the situation and I was too dumbfounded to do speak. I looked away and walked off.

My first instinct was to go up to the private security guard a little distance away and report it to him. However, anticipating a not very helpful reaction from the guy, and knowing it would only make me angrier at the situation, I walked home, upset.

This is a call every woman has to make at various points in time, almost on a daily basis, specially when negotiating public spaces. All kinds of creeps are out there harassing you. How you react to each incident affects how the rest of your day will go. It entails lost time and energy, if you choose to make a complaint. That's assuming there's someone in authority willing to even hear you out, let alone act upon it, and to to your benefit. It also involves allowing a stranger to determine your mood- you are bound to become angrier as you discuss this and have to explain exactly how the situation arose.

But I digress. My thoughts here are prompted by something more mundane : public toilets , or the lack of them. I go for my morning run, the Rabindra Sarobar in Kolkata which is open to the public. In a public space spread over an area of 73 acres (300,00 sq m) of you'd expect at least a few toilets. Guess how many are there? Not one. Wonder whether the Kolkata Improvement Trust is aware of this or has even given it a thought. It would seem like common sense to me.

Had there been easily available toilets in public spaces, hopefully men would not be let off so easily for relieving themselves in public, either to urinate or for urges best restricted to private spaces.

So although one may outrage at men peeing in public, the fact remains that without a valid option, what is a man to do? Till such time as the government provides more options for the public to relieve themselves, the recent drive to send people to jail for relieving themselves in public can only be seen as a piecemeal effort. Not much will be achieved from such drives.

There's a laudatory effort undertaken by a lone woman Mayuri Bhattacharjee who is going around our city checking out loos  for our benefit.
Of course, we don't regularly come across women peeing in the open, for some strange reason. Wonder why? 

Women Only Spaces Limit Freedom

It's election time and once more women's safety is one of the issues being discussed, in the run up to theelections in Delhi. Happy news as it is to see women being given some importance at last - if only in party manifestos, with promises of protection. Of course, no political party is prepared to concede half

or even a third of its seats to women candidates. 

Once more the talk veers to "safety" the holy grail of a woman's existence. This talk conveniently ignores the fact that we live in a society underpinned by patriarchy, which celebrates and elevates machismo and toxic masculinity. This is the primary reason women are unsafe, and it is men from whom women need to be protected. 

The traditional wisdom of women's safety, usually centered around keeping certain women (upper caste) away from dangerous zones locked up at home has at least changed somewhat. We have not even begun talking about what goes on inside the home, where the vast majority of indian women report facing the most abuse and violence. About 6% to 60% percent women report facing domestic violence.

"Women only" spaces, are being suggested once again. Whether public spaces or in public transport, "women only" spaces are not the answer to all problems of women's safety. By limiting women's access to public spaces we not only pander to the fear psychosis but more importantly, limiting women's freedom we support the idea of women as fragile creatures needing protection in order to be safe. What about their liberty to be out and about, earning livelihoods, running errands, or if they so fancy, simply gallivant around town? 

Segregation based on gender only contributes to the impression that women are different, less able, fragile. A society where gender based segregation is the norm and boys are encouraged to see girls as different, 'the other' gender roles become even more entrenched by encouraging separate spaces for women in public too. 

Women do face assault in public spaces. Most women who must spend their lives in public are already stigmatised by the state in various ways. As most of these women happen to be "lower" caste women, their safety is not a concern of the state, apparently. Indeed the agents of the state like the police, or public officials run the gamut of harassing them, preventing them from going on with the basic business of survival. 

That a profusion of closed circuit televisions would enhance women's safety is not supported by research data either. It has been shown that CCTV is most effective when combined with other crime reducing methods such as improved lighting, security guards, and defensible space.  Why do the AAP people not think improving street lighting?

Women's agency and their privacy cannot be subsumed to surveillance. Do we trust such a large network of closely monitored surveillance in the hands of the government? Moreover at each step of the collection of this data there will be humans, mostly men involved. Who will guard them, and who's to ascertain there will be no breach of privacy of the women whose movements are being recorded. As this article states, when Delhi Metro CCTV footage leak was reported, people were more outrages that the couple were observed cosying up, rather than focus on the fact that their privacy had been breached! 

Would you feel safe knowing your every move was being tracked by a public eye ? Big brother is here; all hail Big Brother ! 

Public Spaces For All Women

In the aftermath of the alleged gang rape and murder of two Dalit girls in a village in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh a fact that stands out is that probably for the first time the rape and murder of Dalit women received such widespread media coverage and sparked at least a modicum of outrage
                                      

         

The cases that the  media choose to highlight are generally those of rapes of or violence against middle and upper class girls and women and this is hardly surprising.Those who run the media tend to operate on the premise that their readers are "people like us". It's hardly surprising, then, that we read or hear of almost nothing which doesn't concern us.    

                                                                                         

Let's get some context here. 

The bodies of Indian women are policed closely throughout their lives; they are the receptacle of the honour   of the men of the family- in a society where lineage is traced through male descent, the male members alone matter.  The idea is that a woman or girl ( many are underage when they are married ) must remain a virgin till married to a man of the family's choice. Of course women's sexuality and family's honour are practically interchangeable. Placing 'honour' at the forefront gives credibility to the policing of women's sexuality both before marriage and afterwards.

                                                                                          

This policing is done in many ways. In the case of middle and upper class women, the creation of the "other", the supposedly predatory man prowling the streets is one such popular device. This man is always of lower caste or class or socio-economic strata or Muslim.

Note that all such planning and policing is places upper and middle class Hindu women at its centre. It is they who must be kept  safe from the "other" the predatory men.

If we were to provide easy and safe access to all citizens, to all public spaces, it would require more inputs of urban planning, better and more street lighting, better policed roads, better and more footpaths, better public transport and so on. 

Instead, under the guise of liberalization and capitalism, with the influx of international brands and the opening up of shopping malls, we are in fact cordoning off certain areas and limiting access to them. Those who can afford it, live in gated communities, in multistoried complexes, with all concievable luxuries thrown in, while those who help build these very structures are kept out. The rest of the citizenry is denied access to the "safety" of these spaces by virtue of being less privileged in every way.

In such glass enclosed, artificially aerated, and firmly sanitized spaces upper and middle class women strut about, enjoying a false sense of freedom, all made possible due to access to a certain amount of economic affluence. Here, the cordoning off cannot be more stark, nestled as these glass and concrete structures are, most often right next to bustling slums / jhuggis where the less privileged are kept at arm's length. 

And so we keep women of a certain type and class safe from 'predators', the dreaded "other".This helps to keep up appearances, the false sense that the predator is out there and by cordoning off these spaces women are kept safe. This detracts from the fact that the real VAW ( violence against women) is faced by women mostly inside their own homes, at the hands of family members or those who are well known to them, more frequently than outside it, from random men on the street.

The fact has been highlighted that the girls who were brutally murdered were out of their homes at night because of lack of toilets. Yes, their homes should have had toilets. The men who raped and killed them had easy access, but the power politics which is played over women's bodies would not have disappeared,and they would have been targeted in some other way.

The lack of access to such facilities endangers women's lives everywhere, in cities as much as in rural settings. However, the more we restrict ourselves, cede space to the perpetrators, the easier we make it for them. 

All women, of every class or strata of society should have access to public spaces and the facilities that help ensure that. We must raise our voices to demand it. Being kept protected, safe in our cocoons is not what we desire. Let's not limit the forays of our daughters to this or that area of your village or city or town. Our aim should be  complete freedom. Nothing less will do. 

No Country For Woman

Sure you've got freedom, li'l girl,
to do just as you please:
go, pluck the low hanging fruit,
stay away from higher up the tree

Don't ask for second helpings, my dear,
see, your brother needs 'em more.
for he must go out, work and earn
and you? you'll only stay home.

Remember to do the dishes and cook
and your siblings are in your care too,
forget about reading, writing and books;
now go bring water- stop giggling, will you?

No school for you, dear child,
you will soon menstruate,
there's no toilet at school;
and for you, the fields, aren't safe.

Work hard, learn what your chores,
and remember, virgin, to stay,
for when we look for a groom for you,
we won't need, much to pay.

Yes, he may be much older,
and you may be raped,
but it's all going to end well,
if you give him boys to his heart's fill.

Don't listen to those TV folks who say
the man's genes give you boy or girl,
just spreading wrong stories, they;
it's really only the mother to blame.

So if you don't give him an heir,
he may just fly into a rage-
without the cushion of dowry,
and even though you are underage;
what's a few beatings from your man?
he's your master now, and you-
yes, you are his slave.

Don't pick up fights,
or do anything to irritate
just go along
be patient and quiet,
there will be better days.

Life is tough, it's never been easy,
being born a woman,
it's part of your destiny:
to live and die under the thumb
of father, brother, husband.

The figure who holds
your fate in his hands,
he hit the jackpot-
it simply happened,
for he was born a man.

The Respectable Indian Woman

Respect is a common enough word. We are told to respect our parents, teachers and elders. Children are taught to respect the law. Hopefully, even respect each other, and perhaps all sentient beings, and above all respect oneself.

 "Respectable", on the other hand is a different cup of tea. "Respectable"- a word every Indian woman grows up with, internalizes, and finally lives in the shade of, all her life. Because this is not an inherent respect afforded her for being a human, an entity capable of her own decisions, desires or even her own damnation, if she so wishes.

 It is a word that rules a woman's life. Sit this way, talk like this and dress only that way. Be seen here, don't go there. Never laugh out loud. Heck, women aren't even supposed to sneeze loudly; so what if she bursts a vein trying to stop the sneeze. Respectability has to be maintained at all costs.

Only "respectable" girls will fetch a good groom, you see. After all, that's the end result we're looking for. Marriage, which is the sole purpose of a woman's existence, and for a "good" marriage virginity is a pre requisite. The family's honour and "respect" is so vested in their women's vaginas because nothing less than a virgin will do for marriage. 

Fathers, brothers and even mothers are all designated protectors of a woman's virtue till she is married off, safely, as per family and societal norms. All hail endogamy !

God forbid a woman should go out with a guy, and horror of horrors, should they have premarital sex, what then? She's no longer "fit" for marriage and all honour, all "respect" is lost. Then the only saving grace is to kill her. That's the only option they have left, the men, the brothers, the patriarchs.

And this respect is supposed to keep you safe. If you're honourable no man will ogle you, you will not be harassed in the streets, family members will not abuse you and of course your husband will not beat you. After all, in Indian culture we "respect" our women. Or so the fable is told. Scratch the surface and you see that's patently untrue. The more patriarchal the society, the less the freedom women enjoy and the greater the violence they must bear. 

All the hullabaloo over "loose women" invading our "respectable" localities stems from this desperate drive to keep women's sexuality in check, get them married into approved homes, keep the sperms and genes within limited circulation. In so doing, patriarchy can ensure the property, its hallmark -its raison d'etre-  is passed on only to an identified, familiar seed.

The one thing patriarchy fears the most is a woman's sexuality. 

A woman who exercises control over her sexuality is to be reviled. 

The " loose woman" or the prostitute who exercises control over her body, even to an extent over her sexuality is patriarchy's worst enemy.  She must be driven from the "honourable" locaities for this very reason. 

The message to Indian women is loud and clear "stay honourable, stay safe". Stay within the bounds of patriarchy.