It is nerve racking and disheartening to go out in the streets and public spaces in India as a woman and face the reality of sexism – feels like one can never escape the male gaze and this has been the case for as long as I remember ( Decades longer when we look at the larger picture of patriarchy ) Even as young as 9, I recall traveling with my mom and aunt in a train and a nearby male passenger stared at me to the point I was so uncomfortable and shared audibly with my mom – ‘ Why is he looking at me like I’m wearing no clothes??..I am fully clothed! ‘ to which my mom and aunt said ‘Good you’re asking but we don’t really know..they choose to be creepy.some men are like that.’ they laughed cause they had asked themselves innumerable times but hadn’t really articulated it aloud. We didn’t look back to see if the man had registered it or if he even understood English. Somehow in that moment, it was enough that we had said it and put it out there.. however, this openness and confidence took a backseat..I felt like I couldn’t be open or confident enough to express me feelings about sex the more I grew older.. the boys grew more sexually explicit, of course- like sex IS their thing. I understand now that this has to do with messages they receive from the media around and porn, which is solely created to cater to male fanatasies etc.- It is NOT sex education, like I’ve heard one of my classmates claim. It excludes the feminine aspects of sex completely .Girls also grow more silent because it happens too often and we don’t feel safe enough to address / confront the boys/ men who do cross the line. I thought there was no way to traverse the world unless I normalized such behavior (as I saw my elders and peers do )- laugh it off when male classmates objectify girls, even yourself or discuss very proudly porn movies they discovered and shared with each other. One guy in the 9th grade asked me one day ‘ I watched porn yesterday and the girl in the video looked exactly like you and I thought to myself – woah when did she get into porn?’ He was looking at me in the eye as he asked this.no embarrassment on his part. I was the one embarrassed and caught off guard…seemed like he was ‘jokingly’ testing my prudishness..so I gulped down my feelings and shrugged it off with a ‘what? Of course not’. . On the streets, in workplaces ( I work as an architect a male dominated industry ), grocery stores, airports, buses, markets – ai, as well as many other women, get the sense that we are being scrutinized and objectified and there is a very palpable layer of perversion to it. They are not simply appreciating us for being beautiful ( that some men and women claim to normalize such behavior ) but really sexualise us in their minds because society freely allows them to do and because they feel more (perversely) powerful by doing it. Gloria Steinem says that sexual violence has nothing to do with sex but the need for domination. And in truth, these men must be highly insecure and powerless that the only way they can get a remote sense of power is by sexualising an unsuspecting girl and throwing her off guard. Just today, I went to a xerox store to take some prints for my art class ( I teach art for special kids ). There were two men who caught sight of me- one of them starting singing softly..he caught my attention. They saw me looking and continued to look, unafraid. I complained to the store owner who at first ignored what I said and later asked an assistant to check who those men were. As I was explaining to her what happened, this stranger came and said ‘ no no they were definitely not whistling at you..you are misjudging…they must be talking amongst themselves’. He was not at the scene, didnt know what really happened and yet he was so confidently dismissing my experience. What ?!! I told him ‘ I had nothing to gain from complaining, why would I be complaining just like that..you were’nt even on the scene to see what had happened’ I had to defend myself, my dignity really…what was really not okay was that he interfered when it was none of his business to do so and he was misjudging ME but accusing me of it.How twisted is that ! He was quite loud and vocal..even when I went to collect my prints and came back to pay, he was still telling the assistant that I had misunderstood at which point I lost it, i felt I had a lot to say but managed a few sentences. ‘ I’ve been coming to the store for years and this is my first complaint..it’s very easy for you to say what you’re saying..how can you declare anything when you were never there to witness the event? There is so much going on in the news with sexual harassment..this is nothing but the male ego’ They were raw, disjointed sentences but I felt the power in them..I was shaking as these words were coming from places deep within me. The man fell silent. I know enough to know that people who sadly do not have enough awareness have a tendency to dismiss the truths and re-victimize the victim and automatically defend the accused. I did not give the creepy guys at the store any chance to explain or further distort the situation- I paid my bill and walked out. Iclearly knew what had happened, and sometimes that’s enough. if people want to deny or skew it, then that’s on them- I walked out of the store, feeling shaken and in disbelief that people can be so closed and incapable of receiving another’s experience. But I am glad I have the awareness and to know that I can act for myself, however unwilling society may be to accept and encourage women to realise their fullest potential
