Opinion

By Ananya Bhargava 

India is the country that has been known throughout the world for its rich cultural and social values which are often called ‘Sanskars.’ In general terms, these Sanskars are the major guidelines a person needs to follow throughout his/her life for a better status in society. These sanskars bind a person with some faithful obligations, respecting others and follow his/her literary sources. Many of such literary sources of Hindu mythology depict the phrase ‘Stri Shakti’, like Devi Sukta hymn of Rig-Veda which declares the feminine energy as the essence of the universe. We as Indians are the so-called followers to those Hindu scriptures as we are bound to be “Sanskari,” worship the women in the temple but unfortunately, do not seem to be empowered enough to ensure their safety outside the temple. Perhaps, the so called ‘duty’ of men to ‘protect’ the ‘fragile’ women of the house is limited to restricting women’s rights to freedom of movement, speech and to wear what they wish to. Giving proper values and morals to the sons of their house is probably not considered a duty important enough.

According to a report by National Crime Records Bureau, nearly 3.78 lakh cases of crime against women were reported in 2018 alone. Delhi government’s Women and Child Development Department reported that around 80% women in Delhi have a fear of safety. Naturally, because of the increasing number of crimes against women, they are losing faith in government and police. Therefore, there is a need to address this issue and build a nation free from crime against women to comfort them with freedom by ensuring safety.

Factors Responsible For The Crime Against Women In The Virtual World

As the years are passing by, the country is increasingly moving towards the digital world. The country is becoming digitally empowered with increasing internet connectivity and technological dependence. Modernization playing a vital role in this new digital era, social media acts as a prominent platform for modernization in this generation. Through social media, we all are connected 24/7. This connectivity sometimes creates a fully packed room where it is negligible or no space for privacy. This invasion of privacy is a core mentor for all the cybercrimes.

With news thrust upon us day by day, there is anticipation that we have achieved modernization at the cost of women’s safety. Every day there are several cases of cybercrimes against women; either their account is being hacked or their social media photos are leaked.  And all these cases that came out are just the tips of the iceberg as a lot of the cases are crumbled beneath the burden of society and lack of awareness. Several women face malicious tags, unwanted pictures, cruel comments, etc. every day but could not come out loud to speak about it due to ignorance or lack of awareness. Many of them don’t realize the wrong happening around or with them. Generally, we have all our data on the internet and we tend to think that it is safe. Though personal information being put online can be secured as most of the social media have security or privacy setting available, as mentioned earlier, majority of the people are not well versed with all these settings and they become a victim of cybercrime. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson for the National Commission for Women (NCW)  in one of her articles, mentioned that they receive a lot of complaints of such nature, and the numbers of complaints are increasing day by day as more and more people had started using social media platforms. “We usually forward such complaints to the police. Sometimes, if needed, we contact the social media organization concerned and ask them to take down objectionable pictures the perpetrator would have uploaded on the platform,” she said.

People often forget that the virtual world is not so virtual and the activities on social media have real as well as legal implications too. Most of the people are still unaware of the fact that even posting images of someone online, without their permission, is a crime. 

Are The Laws Enough To Combat Cybercrimes Against Women?

In the legal arena, India has several laws to punish the wrongdoers of the internet world. The Information Technology act, 2000, drafts new laws which are related to cybercrimes. Specifically, Chapter XI of the Act deals with offenses such as publishing of obscene material among others, tampering with computer documents, and hacking. But neither there is any special provision in the Act for crimes against women and children, nor there is any mention of crimes like cyber-stalking or email spoofing. The act lacks a lot to be desired. Generally, wrongdoers are not afraid of any authority that can penalize cybercrime and internet bullying due transcendental nature of internet. Hence we are still lacking in constant evaluation of cyber laws and procedures. 

Apart from laws there are sociological reasons which justify the essence of above mentioned question. One of such reasons is that we as a society witness a lack of reporting of these cases. Women rarely report these kinds of cases due to social ostracism. Most of the victims of cyber harassment could not come out due to associated stigma and propensity of parents/guardians to not involve the police in such matters. Another major problem that is pertinent in our society concerning such cases is the lack of education of proper procedures for registering a complaint. Coming back to the question here, laws and statutes can only be fruitful if the individual becomes savvy both online and offline; know how to take precautionary measures in cyberspace and how to seek recourse if their rights are violated.

Current Scenario

Few days ago, there was a lot of hue and cry after a case of teenage schoolboys emerged where they shared nude pictures of minor girls, objectified them in the filthiest way possible. This case started the long due dialogue on the ignorance culture of the country when it comes to women’s safety. In the society we live in, women, despite having strong history, are suffering to have a strong stake in present conditions. Some people are still of that opinion that women are the provocateurs of all those incidents, and the victim often experience survivor-bashing. Studies suggest that many women blame themselves because they are socialized into victims’ roles and hence accept the responsibility of sexual abuse.All these opinions depict the mentality that society bears and transfers to the coming generation. In the existing structure, position of women is subordinate to men. Suffering from an equal position, the consent of women is alien to men. Because of modernization we now witness cases like Bois locker room, where man is using his power knowing that he won’t face any serious/legal consequences of the same. Though in the case of Bois locker room there was a lot of mixing up of the information, which later got clarified after the proper investigation – there was sharing of obscene pictures of women and girls on that particular Instagram group. Although it is not shocking, as it has become a new normal in the society we live in. This new normal depicts that we are still struggling to draw a line between misogyny and boy’s talk. 

Conclusion

To conclude, there have been talks about women’s safety now and then. Whenever there is an issue like Bois locker room several women and men come out in support of each other but it vanishes as soon as the attention shifts to other pertaining issues around. This is where we lack as a responsible community as a whole. Despite discussing the issue on social media and sharing the factual information about the incidents, we need to look for effective solutions. Instead of just telling women and young girls to take care of taking security by them, we need to educate our society to respect women’s consent and their privacy. Self-security and awareness are important, and that is why National Commission for Women is running a Digital literacy program to make young girls and women aware of their digital rights and also to enable them to become informed users of social media. But these initiatives are not enough to curb these crimes if we have problems inside the mentality of the wrongdoer, which we need to tackle first. The bois lockers room incident is a red mark on the education that we all are giving to the upcoming generation.

The virtual world is, indeed, the mirror of the society. Therefore, it also reflects social dimensions of the real-world; this means that the sections of the society which are more vulnerable to crime are also more likely to be targeted online. Women are soft targets for virtual criminals as they have already been victimized by society. However, this incident was enough to alarm the quarantine population to start taking social media seriously and to understand that we all need to work together with the government to make the world safer for women whether it is real-world or virtual world. It is time we think and act beyond physical, virtual and digital protests, which surely prompt debates and provoke thinking, but are seldom transformed into laws and policies that ensure women’s safety, freedom and the right to ‘claim spaces’ – public, private and digital – in a variety of ways. 

By Sakshi Sharma

“When you people don’t love girls, why do you pretend to worship them?” – Mrinal Pande asks in her story ‘Girls’. I remember reading ‘Girls’ while I was an adolescent who got her first periods. The way I was treated made me feel that I had a communicable disease. My menstruation days made me see the hypocrisy of elders. On the one hand I was being worshipped as an incarnation of Devi during the Navratri and on the other hand during my menstruation period I was refused even the title of a human being. A thirteen year old girl was being treated as an untouchable and my mind couldn’t comprehend the possible reasons for it. I do not remember asking patriarchy to treat me as a goddess, I only asked the status of a human being. Does menstrual blood makes a Devi untouchable? Is the Devi devoid of blood?

I was trying to understand the changes happening in my body and I was made to feel that I was emitting a deadly virus. Imagine waking up one day with your pants soaked in blood as you get your first periods. However you are barely given any information as to why it is happening and instead you are welcomed with taboos that perpetuate untouchability. The word ‘untouchability’  does not even define what they practiced upon me while my menstruation cycle was going on. I was not allowed to enter the kitchen. I could not touch anything that was meant for common use such as a serving dish or an earthen pot. If I accidently touched such a thing then they made sure it was washed before anyone else touches it. I was being served food in the same way a jailor serves food to a jail inmate. I had to stand near boundary of the kitchen to collect my food plate kept on the ground. While giving any additional serving of food they made sure that the serving spoon does not touch the plate in which I was eating. They dropped the roti in my plate like you treat a dangerous dog who might bite your hand when you try to feed them. 

What annoys me more is that they are not even consistent with their practices. They made me wash my hair on third day of my periods and then I was allowed to enter into the kitchen. I could not decipher the rationale behind making such a differentiation as I was still bleeding. How are the third day and the first day of my periods any different when I am bleeding on both of these days? 

My legal training now tells me that this practice does not meet the criteria of ‘intelligible differentia’ under Article 14 but alas it is not the State but your own people who practice this discrimination. 

I also could never fathom the reason behind the saying that a jar containing pickle could rot, if I touched it during my menstrual cycle. It seemed like my non-existent period viruses could even travel through that glass jar. I could not water the plants or even touch them which made me feel like my hands were some hypertonic solution that would cause osmosis and are capable of killing a plant. I made sure that I did not go to any outings or to a relative’s place while I was on my periods not because of the pain I was undergoing but because of the treatment meted out to me. I was made to sit at corner of the hall like an unwelcomed guest and if anyone oblivious of the fact that I am menstruating, came near to me they were immediately told to get away from me because apparently my touch could make people sick.

I have a vivid memory of one incident that happened years ago which made me hate myself for being born as a girl. I was travelling to Maharashtra with my family and we were going to visit a temple. My maternal aunt got her periods on that day suddenly. When we reached the temple, everyone was sprinkling water upon themselves. I could not understand the reasons behind doing so and thus I ended up asking my mother for the reason behind it. Then she instructed me to sprinkle water upon my body and said that we have become impure because we came in contact with my maternal aunt. My maternal aunt was made to sit in the car where she watched everyone purifying themselves with water. Only if water with its high dielectric constant could purify their minds for practicing exclusion and making a woman feel like she has committed a crime because she is going through a natural process of reproductive cycle. Thus making a woman hate herself for being born a woman. 

I know that many of you must have been made subject to these taboos while undergoing their menstruation. To stop this exclusion of women from socio-cultural life it is pertinent that we have a discussion with our elders to inform them that these taboos related to menstruation are myths. These cultural myths are perpetuated by women because of shying away from discussion and will continue if we do not educate them of biological facts. Schools also play an important part in educating students about these issues at the ground level. I initiated these conversations with my family and they have since then started to understand the baselessness of these myths. My aim is to highlight the story of a young girl being subjected to the status of an untouchable because of cultural myths surrounding menstruation. I am not asking you to elevate the status of women to that of a goddess, what I am asking is shunning away the hypocrisy and giving them the status of a human being by stopping their exclusion. I would like to reiterate and request you to ask yourself – Is your Devi devoid of blood?

By Harleen Walia

The country is going through quite a tough time with self-isolation leading to social distancing. Many issues are knocking at the doors of people, with one major issue being mental health. Mental health means the social, psychological, and emotional well-being of a person. Our mental health also determines how we handle stress, make choices, and how we relate to others. 

The multi-layered effect of Covid-19 has even made it worse for women and girls. Social distancing and self-isolation have made the lives of women more complicated in every sphere. The majority of the women work in the informal economy i.e. their job is not secured, the pay is comparatively less and hence they save less. With the sudden rise in unemployment and with very little access to social protection, women don’t have the capacity to absorb the economic shock and hence are at a greater risk of falling to poverty. 

As per the survey conducted by the Indian Psychiatry Society, within a week of the lockdown, the number of mental health cases in India had risen by 20%.  Nelson Vinod Moses, Advocate suicide prevention said, “At-risk populations include the 150 million with pre-existing mental health issues, Covid-19 survivors, frontline medical workers, young people, differently-abled people, women, workers in the unrecognized sector, and the elderly.”

Talking to Team Womb, Harpreet Singh, Psychiatrist said, “The cases have definitely increased. I have majorly received cases involving anxiety and stress. There is also an increase in relapsed cases i.e. the cases which were recovered or were on the verge of recovering, are now relapsing. The major reason behind this increase in these cases is definitely lockdown and self-isolation. People are now getting insecure which involves a job, personal, professional, and financial insecurities, and these insecurities further lead to stress.” 

The researchers have warned the lasting effect of this pandemic on mental and physical health. Some of the reasons behind a sudden increase in mental health cases are – 

1. Social Distancing – The biggest cause behind this mental illness is that we have distanced ourselves from the people we used to meet regularly. By not being able to meet people, the walls of our emotions are all up, leading to an increase in stress. 
2. Disruptive routine – The division of time plays a very vital role. It is always good to have a fixed routine and now, due to our disruptive routine, we do excessive thinking which leads to excessive stress.
3. Long-distance relationship – Staying in touch with your loved ones over digital platforms can get quite stressful. With no idea about the upcoming time, the unnecessary thoughts we get may lead to mental health issues. 
4. Addiction for substances – One of the major reasons behind an increase in mental health issues is substance addiction. While liquor was not available for 2 months, it is now available. The increase in its sales is a testimony of how alcohol addiction has reached its peak. 
5. Sleep Disorders – Lockdown has definitely changed our sleep patterns, which in turn has an impact on our mental and physical health. 

Due to lockdown and isolation, there has also been an increase in unpaid care work of family members at home for women. Apart from all the responsibilities and work, women bear the burden of household chores as well. Competing/managing demands of work, as well as at home, can get difficult for women and as a result, it puts their job at a higher risk with cuts and pay-offs. The current situation is even tougher for single mothers, who are unable to support themselves and their families. As per the data sourced from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Indian women on average, do six or more hours of unpaid care and labor every day in comparison to Indian men, who on average, spend less than an hour. 

A recent study which was published in the medical journal ‘The Lancet’, warned that the range of mental health issues ranges from anxiety and anger to sleep disturbances, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which are likely due to the psychological impact of the quarantine.

In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared gender to be a critical determinant of mental health and illness. They said, “Gender determines the differential power and control that men and women have, over the socio-economic determinants of their mental health and lives.” As a result of the coronavirus outbreak, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has also called for ‘gender-sensitive’ deployment of healthcare, especially mental health.

Women are often trapped in a never-ending circle of tensions, power, and control and are vulnerable to experience various mental health concerns, which include depression, anxiety, and trauma. The lack of social support for women, often leads to internalization of abuse and directing anger, humiliation and fear towards themselves, leading to feelings of worthlessness and helplessness. If a woman experiences both – love and abuse from the partner, they will associate love to anger. They often try to defend, justify or minimize the abuse and chances of them reporting are minimal. 

Every year, to create awareness about mental health and to bring attention to mental illness and its effect on the lives of people, mental health awareness week is celebrated. This year, mental awareness week is being celebrated from 18^th to 24^th May and the theme for this year’s campaign is ‘Kindness.’ Some of the ways to practice kindness are –

1. Mindfulness – Mindfulness is the state of being conscious despite all the physical and mental distractions. By doing breathing exercises, doing household chores and by doodling, one can practice mindfulness. 
2. Self- compassion – Self-compassion is how we extend compassion to one’s self at the time of trouble. We usually, unconsciously, jump to hypercritical evaluations in the times of distress. 
3. Gratitude – The quality of being thankful is called gratitude. The practice of gratitude is highly neglected because we usually focus on unfinished things, rather than focusing on finished things. By simply thanking our body and our mind for pulling through the bad days and by writing a gratitude journal, one can practice the quality of gratitude.

Individuals and society must sensitize the effects of Covid-19 on mental health of the women and work together on long-standing inequalities. Women have always proved to be the backbone of recovery in the society despite sustaining their families and household during difficult times. Women should be given equal status and should be included in economic planning, policy decision-making and planning emergency responses. 

Coming to the question, if India is ready to deal with such a situation, with increased mental health cases – India has 9000 psychiatrists or say 1 doctor for 1,00,000 people. The suitable number of psychiatrist is 3 for 1,00,000 people. We can therefore say that India is short of 18,000 mental health doctors. Recently, India and United States agreed to help each other fight mental health. During the first official visit of President Donald Trump to India in February, an agreement was signed between the two countries stating that United States will open its door to therapies like Yoga and Ayurveda medicines for fighting mental illness. This might work for Americans, but what about the Indian sufferers? India just spends 33 paisa on sufferers of mental health every year. Therefore what we need in India is put into practice what we already know and ensure that as a nation we pay dedicated attention to our mental health. 

By Mani Chander

How ironic that the founding members of the Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage) movement were insidiously put behind bars by the Delhi Police during an ongoing national crisis. Young scholars of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal were arrested by the Delhi Police on May 23, 2020 on the pretext of mobilizing crowds and taking part in the admittedly peaceful anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests at Jaffrabad, New Delhi.

Reportedly, the two accused women were fully cooperating with the Police during the investigation and as such there was no apprehension of fleeing from due course of justice. However, the brazen reaction of the Delhi Police to arrest them amidst lockdown exposes the misplaced priorities of our bureaucracy.

While Devangana and Natasha are facing three simultaneous probes in relation to the anti-CAA protests, on May 23, 2020, they were arrested in lieu of an FIR logged under Sections 147, 186, 188, 353, 283, 341 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Of these, Section 353 (“assault or criminal force to deter a public servant for discharge of his duty”) is the only non-bailable offence, meaning that the accused would not be granted bail as a matter of right and they would have to approach the court in order to be released on bail. The punishment for the offence under Section 353 being a non-bailable offence is also more severe compared to the other alleged offences and may include imprisonment upto two years, or fine, or both. 

Interestingly, on May 24, 2020, Duty Magistrate, Ajeet Narayan granted the accused bail while recording that Section 353 invoked against them was “not maintainable”. The Magistrate in his order, observed that “Facts of the case reveal that the accused were merely protesting against the NRC and CAA and the accused did not indulge in any violence. Also, the accused have strong roots in society and are well-educated. Accused are ready to cooperate with the police regarding the investigation”.

Minutes after being released on bail, the two women were arrested by the Crime Branch, Delhi Police in connection with another FIR related to anti-CAA protests. Sections cited in the said FIR include serious offences such as rioting with deadly weapon, murder and attempt to murder, Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act, 1959 and Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, among others. While the basis for such grave allegations remains unsubstantiated, the Police were quick to move an application before the Court seeking police remand for 14 days. The Police insisted that the accused were “active in anti-national activities” and their custodial interrogation was necessary. However, keeping in view that the matter is in its initial stages, the Court remanded the accused to police custody for two days.

Meanwhile, Twitterati has expressed some astounding opinions. Some went so far as to call the two student scholars a “toxic combination of communist, feminist and jihadist”, and some celebrated their arrest while tweeting “Leftist #UrbanNaxals gang of Pinjra Tod exposed for Instigating Violence in Delhi”. Amidst the Twitter storm were also some who have chosen to write off Pinjra Tod as a “terrorist group”.

Nonetheless, many have come out in support of the young activists. The accused women have been backed by the JNU Teachers’ Association as well as the JNU Students’ Union who have strongly condemned vilification of their students. Members of the women-led organization, Pinjra Tod, too came out with a collective statement denouncing the arrests as a “witch hunt of democratic activists and students” and have appealed to the student community and other citizens to remain vigilant. 

Devangana and Natasha are not the only student activists who have been opportunistically arrested by the Delhi Police during the lockdown. Like others before them, their fault is that they are redefining resistance against those who are attempting to damage the social fabric of our beloved country.

These women are everything that the Modi government detests. They are fierce and fearless women, pitting a vision for an inclusive India. Both students of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, these women are attacking the idea of a Hindu nation one protest at a time. Their arrest confirms how unsettling it is for those dictating the orders to see two Hindu women fight the fight for their muslim compatriots.

You can arrest a person, but you cannot arrest an idea – Pinjra Tod is exactly that. Rest assured, so long as we have the likes of Devangana and Natasha, democracy will continue to run deep in India.

Views are personal. The author is a lawyer practicing at the High Court and district courts of Delhi. She is admitted to the New York State Bar and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, United States.

By Rohini Sen

I started teaching at 25 with no prior experience of doing so but unbound enthusiasm for it. Early career teaching in India is not voguish and in 2012, it was quite the unchartered territory. There were very few of us who made our way to it and were perceived as anomalous, unable or unprepared to actualize our potent law school training. Things are seemingly changing now and there are more young people inspired to research and teach. Young graduates, undecided about academia, often approach me with questions. The enquiries vary from “what is teaching and academia like” to “is it worth it”. Most of them ask me to summarize and contextualize my experience in the academe. In response, I usually speak of teaching hours, how to make time for research and the relevance of academic liberty in bureaucratic and corporate environments. Often, I share anecdotes from my time in teaching and tell them of its many moorings. However, the one thing I do not/have not addressed in these queries is the terrible dialectics of academia as a gendered space. In speaking of it “objectively”, I inadvertently make invisible its normative hostility to the presence of women/not men.

I had entered the terrain unaware of this and it is quite possible that I unwittingly recreate that delusion for its newer entrants. Why do I do this? I am not sure. Gendered academia is not news or novel. It is an accepted truth within the circles and spoken of in critique, caricature and consequence. Sometimes, it spills over to the mainstream and social media, largely through accounts of sexual harassment. However, I understand this process of ‘mainstreaming’ to be grossly inadequate. Structurally, gendered academia is much more than multiple instances of sexual harassment and this is a reality early career scholars are forced to contend with only after they have set foot into its fold. Academia is still perceived as a profession “suitable” for women and those outside are yet to regard it at a space that is structurally imbued with patriarchy like any other place of employment. Perhaps this is to do with the illusion of objectivity that academia tends to present to itself (and others). And, knowledge and learning are not often associated with gender or gendered‘ness’. However, that makes it all the more relevant to present this to young aspirants of academia both in pursuit of honest praxis and in hopes of moving/changing the system some more. 

2. What is Gendered Academia, How is it Gendered and Other Questions to Ask.

Academia boasts of a number of female academics in varying stages of success. How then, is it gendered? When we say gendered, we are not simply referring to who inhabits it, but to the very nature of academia itself. Much like any other profession, the numbers are rarely reflective or indicative of the norms and practices. Therefore, high number of qualified women notwithstanding, the terms and conditions of the profession remain fundamentally male, further disadvantaged by location, ethnicity and proximity or distance from English. An important caveat at this stage – the gendered parameters are numerous and I will only touch upon a few that are directly consequent to early career teaching and research.

1. Aesthetics of academia: When you think of the “Professor”, or the image of the teacher, what comes to mind? Popular culture references as well as the weight of formative memory of early education always depict the teacher/professor as a carelessly or carefully dressed male figure, often ageing. There is an absent-minded air to this image, as if the erudition keeps him from worldly preoccupations. And, his genius is unquestioning almost as if it precedes the image. These optics are so deeply rooted in the language of academia that the plethora of female educators, academics and scholars struggle to dethrone the implicit ‘genius male’.  With this as the ingrained, default normative, female teachers and scholars are already set up to a disadvantage. For women, this is the invisible metric to constantly live up to and it usually means operating between extremes, but never equal to this image. 

As an early career female academic, the opportunities to challenge the optics are limited. They are forced between two limiting choices. Some may choose to desexualize oneself to create a loosely strung together version of the ‘careless genius’. The process of desexualizing is giving up on performing a version of femininity in exchange for the seriousness one is then accorded. This may appear more as an expectation and not a choice and many make this as a right of passage to ‘serious pursuit of knowledge’. This is a close approximation of the “professor” who has no time for earthly indulgences such as grooming and his female equivalent then becomes a desexualized body that may only have time for serious scholarship. One must note that there is no dearth of dandy men in academia. However, the illusion of effortlessness and the pre-emptive perception of weighty intellect rarely draws any attention to their performance of maleness. On the contrary, for women, the hostility of academia to your intellect is often determined by how much of your femininity you are willing to cede. 

Sometimes, however, the bar is so low that the mere presence of female academics in the space invokes deep-rooted sexism. In 2015, Nobel prize winner Tim Hunt went on to make blatantly sexist remarks about the presence of women in science. Hunt’s remarks drew visceral reaction from the academe and he was vilified by modern day’s greatest weapon – the internet. But, despite University College London’s speedy disposal of Hunt from various academic positions, the systemic problems of recognition, sexism, unequal reception continued to remain. In fact, the University’s reaction, like most things post the #metoo storm was knee jerk fire fighting as opposed to addressing that which forms the foundations of the profession still today. 

The other alternative is to painstakingly locate a ‘right pitch’ for ones appearance – something that conveys ‘academic’ without seeming too frivolous. This category fares worse than the former, both mitigated to a certain extent by duration, age and tenure of one’s time in the academe. As a young woman in a visually ‘aged-male’ profession I struggled with this aspect in my early days. What was the accurate visage to be taken as seriously as my male counterparts whose intellect was rarely tied to their physical form and clothing? Or, perhaps, as seriously as some of my female colleagues who are told to/subscribe to desexualise themselves to assert their ability and intelligence. When our imaginary of the ‘Professor, is forever set against a standard male template, how are we to ever balance the scale with simply stir and mix? And, for the first few years of my teaching, in my mind, I only seemed to fail.

For male academics, including the young ones, the teaching experience begins with an assumption of their intelligence and it takes considerable failures on their part to be dislodged from that pedestal. And their clothes rarely make it to their teaching evaluation or performance assessment. For non-male academics, the scale starts at zero till at some point, people get past the visage, temperament and wardrobe to conclude that one may indeed be capable. The faith has to be earned from the very people who find no difficulty in ascribing brilliance to the men simply by virtue of their staid class presence. We are made aware of this banality by what constitutues one of the most controversial dimensions of the profession – Student Evaluation of Teaching or SET.

2. SET and what it reveals: Student evaluation of teaching (SET) generates mixed reactions across disciplines and academia. There are those who believe that it is an excellent way to generate accountability and are usually fair. Then, there are those who think too much emphasis is placed on feedback from students that are not given objectively, sincerely or mindfully. These feedbacks may often be procured prior to examinations or soon after grades and the students are rarely in a position to distinguish between teaching, appeasing and knowledge in some instances. But general concerns aside, SETs have been found to be heavily gendered against women. 

Violent or vitriolic comments against female academics are common in the SET. Unlike their male counterparts, they are judged on completely different parameters that have little to do with their classroom performance. One commonly observed trend in SETs reveal that students’ opine a lot on how ‘strict’ or ‘friendly’ the female faculty are. This metric of accessibility is deeply tied to how students perceive their delivery of knowledge and seems to be a key component in determining their likeability as opposed to the content. This is not observed with men too often as their personalities mostly pass muster unlesss they demonstrate significant inability to teach/work. Female academics are also judged on the basis of the amount of time they devote to office hours in excess of what is allotted. In what is clearly disproportionate emotional labout (and its expectation), students approach female faculty for personal advice more often than they approach the men. The unavailability for excessive emotional labour then seeps into a feedback designed to assess one’s performance through completed unrelated yet gendered parameters. This assumption is rarely there for men and this is possibly tied in to the expectations of care from feminine, notwithstanding the immediate role they occupy. Male faculty members, on the other hand are approached for career advice far more often in what is presumably an appeal to their ‘logical’ selves. 

Content or pedagogy is rarely subjected to the same standard of scrutiny at an identical starting point and sometimes, even for the same subject. For female academics, this stage is arrived at after a few rounds of teaching once the otherwise uninitiated audience is convinced of their repertoire. In other words, men are not bad until they are blatantly wrong. While women are only good once they are exceptional. SETs have also revealed that the in-classroom sexualizing plays a relevant role in assessing the content and performance as well. 

3. Rueful Research and Time: Then, comes research – the holy grail of academia. The emotional labour from a) and b) easily spills into c) for women. If one is able to survive the general hostility of peers and structures, then the remaining time is allocated to research which is difficult for early career academics, gender notwithstanding. The domain of research is perhaps the most accurate articulation of where the public/private distinction best manifests. The academic aesthetic is reproduced here just like it is in teaching. This is followed by a demanding intrusion of the female body’s personal and/into the workspace.

For women, the expectation of catering to some form of domestic space – single, parents, partners – and balancing research takes up much time independently, in well defined patriarchal spaces. Comprehensive maternity leave for women (men take parental leaves as well but we are still looking at female oriented leave structures) are still not implemented. And once she is back into the workforce, the system expects her to continue in full disregard of the signficant bodily changes.  The workspace is equally unmindful of menstruation related challenges, everyday sexism and the likely security concerns female academics may navigate to and from there. This curtailing design impedes any possible fieldwork as well. This is not to say women do not perform adequate fieldwork but to point out that this is done under great constraint. This time for research is over and above teaching and one is expected to navigate this post the ongoing emotional labour of being in a male environment everyday. Anne Marie Slaughter in 2012 famously spoke of managing time re work and research in an article titled ‘Women Still Can’t have it all’. While the tone was largely optimistic, it addressed structural hindrances that get in the way, no matter what is ones level of success.

The other equally disturbing aspect of research is its gendered reception as among colleagues. This too, is a version of the ‘male’ aesthetic. Men understand female scholarship as non-serious/not objective and very often, presume that such scholarship lacks rigour. These assumptions are without and real basis and rooted in their misguided notions of what academia represents. For the young male academic the aspirational is an objective ‘philosopher’ akin to, perhaps, Rawls. The same image that forges the dimensions of the ‘male professor’ also lends itself to male academic thinking. The research here then is an act of privilege, distant from the mundane and everyday emotion or labour – a sphere that is seemingly female. The condescension manifests in identifying areas as ‘typically female’ or the work not being ‘adequately scholarly’. It also bleeds into a class-gender mired notion of who really has time to pontificate. I borrow from an exceptional essay on Virginia Wolf’s record of her writing habit where the author observes that: 

‘…..the uniqueness to her work is ‘the combination of this mystical vision with the sharpest possible sense for the concrete, even in its humblest form. …….In preserving this balance, her sex was probably a help; a man who becomes interested in the Ground of Being all too easily becomes like Lowes Dickinson—“Always live in the whole, life in the one: always Shelley and Goethe, and then he loses his hot-water bottle; and never notices a face or a cat or a dog or a flower, except in the flow of the universal.” A woman who has to run a house can never so lose contact with matter. The last entry in Virginia Woolf’s diary is typical: “And now with some pleasure I find that it’s seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.’

If one is to study citation politics in academia, men usually cite men. They attribute this to a preponderance of male scholarship generally stating that this is an unfortunate reality. In defence of this practice, it is often stated that one simply cannot include mediocre female scholarship simply for visibility thus presenting the two-fold structural obstruction of a) female presence and b) male standards to assess female presence and scholarly work. Men also do not engage with female scholarship frequently, especially if it is feminist scholarship. Women are still expected to do ‘the feminism bit’ and men consider feminist scholarship ancillary to their work. Even men in critical scholarship seem to treat the body of feminist literature as optional. Much like men working on feminist scholarship is rare, the expectation of women doing feminist scholarship is almost imperative. Male colleagues have admitted to less likely to think of women as reading philosophy or capable of philosophical thinking. Even the guilt of acknowledgment is of the smug feminist variety. Response by students is often no better than by colleagues. The aesthetic feeds this narrative once again. 

In What I Call Miscellaneous Misery! What may we do?

Academia, like most other workplaces, is hardly designed to accommodate women. However, it is pertinent to understand how gender operates as unique and peculiar to academia as well. Raya Sarkar’ list revealed to us that structural misogyny is all pervasive and how a whisper network is pertinent in a profession where deep relations are not just fostered but critical between individuals and intellects. Perhaps, it is the most disappointing to acknowledge academia as horribly gendered because here is where the unpacking of such systems is most cognizant. Here is where one learns what ‘gendered’ means in itself.

In addition to all that I have stated above, other significant things that ails the profession are unequal pay, delayed/overlooked promotion for women, categorical work allocation and unaccounted for labour in identical designations, no different from the domestic private. Women are rarely in positions of actual power even though universities often boast of the strength of its female workforce. Statistics and numbers are used to detract us from things that remain structurally enabled no matter the nature of the institution – public or private.It is almost as if the fear for real change pervades the knowledge bastion the most. In intersection with other forces against spirited intellect, this is truly worrying. 

How is one to navigate this quagmire then? In the beginning of this piece, I had stated that we do not address this when speaking to young, aspiring female academics. And, as I write this, I realize that one of the best ways to do this is to acknowledge its presence. My entry to academic did not come with this insight and in not handing it down to those who follow our footsteps we become complicit in this un-feminist project. The strongest way forward is to support early career scholars by repeated conversations on gendered academia and how it manifests in the subtlest of ways. The reality of academia is textured. And it is almost as if it pretends to be objective so as to ensure that one is forced to conform to the male standard – like anything else. It is our task as feminist scholars to break this chain and I write this in hope of recruiting fresh energy to what is one of the most demanding and continuous feminist projects – reclaiming knowledge itself.

This piece was first published here.

The intricate link between the environment, women, and male domination

By Ashmi Sheth

June 5 2020

‘Environment’ literally means everything that surrounds us and affects an organism during its lifetime. According to the Environment Protection Act, 1986, Environment is defined as “the sum total of air, water, and land and the inter-relationships that exist among them and with the human beings, other living organisms and materials. Feminists and environmentalists have linked the oppression & subjugation of women and the exploitation & degradation of our Mother Earth – the link being – Patriarchy. Ecofeminism is a movement that acknowledges these links that connect the exploitation and domination of both nature and women under a patriarchal society. 

The term Ecofeminism was first coined by a French feminist Francoise d’Eaubonne in 1974 in her book Le Feminisme ou la Mort. According to Mary Mellor, a British academic, “Ecofeminism is a movement that sees a connection between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of women.” Ecofeminists examine the effects of gender in order to determine the ways in which patriarchal social norms exert unjust dominance and oppression over women and nature. Drawing parallels between the exploitation of women and nature and the identification of both as passive and powerless, the ecofeminists also promote a positive identification of nature with the reproductive capacity of women. 

The ecofeminist movement developed from diverse beginnings, nurtured by the ideas and writings of a number of feminist writers including Vandana Shiva, Susan Griffin, and Carolyn Merchant. In the broadest sense, ecofeminism is a distinct social movement that blends theory and practice to reveal, and eliminate the causes of the denominations of women and of nature. Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization author, has a massive contribution to the global Ecofeminist movement. She was one of the women involved in the famous Chipko movement, which resisted industrial forestry and logging in rural India. Vandana Shiva titles her feminist theory “political,” or “subsistence” ecofeminism; her work dealing with “third world” women, whose lives are adversely affected by the forces of corporate globalization and colonialism. Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva first published Ecofeminism in 1993, which explained the links between the oppression of women and the destruction of the environment. As an ecofeminist, Shiva believes that the worldview that causes environmental degradation and injustice is the same worldview that causes a culture of male domination, exploitation, and inequality for women. 

Shiva believes that women have a special link to biodiversity, and are the best custodians of earth-health through their knowledge of heterogeneity of life. Women are often the people who are most directly involved with subsistence work, and are the safeguards of natural resources needed to sustain the family and community. When Vandana Shiva argues, “the marginalization of women and the destruction of biodiversity go hand in hand,” she is describing the commonality of gendered and environmental oppression, as well the specific location of women as vulnerable to monoculture capitalism. Shiva argues that “women’s work and knowledge is central to biodiversity conservation and utilization both,” as that is what allows the reproductive cycles of the earth to sustain life. When the environment, specifically farming, is fragmented by the productive desires of capitalism, she explains, it is women who move between to link the interdependent systems that have been falsely and dangerously isolated from each other. In addition, women are particularly marginalized by their alienation from the seeds. Shiva shows how the reproductive, cyclical nature of women’s work is being imitated and perverted by biotechnology companies in the name of monoculture. Shiva writes, “women produce through biodiversity, whereas corporate scientists produce through uniformity.” 

Ecofeminists contest the assumption that “human interests are superior to non-human interests, and men more valuable than women, the rich more valuable than the poor, whites more valuable than blacks, and the First World more valuable than the Third World.” Moreover, ecofeminists expose the masculine bias of western science and technology, which tries to control and appropriate nature – “both the human female reproductive capacity and the reproductive power of non-human nature.” In sum, ecofeminists state that just as women’s role has been to fulfill the demands and aspirations of men, correspondingly, nature is supposed to have an innate constitution of catering to human needs. Hence, they point to a mutual association between oppression of women and degradation of nature, as both, women and nature are exploited by men.

As with all forms of feminisms, scholars have raised objections to the concept of ecofeminism.  One objection deals with the central claim of ecofeminism: women have greater connection to the environment or that women are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation. One might object to the assertion that patriarchal ideology is the actual cause of environmental abuse. Some ecofeminists are accused of merely attempting to reverse the male-dominated gender bias, possibly creating new, subtle forms of women’s oppression. Referring to a lacking overarching definition of “ecofeminism,” Dr Richard Twine has described  it as “differing accounts that wove together a perceived interconnection between the domination of women and nature,” all forms of ecofeminism do share a commitment to developing ethics which do not sanction or encourage either domination of any group of humans or the abuse of nature. Dr Richard Twine speaks more about the history and evolution of ecofeminism in its different forms.

Although personally, I am neither a great believer nor a supporter of ecofeminism, this idea of how women and mother nature are oppressed and exploited the same by the sons of earth, needs more thought – politically, ideologically and psychologically. I might have disagreements with certain claims of ecofeminism, such as the one claiming that women are disproportionately affected by environment degradation, but the central idea that emphasizes the liaison between women and nature exploitation under a patriarchal society is something that needs utmost attention. Vandana Shiva boldly asserts,

“We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.”

The battle against the struggles of having to deal with the post traumatic effect of sexual assault still plagues me even after 23 years. Memories of my repeated molestation and sexual assault for over a month when I was only 14 years old by my private tutor constantly keeps appearing in mind and playing on repeat mode like a broken tape recorder. On the surface everything seems normal. You will probably look at me and think I am a confident, well-spoken, well-travelled senior capital markets lawyer who had the good fortune of working for some of the top law firms in India, London and Hong Kong. But only I know the demons that I have and continue to fight till this day.

Living with the aftermath of sexual assault is like living with a beast. A beast that keeps raising its head from time to time and triggering floodgates of vivid memories of the nightmarish experience without any warning. No matter what you do, what you say, the beast keeps reappearing and you do not know what triggers the opening of the floodgates of images of that nightmarish experience. So you are left powerless and alone to grapple with the myriad of vivid images that you have spent years trying very hard to forget. Sometimes the images come up to you and replay in your mind while you are giving an office presentation or simply chatting with a friend or just watching television or waiting for someone at the airport. The world looks at you and thinks you are doing fine, but only you know the struggles you are going through. Struggles that you cannot even think of talking about to anyon

Today even as 37 year old woman, a lawyer and a teacher, I struggle to recount and tell people the details of my horrific experience at the hands of the very adult who was entrusted with my care and revered by my parents for being my teacher.

Looking back now, growing up in the 1990s in the quiet hills of Darjeeling I did not have access to the internet or any other information that would explain the difference between a “good or bad touch”. Back then schools did not teach anything on the topic, my parents did not have such conversation with me and society considered it an outright taboo to talk about such things. In hindsight I wish topics such as these were talked about more often. I would have been saved and so would have many others.

Unlike other crimes, strangely the shame for any sexual assault always falls on the victim and even the 14 year old in me knew this. I knew the burden of shame would fall on me and not an ounce of it would be shared by the abuser. Also, my abuser did not mince any words and he was quick to let me know that the shame was all mine as I was the girl who had responsibility to hold up honour of my parents. Besides no one would believe me, he told. I wondered even as a child and now as a woman why the responsibility of maintaining honour always rested on the woman even if she were a child? Why don’t men (even as adult) share the burden of keeping their family honour? I am yet to find an answer to this question.

This shame that was engrained in me played havoc. It crippled me and it was nothing like anything I had experienced before. Shame and fear became my constant companion and they both did exactly what my abuser needed to flourish in his favourite pass-time. It kept me quiet and quiet for the longest time.

As years went by, I thought I was coping well by hiding my shame and trauma in the deepest corners of my heart, never realising that I was only multiplying my suffering by hiding and not coming out with the truth. The more I tried to hide, the more flashbacks and nightmares I continued to have. The more I tried to run away the more I was plagued by images of my abuser’s face and his tight grip and the little mirth that played on his face while he continued to assault me. I did not know then that the only way out of this misery was to deal with the shame and my abuser head-on.

As years transformed into decades, the pain did not seem to ease. When the nightmares happened, I actually felt I was living through the experience in my present day. It all seemed so real, as if the assault only took place yesterday. I cried and cried for long hours. With the passage of time, I began to think, “How could I speak, it has been so many years?”, “Who will believe me?”, “Who will unquestioningly support me?”, “Will I have the strength to bear the burden of the plagueing shame from the time I tell everyone of my trauma?”, “Will my family accept me?”, “Will my husband be fine?”, “Will my husband support me and choose to stay with me even after I let him know that I was sexually assaulted?”, “How will my friends and teachers and everyone I know react?”, “Will they avoid me?”, “Will I get a job after I come out of my shame?”.

I am a woman before I am a lawyer – and the 14 year old girl in me and the 36 year old woman in me convinced the lawyer me that the shame would still be mine. To the questions I raised, I found myself answering that it will still be I who is questioned and the abuser will be let off the hook. And I was not fully wrong – for some still question me and not my abuser. So I decided it was not worth the risk and kept doing what I had learnt to do all these years, ‘just keeping quiet’ and hoping that I miraculously forget about the assault.

God had different plans though. In 2019, I came to know that my abuser continued to teach in a jesuit school in Siliguri and sexually abuse children. Something in me changed when I came to know this. Being a survivor of sexual assault myself, I know the lifelong pain and suffering such an experience brings – it shatters your soul and you struggle to trust anyone for the longest period of time. You live in constant fear for something that was not your fault in the first place and you are burdened with a sense of guilt on your little shoulders even though it was the adult and the society (who had a duty to protect you) that failed to protect you as a child. I had suffered for too long and I continue to do so and I could not in my right conscience allow another child to go through what I had been through at the hands of this man.

Every time we fail to question the abuser, we fail our children in the worst possible way. That day was a turning point, a day that I decided that I will no longer run away from my predator, or my shame or the nightmares. I will deal with the human beast and my shame head-on and do everything in my power to question the abuser and save other children from coming under his grip!

I realised after 22 years that the shame is on the abuser and not on me or any child – and the realisation was empowering to say the least. Strangely, I was not afraid anymore to be questioned, to be standing alone or laughed at. The fear of not being validated or supported in my quest for justice did not cripple me anymore. I realised the truth will not diminish by any cent whether someone chooses to believe me or not. The truth will remain the truth and that will be my biggest power over my assaulter.

It is no secret that, one out of four women are sexually abused, yet very few dare to come out with their story and even fewer amongst them choose to knock the doors of justice against the offender in order to prevent the suspected serial child molester from continuing with his sick pass-time. I am glad I had finally mustered courage. I was ready for the fight and in September 2019 I formally lodged a complaint with the Darjeeling police.

I told myself that I would atleast have the satisfaction of having tried to bring the predator to justice and in the process also protect some children from his grip. I also knew if I did not speak up, this monster would continue failing our children in the worst possible way and I somewhere would play a role in him continuing to abuse our kids by keeping silent.

When formally lodging the complaint, I knew what an uphill task this battle would be, given that sexual assault crimes are always committed in the “hiding”. Hiding not just behind the doors of a room, hiding behind the friendly and respected garb of relationships like that of a tutor (in my case) and uncles, grandfathers and sometimes fathers. One cannot even begin to fathom the breach of trust that the child experiences when the very adult that was suppose to protect her invades her in the worst possible way. Added to this is the fact that the child has no prior experience of such degree of trauma and therefore is often left alone to fend for herself and live with the responsibility of protecting family honour when the adult perpetrator is absolved from all questioning and is given a free ticket to continue with his sick-passtime.

As 2019 rolled into 2020, I was confident that with the evidence the police had gathered the arrest of the accused was imminent. Then a normal day in October brought me my first ray of hope in this battle. On October 5, 2020, the hills of Darjeeling were resounding with the arrest news of a teacher at a jesuit school in Siliguri. Many congratulatory notes started pouring in from my school teachers and friends but I would give a fair share of the credit to the investigating team for their tireless and painstaking effort in gathering evidence against this well-hidden monster even when COVID-19 was raging at full spree.

In only a day’s time of the news of the arrest becoming public, other victims mustered courage to come forward and while with each victim coming forward I am strengthened in my belief that justice will be served, it personally pains me to witness the number of young minds the predator has scarred for life. The sexual predator has been a teacher throughout his life giving private tuitions and teaching in various schools in Darjeeling and I shudder to think what could be his real victim count. Only he can say that and I know he will not give that number out so easily.

It is well-known that predator chooses his victim amongst the most vulnerable, because he knows he can get away with and constantly feed on the silence and shame of the victims. It is time to break this silence and let me tell you, I am healing by talking when all the time I thought I would heal by hiding. In fact truth works in strange ways. It is scary to speak the truth at first. One is hounded by thoughts of doubters, by the questions that will be raised and the fact that one may be standing alone in the fight. But once you speak the truth, truth emboldens you in ways you thought it will. After speaking the truth you do not wait for validation anymore, you do not fear standing alone for you always have the peace of mind that you did the right thing. And that is the power of truth!

To all who is reading this today, I would say that hiding away and burying your thoughts brings no solution. I tried hiding for 22 years and I am telling you this. What has empowered me and has started to heal me is knowledge that I spoke out and did not remain a silent spectator. I spoke out for our children and for the 14 year old child who was betrayed in 1997.

If you have to take-away one thing from this read, I would say, ‘Do not question the child – question the adult!’. When for all crimes the perpetrator is questioned then why is that for crimes of sexual assault and molestation the victim is doubly victimised for no fault of hers by being again subjected to questions?

For a change, let the abuser (a father himself now) answer now why he did what he did 23 years ago? Why did he not stop his predatory behaviour and instead chose to continue sexually abusing kids even 23 years later? For once just question him and make him answerable! Our kids have born the burden for way too long – let them unburden their little shoulders for they deserve better. Let the kids be kids-do not burden them with the shame that should be totally of the adult!

My predator continues to be in judicial custody after his bail got rejected and I hope he continues to be in jail for a long time. I know justice will prevail and I have complete faith in our judiciary. I am also hopeful that more victims will come forward to tell their stories of horror. If you have been a survivor of this sexual predator who taught in several schools in Darjeeling and continues to be a teacher at a jesuit school in Siliguri, please provide all helpful information to to DYSP at +91 90832 70405 or OC Sonada at +91 96799 85143.

Now is the time to unburden yourself and place the shame on the abuser!

As for my sexual predator I would like to say, “I have taken the power back from you – the power of forceful shame that you have exercised over me all these years after sexually assaulting me for over a month. If you are reading this just know it is who you are powerless today and not me or the others who you have abused! I will not let you steal my or any other child’s life and happiness anymore -23 years has been enough and I know we will win this battle against you!”

#women #genderviolence #justice #chronicles #violenceagainstwomen#violenceagainstchildren #thewomb #children #SaveOurChildren #SaveOurChildrenNow

By Sruthi Sadhasivam

Why is it that a guy-girl relationship is always considered a taboo in India? Can guys and girls be friends? Is that accepted and considered normal in our society?

It is an untold crime for a girl to have guy friends – atleast in a large part of India. Isn’t it? Why blame society when we have our own friends who will start judging us when we simply talk to a guy. Why is it that when a guy and a girl or a man and woman spend time together, it is taken for granted that they are in a relationship? Will the same society react in a similar fashion when a girl spends time with another girl or when a man spends time with another man? No, this is because our society is extremely ignorant of homosexuality and continues to postulate that this is a world of straights.

Why should a woman feel uneasy when talking to a man? Is it only because of the man’s behaviour or can it be also because of our gendered culture? What kind of conversations can a man and a woman have? Who frames the guidelines for a man-woman relationship? Have you seen a man or woman talk about issues such as menstruation and sex with the opposite sex as freely as they would do so with a person belonging to their own sex?

We are undoubtedly in dire straits when we get a phone call from a guy friend or when we make a call to them. You would have noticed your parents nagging you to tell them who it was on the phone inspite of them knowing it’s a guy on the phone. Will we feel this self-conscious and uneasy when we talk to someone of our gender? Why should we feel edged and abashed only when we talk to our guy friend?

Why should this qualm and conjecture feature only when there’s something between a guy and a girl
even if it’s just a conversation?

At what time of the day or night are we allowed to talk to our guy friend? How long are we allowed to talk to him/her? About what are we permitted to talk? Have you ever wondered as to why we are unable to talk readily to our guy friend amidst our family? This is because, especially if we are a woman, we will certainly be judged by all including our family, relatives and as a matter of fact even by our teachers and friends.

Why should we assume that a guy will always be a threat to women? If we were a guy and converse
with a girl, will the same family or relatives take it as seriously as they would do so if it were a girl? They would at most satirize the whole incident and make fun of the guy and leave it at that.

Why are gender benders always the victims of moral policing? We might try to live our life the way we want turning a blind eye and deaf ear to societal norms and prejudices. Inspite of our resoluteness are we allowed to function void of obstacles? Who is society to decide what relationship we have with another man? In the first place, Why should we be made to feel guilty by languorous loafers when we really are innocent and unsullied both in heart and our conduct? Why should this fear, intolerance, and inappropriate feeling of premonition stem out when we simply see a guy-girl together? We are unaware
of what kind of relationship they share, we don’t know for what business they are there at that
particular time and place, given that – why should we as a purposeless, vain society immediately character assasinate them ?

There is this practice ingrained in our culture to assume that no guy and girl in the world can have a completely sane and sagacious relationship. Why should or why is it defined that our relationship with a guy will always be physical? Why can’t it be based on emotions and mutual interests?

In a country were simply uttering the word sex is beyond the pale, I seriously don’t know how sex
education will find its place. Most importantly, with whom will we discuss it when all the doors of
information like family are perpetually closed? We generally discuss these aspects with our friends, but why should that friend not be a guy? If the society functions at this rate, no guy would know who a girl is and no girl would know who a guy is, they would have no clue about the opposite gender, do they have similar feelings and emotions like them, what would be the nature of their behaviour, what would be their likes and dislikes and so on and so forth.

Don’t you think these ceaseless restrictions, social barriers and psychological constraints placed on a guy and girl are increasingly responsible for gender-based violence such as rape and domestic abuse? If guys and girls are given their space, don’t you think these abominable occurrences might reduce if not come to a standstill? When there is no room for fellow-feeling and empathy how will they perform shared roles in life? How will they get to know each other? Now we force them to live in seclusion but later when it’s time for marriage we expect them to lead contended, imperturbable life without any misgivings and trepidation. How did we become this unrealistic and irrational?

I’m not underplaying the fact that it can be equally dangerous to mingle with a guy or girl. There has
been many cases where the so called friendships turn into full-fledged relationships and infatuation
being mistook as love can be devstating. So, termination of friendship between a guy and girl is all the more different, it can cause extreme trauma and at times even depression for the guy or the girl or both.

The problem here is that there is very less understanding of the thin line that exists between sense of love and friendship. Not all guys and girls are fully capable of conceptualising what friendship exactly is?

Haven’t we seen myriad of friendship turned relationships in our day to day life? Is brotherliness or sisterlyness a cool term that substitutes a guy-girl relationship? Is friendship between a girl and girl or guy and guy the same as camaraderie between a guy and girl? Have we considered friendship springing out between homosexuals and straights or for that matter the transgender community? How much physical distance should we maintain when we hang out with a guy? Is the license of friendship, enough for a guy to get physically intimate with a girl without her consent? How do we find out whether
it’s exploitation of individual’s innocence or friendship when it’s between a guy and a girl? Can a guy-girl friendship be toxic in nature? Can their friendship subsist irrespective of physical intimacy and with an altruistic and reassuring attitude towards each other?

Having said all these, is it yet right on our part to prohibit a guy-girl friendship? Will a guy-girl friendship always fail? What if the aforementioned tragedies happen to them in future or for that matter after their marriage? For how long can they remain reticent and inhibited in each other’s presence? Despite socialising with each other itself if they are going to face so many problems, I feel appalled even of thinking of introducing them later in life when they might have to perform shared roles or exist in harmony.

Degeneration of friendship takes place only when there’s overwhelming secrecy, suspicion, and
unworldliness around the guy-girl sociability. Therefore, as a society it is high time we evolve and accept the fact that a guy-girl friendship is as normal, reasonable, and uncorrupted as any other kind of friendship. Let us believe, accept, explore, and encourage the beauty in companionship between men and women with caution and not circumspection.

(The Author is an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science)

PC : Duy Pham

By Aishwarya Nabh

“One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object — and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

—John Berger, Ways of seeing. [i]

The term, “Male Gaze”, was originally brought up by Laura Mulvey in her essay, “Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema[ii]”. She constitutes that the film industry has adapted a narcissistic way of showcasing female characters on-screen as an object for heterosexual men. It is done for satisfying the spectator’s eye – female character is either hypersexualised or a damsel in distress or both. Here the spectator is a heterosexual man and spectacle is a woman. For the longest time ‘Male Gaze’ was described as a means for heterosexual men to disparage the female identity and because of which it had become a norm.

Male gaze comprises of two terms – Voyeurism and Scopophilia[iii]. Former is an act of watching others engaged in sexual activity and deriving pleasure out of the same. This is more like a secret. Whereas, in the latter there is sexual dependency by observing someone indulging in sexual activity- this is not a secret as opposed to voyeurism.

It has been created by a man for a man and with a man. The end product of it all is consumerism of the nastiest kind only for the pleasure of a heterosexual man.

Florence Given, UK based artist, activist and writer of, “Women don’t owe you pretty[iv]” says, “When I learned about the male gaze theory and the objectification of women’s bodies, and how we have internalised this gaze and made it our own aspired by standards of beauty, I haven’t been able to stop wondering where I end and where the patriarchy begins – in terms of how I act, appear, talk and dress myself.” The constant surveillance of Male Gaze – this feeling does not go away entirely. Women have over the years internalised this surveillance and they intend to impose on themselves inadvertently.

Patriarchy has got a control over our minds and bodies. The objectification of women that has been depicted on reel and transpired on to real life – gave heterosexual men a right to degrade, humiliate and comment on women’s bodies and work. Sexual objectification acts to shape women as both products and consumers. It is a condition of physical self which can be severely deteriorating- women start to see themselves as an object and dissect themselves in order to please the Male Gaze. As Naomi Wolf, a feminist writer, in her book, “The Beauty Myth[v]”, talks about how men invented beauty standards, to strategically slow down women and doubt themselves.

Society shames women for experiencing pleasure, whether its pleasure in wearing what they please to wear or in eating food. Women were taught to know that wearing were your skin is visible will invite trouble and it’s the women to be held responsible for the repercussions. Similarly, eating calories for sustenance was enough but eating for pleasure makes them greedy, fat and undesirable. This is rooted in shame, ensuring we control ourselves and obsesses over existing for the visual satisfaction of heterosexual men, by being skinny and appealable.

Now the most pertinent question to ask- Is there a Female Gaze?

If the Male Gaze objectifies women on-screen and on other mediums that means Female Gaze should be just the mirror image of it? Isn’t it? Is it to show female centric characters on-screen the same directed and produced by women? Or is it to “objectify heterosexual men” on-screen by showing their washboard abs, chiseled jaw lines and wearing a low-cut jeans? But it is not easy to define Female Gaze. The problem with defining Female Gaze is that it is primarily defined by what it is does not show.

Sexual violence against women when depicted on-screen is now portrayed with a lot of caution and care. For example in, “The Handmaid’s Tale[vi]”, show based on the same book name written by Margaret Atwood, when Offred (played by Elizabeth Moss) is forced to have intercourse with the Commander (played by Joseph Fiennes) in order to produce a progeny even for the Waterfords as this is what a role of the Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. This is a rape scene – but the way camera shifts focus from her disengaged face to slowly towards her lower body part makes us feel the emotions that Offred is going through in this mechanical act.

Similarly, Lizzo [vii] and Charlie XCX [viii] in their respective videos though both titled the same, “Boys” tried to showcase men from a perspective of a woman who dreams about her male counterpart, wants to be with him/them and does not shun away in voicing out the same. And just like women – men come in all shapes, sizes, colours, orientation, race etc.

Though Female Gaze is yet to be defined or be equated with Male Gaze but with women directors, producers, writers and actors trying to create a niche for themselves and with the aftermath of #metoo moment hopefully their voices are being heard and amplified – with Female Gaze being prioritised and given a well deserving space within every spectrum. Till then let’s try to break away from the shambles of Male Gaze.

ENDNOTES

[i]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2784.Ways_of_Seeing

[ii]https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf

[iii]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341371667_Voyeurism_and_Scopophilia

[iv]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52252715-women-don-t-owe-you-pretty

[v]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39926.The_Beauty_Myth

[vi] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/

[vii]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQliEKPg1Qk&list=PLuPh2Ud8HeuIa9PXJcfWKCAO_tqQfL5Xs

[viii]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPRy1B4t5YA

Picture Credits : Yuko Shimizu: “Dusting off the Male Gaze”

By Avani Bansal

On 3^rd October, BJP MLA from Bairia constituency in UP’s Ballia, Mr. Surendra Singh is said to have remarked that rape cases in the country can be prevented only with “sanskaar” (culture and values) and not with “shasan” (governance) or “talwar” (sword) and emphasized the need for parents to inculcate good values in their daughters to prevent such crimes. He said –

“I am also a teacher besides a legislator. Such incidents can only be stopped with the help of good values and not governance and violence. Parents should ensure to instill good values in their young daughters.” 

One value that a lot of parents instill in their daughters in India is that ‘good girls do not speak or argue – not in front of their elders anyway.’ Another of these values is that ‘good girls do not rebel, they patiently deal with the situation and suffer in silence before the wrong person or situation is auto-corrected.’ 

First question that arises is – why is India’s value system so hell bent on teaching values to young daughters but not so much to young sons?

Secondly, why is there always a higher burden of ‘righting a wrong’ placed on girls and/or women as compared to boys and/or men?

Thirdly and most importantly – why is it that men making misogynist and sexist remarks are allowed to go scot free, both legally but also in media (print, TV and social media). And why do enough women not call them out? 

Is it because of women’s ‘sanskaars’ that most trolls online are men – saying whatever comes to their mind and often resorting to vile threats, injuries, and even rapes openly to put their points across? But then off late, sexism is not limited to ordinary trolls. Consider this – 

Markandey Katju, Former Judge of the Supreme Court, who has attracted the irk of activists before for his sexist comments, recently had this to say on the Hathras gang rape – “I condemn the Hathras gang rape, and call for harsh punishment of the culprits. However having said that there is one aspect which also needs to be considered. Sex is a natural urge in men. It is sometimes said that after food, the next requirement is sex. In a conservative society like India, one can ordinarily have sex only through marriage. But when there is massive and rising unemployment, a large number of young men cannot marry (as no girl would ordinarily marry an unemployed man).”

To let go off these comments is to let misogyny rain unbridled. If someone like a former Judge of the Supreme Court could get the logic of why rapes happen – so wrong, and may go on to justify it publicly – suggests the deeper rot existing in the Indian society.

But why do enough women not object to this, not call this out – not speak up? Why is that half a billion of Indian women continue to act like ‘dumb dolls’ never speaking up for their own rights nor supporting other women who speak out fearlessly. There is a broad generalization here and there are exceptions ofcourse. There are women who have fearlessly chartered their path to the higher echelons of power, who have spoken up against all pressures, who have helped bring women’s cause in India to where it is today – but these are still few, and in any case far too less given the total number of women in India. Even when some women do reach a certain credit-worthy, respectable, or desired position in their lives, very rarely do they seem to openly come out in support of other women.

Case in point is the recent allegations of several celebrities consuming drugs. Now without going into the merits of the case and dealing with the question of – whether or not they consumed drugs – one pertinent question is: why is that women across India were singularly targeted in what seems a concerted misogynistic propaganda? Aren’t there enough male actors who may be similarly accused of consuming drugs – but why did media or investigating authorities not point them out or go after them? Besides, while investigating cases of drug abuse, why should the media houses be allowed to openly indulge in character assassination of these women – giving insensitive details of who these women are sleeping with or hanging out with or how they have connection with ‘foreigners’ – thus painting them in a light that will dent their images, irrespective of the legal outcome in their particular cases. 

Some women do call a spade a spade – and take legal action where required pressing defamation charges but most women continue to be a victim of it, for e.g. Richa Chadha recently filed a defamation case against Payal Ghosh but the tardy and expensive legal system in India, is a major cause why a lot of women do not go that route. 

As per the latest NCRB Report, the number of crimes against women are only increasing but there is still no nation-wide call for an appropriate response and requisite reforms to deal with these increasing numbers head-on and to take effective and measurable steps towards addressing them. As per the 2020 NCRB Report, a total of 4,05,861 cases of crime against women were registered during 2019, showing an increase of 7.3% over 2018 (3,78,236 cases). Majority of cases under crime against women under IPC were registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (30.9%) followed by ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (21.8%), ‘Kidnapping & Abduction of Women’ (17.9%) and ‘Rape’ (7.9%). The crime rate registered per lakh women population is 62.4 in 2019 in comparison with 58.8 in 2018.

Yet, every time there is a rape incident that catches media attention – there will always be some women organisations, who take a principled stand, and press for justice  –  but ‘JUSTICE’ for women as a community at large in India is not a serious demand by a sizeable population, and therefore every political party keeps ignoring issues pertaining to women. 

For a group to pursue ‘justice’ – they first need to come together as one pressure group or interest group to be taken seriously in a democracy. But if women in India act as dumb dolls, happy living their daily lives, without making systematic efforts to come together and press for reforms on several fronts that affect them, then we shouldn’t be surprised if the equal world we dream of remain a distant utopian dream. 

Women organisations, NGOs, activists and individuals who are invested in the cause of women empowerment in India need to make efforts and focus on the larger cause of bringing women India together for a major movement for women rights, besides working on the specific issues that they are already working on addressing. 

Women who are in powerful positions in Politics, Judiciary, Police, Law, Media and every possible profession need to rise above narrow interests and actively speak up for women’s cause. 

You, who are reading this – need to speak up every time you see sexism and misogyny around you. 

In India it is assumed that dolls are the favourite toys for a girl child – nobody asks her and she comes to love them eventually. I have nothing against dolls but if half a billion women continue to behave like dolls or are circumstantially forced to behave like one – never able to speak up, even when they need to – then there is something systematically wrong with the society we have created. More importantly, irrespective of which political party is in power, women’s issues will just not be considered serious enough for action and implementation. 

While protection of women and welfare of women is an important part of the Constitution – how long will have to wait before these provisions are taken seriously? The case of women in India indeed looks very similar to that of the members belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes. While the Constitution of India was based on a concept of annihilation of caste, the number of crimes against them continue. This is what led the Government to pass the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. While this law in itself has not reduced crimes against SC and ST members in India, they have provided a speedier mechanism for justice and have also provided that certain crimes are cognizable (calling a person by reference to his/her caste). This was possible because members of the SC and ST were able to organize themselves politically. 

Similarly, why shouldn’t there be a law that makes misogynistic and sexist comments a criminal offence, while also providing for a Special Court to try all crimes against women, including those already provided under India Penal Code?

To think that – let’s simply wait for the day when men and women are equal in all aspects and there is no violence against a person because of her Gender is just plain wrong.

Infact all of historical developments towards women’s equality has been a history of step by step – movement towards ensuring effective and special laws in place. These ‘special’ measures do not indicate that women are special in some way – or more than men, but infact that since they are equal to men, but haven’t been treated equally, we need correcting measures to bring about this equality. 

This will foremost require women to stop looking over their shoulders and hope that someone else, around them will be their saviour. What we need today is a half a billion mutinies – and this will not be a loss of women’s sanskaar – but sanskaars put to the right use – albeit first time in India’s long history.