“Don’t hitchhike.Don’t sit alone by the sea for more than ten minutes.
Stop thinking about watching the sun rise over a field, all by yourself.
Stop thinking about long, leafy walks that lead nowhere.
Stop wondering how the streets looks at midnight, after a drizzle.
Stop…”
I just came across these lines in an old post by Annie Zaidi [1] about street harassment euphemistically known as eve teasing for some reason I’ve never really understood.
There’s a path I love to go for walks along: it’s not out of the way but it is entirely secluded and can give you the feeling of being not in a city even if only for brief moments. Annie’s comment about not thinking of long, leafy walks that lead nowhere reminded me of it.
I love the path but I don’t feel safe walking along it by myself which means that if I am to walk along it, I need to coerce someone into coming along with me (which tends to destroy the feeling of being entirely alone).
The last time I went for a walk there, feeling the way I do, I asked to be accompanied. At the beginning of the path there were about half a dozen watchmen and all of them stared when we approached. The chap I was with seemed a bit unnerved and asked if the area was restricted.
It wasn’t.
It turns out that you can be physically safe by ensuring that you’re not alone. Or you can safeguard your reputation by not being seen heading towards secluded areas with a man. But you can’t do both (even though, in this particular case, even if one was so inclined, I don’t know what in God’s name one would do in an area such as that considering how messy, thorny, and, quite probably, snake-infested it is).
And, no, the solution isn’t to avoid secluded areas altogether because it isn’t just secluded areas which require one to be careful. How many times have you heard of women being ‘eve teased’ on a public road, on a train, in the market, on a bus…
Being safe is not solely about dressing conservatively or about avoiding the stereotypical dangerous places. In fact, as bizarre as this sounds, I’ve had more men stop on streets to ask if I want a lift, to inform me that they want to make ‘fraanship’, or to grope me when I’ve been dressed conservatively (in a sari or a salwaar kameez, my hair pulled back into a neat chignon, and a large bindi on my forehead) than when I’ve dressed in jeans and a shirt.
I’m quite certain that there is no such thing as a place which is inherently safe.
I just came across these lines in an old post by Annie Zaidi [1] about street harassment euphemistically known as eve teasing for some reason I’ve never really understood.
There’s a path I love to go for walks along: it’s not out of the way but it is entirely secluded and can give you the feeling of being not in a city even if only for brief moments. Annie’s comment about not thinking of long, leafy walks that lead nowhere reminded me of it.
I love the path but I don’t feel safe walking along it by myself which means that if I am to walk along it, I need to coerce someone into coming along with me (which tends to destroy the feeling of being entirely alone).
The last time I went for a walk there, feeling the way I do, I asked to be accompanied. At the beginning of the path there were about half a dozen watchmen and all of them stared when we approached. The chap I was with seemed a bit unnerved and asked if the area was restricted.
It wasn’t.
It turns out that you can be physically safe by ensuring that you’re not alone. Or you can safeguard your reputation by not being seen heading towards secluded areas with a man. But you can’t do both (even though, in this particular case, even if one was so inclined, I don’t know what in God’s name one would do in an area such as that considering how messy, thorny, and, quite probably, snake-infested it is).
And, no, the solution isn’t to avoid secluded areas altogether because it isn’t just secluded areas which require one to be careful. How many times have you heard of women being ‘eve teased’ on a public road, on a train, in the market, on a bus…
Being safe is not solely about dressing conservatively or about avoiding the stereotypical dangerous places. In fact, as bizarre as this sounds, I’ve had more men stop on streets to ask if I want a lift, to inform me that they want to make ‘fraanship’, or to grope me when I’ve been dressed conservatively (in a sari or a salwaar kameez, my hair pulled back into a neat chignon, and a large bindi on my forehead) than when I’ve dressed in jeans and a shirt.
I’m quite certain that there is no such thing as a place which is inherently safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment