From: radhika@june.cs.washington.edu (Radhika Thekkath)
Subject: Re:Eve-teasing.etc. [Longish]
Followup-To: soc.culture.tamil
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 03:00:24 GMT

Okay, I was caught up in some real :-) work for a few days, but I am now back
briefly. I like the idea of useful discussions on the topic. A constructive 
one, might actually achieve something.

I am not sure how many women read this newsgroup, but certainly many of the
posters so far have been male. So, I thought I would first give my
(one woman's) perspective on eve-teasing in India and Madras in particular.
(I don't wish to start a discussion on why it is worse in some places than
others, but I am covering as much of India as possible because this might give
some intuition as to what changes in attitude might be required to reduce this.)

First of all, I am not sure what is the origin of the word. Who first coined
this phrase? But I think someone came up with those precise words so that the act
of "eve-teasing" is seen as something romantic and desirable, and hence derives
away from it any bad connotations such as sexual harassment.
So, lets call it what it is, sexual harassment.
The harassment can take two forms, verbal and physical.
Verbal can range over things like being talked to and joked about by a group of
men, being asked out to go to the movie that night by one of a group of men and 
getting an address or phone number pushed into your hands and being asked to come
there that night.
Physical harassment can take the form of a man who sits next to you and tries to
press himself onto you, and when standing in a crowded bus a man can try to
grab onto some part of your anatomy that seems to best please him.
Now that we are all clear on what this harrassment might mean, onto other things.

The overall problem as it exists in India is quite serious.
I have travelled in the public buses in Bangalore, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and
Delhi, in decreasing order of frequency.
I have never actually been subjected to physical harassment in Madras or Calcutta
and have heard of no incident (to my personal knowledge). 
But this is fair game in other cities. And I assure you, it is not at all
pleasant. You learn to ride the bus in what I call a defensive mode. 
You learn when to stand (even when there is an empty seat) and learn
how to place your bag between you and other standing passengers.
I have generally (there might have been a few exceptions) noticed that physical
harassment everywhere (except in Delhi) is never done by college-age men. 

Okay, now onto Madras, here it is mostly verbal. If there is a physical kind, I
have not experienced it personally. (Is it because of the separate seating
system, I wonder). I am personally not for the separate seats, which many
of you men are wrathful about, but let me tell you this, when I visit Madras after
having just faced say the Delhi crowds, you couldn't believe how relieved I feel
to know that I can actually sit somewhere and not have to worry about which creep
will seat himself next to me and try to push against me.
If some women abuse this system, then it is a pity, because they cannot visualize
the boon of having reserved women's seats.

Like I said before, I think such a reservation system should not exist,
but my reasons are based upon the equality of sexes, and this reasoning
is alas based on the understanding that a woman should feel safe to sit anywhere. 
Which is not the case today.

This verbal harassment seems to come from college-aged men and high-school boys in
Madras. Their chief source of amusement apparently comes from Tamil movies,
many of which depict and portray this kind of behaviour as that befitting a hero.
This behaviour probably won't change in a few months or even over a few years.
But, this is no reason to not try to change things.

I have two suggestions, for those of you who want to help:

1. If some, or all of you wrote articles and news pieces to local magazines,
(exactly the ones cited in another article, as well as the Tamil and English
newspapers about how big a problem this is, and how movies are encouraging this
behaviour, then someone (in the movie industry *might* start a revolution).
The frequency of such news articles usually prompts someone to sit up and take
notice.
The next time you visit India, whichever city you might be in, spend a day
riding the buses and investigate the extent of the problem, and then write an
article to the local paper. 

2. Go visit your local (or former) high school Principal, you'd be surprised how
pleased they'd be to talk to you about your life in the US or wherever.
Explain to them that you travelled on the buses and saw high school students
behaving in such and such a mannner (whatever you saw) and request him to talk to
his teachers about speaking to their classes about sexual harassment and why it
is bad and how it can hurt people.

Please contribute any useful ideas that you might have on this topic.
I am sure we are all uniformly condemning this harassment, so lets try
to find constructive ways to reduce this problem, maybe where Madras goes, other
cities and states will follow :-).

Thanks for listening.
radhika
(radhika@cs.washington.edu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil