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Angry women seem to scare everyone, even when we clearly have a reason to be extremely angry. Stop telling women who face harassment to “CALM DOWN.”
Saturday nights, usually for me are a way to get together with friends and unwind. After a merciless week, and gruelling writing sessions, I really do look forward to some ridiculous humour, and uncontrollable laughter. It is de-stressing and rejuvenates me for the week to come.
And last Saturday evening, we went to our regular pub in downtown Bangalore for just that. With a drink in hand, eight of us (three women and five men) sat on stools in a comfortable circle and jibed, laughed, bitched until we heard a woman shout at someone over and over again.
It took me a while to realize that she was screaming at this middle aged man who had conveniently rubbed his hand against her buttocks, while she stood there talking to two friends, smoking and having a drink. I don’t know what possess a guy to violate any woman like this. I was mighty proud that she fought back, and she was handling it fabulously; hence I didn’t feel the need to intervene either.
Until, I realized all the men with her, her friends, her husband, kept telling her to CALM DOWN! And the molester, aggressively kept advancing at the woman, using words like, “aaayyyy!” pointing at her in a derogatory manner. A bouncer escorted him to a corner near the entrance of the pub, barely five feet away from her. He had an animated conversation with the bouncer, constantly pointing fingers at the woman, and the bouncer (surprise, surprise) nodded understandingly.
I sat there, contemplating, wondering if I should intervene? Support her? After all wasn’t it harassment already that she had been violated? Did she really have to go through having to witness her violator pass obvious comments on her standing among a fleet of curious men? Was she expected to remain quiet and pretend that she has already forgotten it?
Of course she wasn’t, and she didn’t. She again protested and demanded why that man was still in the establishment. Why wasn’t the bouncer kicking him out?
Amidst all this, her husband kept trying to hold her back. I guess that was when I reached my tipping point? It felt unreal watching one woman, fighting for her right to be heard and respected, and being held back by none other than her own husband and friends. Being told, over and over again to CALM THE FUCK DOWN!
Another female friend and I intervened, joining her in the shouting match. Demanding to have the man, who dared to touch her, thrown out. And somewhere in the whole fiasco, I realized that her husband even started shouting at us to CALM DOWN.
He kept saying that he had spoken to the guy. And we needed to CALM DOWN. And all we had to say to him was, “Allow your wife to speak. Allow her to vent out. Allow her to vet the justice he deserved.”
There is unity in numbers, I guess. With the inclusion of a few more women, suddenly the scenario changed and we saw the man being unceremoniously thrown out of the establishment.
We were pulled back by our friends and had the woman come and thank us for our support. And she spent a while defending that she knew it was no mistake. She knew when a man touched her unknowingly and when he did it knowingly. It was sad, because none of us asked her to justify herself.
I told her that it has happened to all of us, and she was great; fabulous, in fact.
We continued our drinks, and gossip; however, post that somewhere in my head, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that perhaps it is not just men like the violator who encroach our fundamental rights. Maybe it is our own male friends or relatives who also unknowingly treat us like fragile beings incapable of sound decisions. Especially at times like these.
This is a message for those men, who love us, who really want to protect us and who don’t get us. We have been exposed to different forms of molestation since we hit puberty or sometimes even before that. We have spent hours crying in our bath, scrubbing our body parts where we have been touched until they turn tomato red. We have come from a state where we feared men to a state where we know exactly what we will do to make sure those monsters don’t get away.
Give us respect by allowing us to speak. And don’t you tell us to CALM DOWN!
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Top image credits Christopher Dombres, used under a Creative Commons license
Writer. Artist. Dreamer...and a Coach. Hi, I am Lakshmi Priya, but I respond better to Ell.P. A leadership consultant/coach when the sun shines, and a writer/artist past midnight. read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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