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While we understand physical abuse, we rarely comprehend that verbal abuse too can have serious consequences for women.
If you’re already wondering about the title, let me illustrate with an example to give you a closer look as to what harassment of women is.
Harassment in simple words, is any abuse or violence, physical or mental but in most cases, while we know what physical wounds look like, we forget that injuries to your mental health too need to be cured before they turn into bruises like depression and severe anxiety attacks.
Recently, (a week before the lockdown began), my widowed mother, my brother and I had to move out of my father’s home. Reason? Simply put, mental abuse. Abuse can occur in the form of any gestures or words that make one feel severely depressed. This is what happened to us too.
The background to this was that we had some family land which my uncle (who is brother-in-law to my mother) used for cultivating his crops and hence paid us the rent regularly. This time something happened due to which he got a little late and didn’t even talk to my mother regarding this. She being a single parent got a little tense (as she has some severe anxiety issues). She decided to ask him and when this happened they abused her saying that she has no right to the property and that it only belongs to us, her children, and so when we are legally privileged, we can get the information (I am 17).
Later on, the dispute grew stronger and she was accused of having an evil eye on my father’s property from the very beginning and when she decided to move out, they said that she was leaving to “have fun” with other guys. My mother is a woman in her late 30s, and couldn’t bear all this; as a result, she has developed depression.
I see her taking pills each day and my heart shrinks at seeing all this. We have taken some legal help now, but the accusations and gossip she faces each day are becoming ridiculously cheap. If this isn’t a form of mental abuse, then what is?
My sole purpose of sharing this all is, if you are the one facing such things, don’t keep quiet or just ignore it (if it’s affecting you). Raise your voice! Sometimes, silence is the worst thing you can offer, in a situation that demands your courage and words.
Image via Canva
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When women dare to confront misogyny, they often face harassment of a worse order. This woman refused to shut up.
I am an Indian woman and I can speak 6 Indian languages. I was raised in the North-East of India, and I’ve lived and worked in various cities across India. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister and a professional but this is what I always get from most educated Indian men and women – oh, you’re a chinki.
It’s been a heavy week all over the world with the #MeToo campaign. I had my #MeToo meltdown moment of acknowledging the subtle harassment I’ve lived and coped for years. It became second nature for me to decode those who mentally undress me at whim and those who think I am this different-looking and easily available friendly North-Eastern chinki. I’ve been catcalled, whistled at, jeered at, laughed at, and made fun of my Chinki looks and sexuality many, many times. Along with that, some chowmein, momos and noodles jokes also come my way. That I speak good Hindi has taken many by surprise.