Did You Ask For It?
July 11th, 2006 | Published in general, glbt | 14 Comments
In Support of the Blank Noise Project
No matter what country you’re in, there’s bound to be an undercurrent of that idiotic sentiment: that women are molested, raped, sexually harassed, because they were asking for it. This they were begging for it look, is apparently only visible to men who are equipped with special visual abilities and who have mastered the art of mind reading, also known as assholes.
In the Indian subcontinent particularly, such a sentiment has developed into the despicable pastime of some Indian men, eve-teasing, otherwise known as street sexual harassment. The author of this post has come into close contact with such behaviour, at times having been victim of it herself, and spends her time online defending the case of foreign women who were apparently asking for it (because they’re foreign, wear jeans, and must therefore be a village bicycle), and at other times writing long epics on new feminism.
The Blank Noise Project, currently operating “online and on the streets of Bangalore, Mumbai , Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad”, has been active for a while. They are presently running a campaign, named Did You Ask For It?.
Testimonials of street sexual harassment/ eve teasing from women across age groups, and from diverse places tells us that women get sexually harassed in no matter what they wear.
Blank Noise also believes that women do have a right to feel good about themselves, and wear what they please, without being sexually violated, because ‘you’ think she’s ‘available’.
We question, defy, and attempt to put an end to the argument that women ‘ask for it’. To establish ‘asking for it’ as a mere excuse for sexual harassment, we are asking all women to send in one garment that they wore when they were eve teased.
Each contributed garment comes from someone’s incident as a testimony, or a witness and forms part of a larger collective.
You could chose to send text, describing yourself, or the incident along with the garment.
The garments given will be strung together and installed in a public site. We require 1000 or more clothes from participants all over. The installation of clothing testimonials will travel across cities Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai…
Please send your support and plenty of good vibes their way.
Dec 2004, Calcutta: Picture of some unwanted posters on women’s issues; the black one is on the plight of trafficked women and children,, the one behind of a campaign in protest of eve-teasing.
July 11th, 2006 at 3:31 am (#)
Ever wondered if a cause is often the cause of all adverse effect within the very cause … maybe its time to act or maybe its just time to lay back and kick in when the time is right … heros dont fight on the front line its the job of the pawns …. but then again there is a pawn inside all of us who … one thats waiting to be quashed so that the hero can live just a second longer
July 11th, 2006 at 1:06 pm (#)
I think women should start wearing clothes that shoot out spikes when activated. I mean, some men are just asking for it.
July 11th, 2006 at 4:22 pm (#)
Donaq: Funnily enough, you are not too far off the mark. When girls for movies in India they it isnt unusual to carry a safety pin to poke any romeos trying to get their foot across from between the seats. My mom used to do it when she was in college, and I do it too when I’m in India.
Popagandhi: There were some hilarious instances of wannabe eve-teasers in Singapore. Though they scurried off when the “victim” gave them the finger :P
July 11th, 2006 at 5:23 pm (#)
Thanks for posting that, P.
I’m heartily sick of the shit that women have to put up with in India. When my sister stayed with me in Goa last year I regularly found myself wondering about my supposedly non-violent credentials when Maharashtrian sexual retards hassled her.
I’m glad people like the Blank Noise Project exist. It’s time to end this crap.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:36 pm (#)
hi. i live in singapore too. i am studying at NUS and came across your comment at the blank noise project blog. i truly agree to what u say. i have been a victim of street sexual harrassment many at times in india. almost 13 years of experience!!!
i was wondering if u could help out in sending clothes to the project. any ideas as how we can collect them. or are u already in to it? do reply me.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:37 pm (#)
this is chrsitina. this is my blog name.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:39 pm (#)
sorry again…this is the right one!
July 11th, 2006 at 10:06 pm (#)
donaq: Hear, hear.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:02 am (#)
christina: i am going to be in bangalore this weekend. if you like, write me email and i\’ll see what i can do for you.
jamie: yeah, i can see where that came from.. when i was in palolem (possibly our most stress free, where harassment issues were concerned - the goan boys there were fabulous), we found many out-of-state visitors from karnataka and maharashtra who were obviously there just to gawk and leer. well-dressed maharashtra men speaking perfect english sticking their camera phones into your body parts and following you, then asking your goan friend how much he paid for you. the palolem boys around us were anxious to punch these guys into the ground too.
my partner was so frustrated mid trip that she devised her own way of making them go away: each time she got a lewd stare, she decided to cross her eyes together and stick out her tongue. that almost always worked. now she says if she ever returns to india (we need to give the Taj one more go), she wants to return with a Tshirt that says \”You Look Really Stupid Staring Like That\”.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:41 am (#)
erm, you’re not in india right now right?
July 12th, 2006 at 2:28 pm (#)
Not right now, but I will be in a couple of days. Why?
July 12th, 2006 at 9:08 pm (#)
What’s more repulsive than the notion that we are ‘asking for it’ is the opinion that they are allowed such entitlement, merely because society has traditionally dictated males to be the dominant gender and because theocratic law fails to renounce these actions.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:22 pm (#)
nothing much actually, it’s a bit embarrassing now to admit it, but when i heard about the train bombing in Mumbai and couldn’t remember if you were in India or not, my heart skipped a beat.
July 13th, 2006 at 4:38 am (#)
ah, appreciate it. =) i’m going to be a few good thousand kilometres (and days) from bombay!