Case study
Did I say I want to understand how things are here and why they are like that? Yep. Did I say I want to feel it on my own back? Nope.
Last night I was coming home by bus. Was sitting on a lady seat next to the window – the most stress-free place u can get in the bus. A man got in and sat next to me. I do not really look around in vain, but kind of noticed he was dressed decently. He put his arm on the back of the front seat and buried his face in his arm. I was making notes in my notepad, staring through the window and soon forgot about him. After a while I realized that my backpack, placed on my knees is somewhat disturbing - its straps were slightly rubbing against my thighs. I moved the backpack slightly, but somehow this slight rubbing carried on. After some 10 minutes I looked down and I saw the fingers on the men 10-15 cm right from the zip on my pants. Right... these are the backpack straps!!!! My firm and annoyed “Hello” resounded in the bus. I tried to burn him with my look. Needless to say, he immediately put his arm away, avoiding any eye-contact, yet remaining seated. Some minutes later he brushed against me with his arm and was pushed back with my elbow. He stood up and got off the bus right after.
I could not believe it – this decently dressed man sitting next to me did it!!! I am very alert in the busses after all those stories about girls being touched or grabbed. But I thought if I seat it would never happen this way. So naive! Probably it was the thought that millions of women suffer from it every day that made me calm down soon.
Suffer from it! IT!!! They call it eve-teasing here: in the sense, you as a girl tease those men just by the fact of appearing in public. Now I am aware that according to any legal definition (EU, US, India – any!) what occurred is totally sexual harassment. And that according to Indian Penal Code, this man has a potential to get 1 year in jail or fine or both (but I’m for 1 year only in this country, so I’ll hardly have any chances to see the end of the case even if initiated ;o)).
Now I get why sexual harassment is not seen by many women as such. It's kind of menatally hard to picture yourself as a victim of sexual harassment (and that's what you are). Way easier way to think that some man was stupid.
Anyway, I think my perception of the incident just confirms the finding of the extant studies: women in countries like…. (India, Russia…. other Asian ;o) and some South European countries) treat sexual harassment as a part and parcel of being women and they “developed a threshold of indifference or tolerance as learnt behaviour towards harassment, and deploying silence or ignoring the harassers as a strategy to deal with the harassment – since they felt that no one would either take them seriously or come to assist them” (PRATIKSHA BAXI).
..................................................................................
These recent days I’ve been doing small desk research on sexual harassment at work… And then this case came… God bless the cases from books, newspapers and NGOs’ reports...
Last night I was coming home by bus. Was sitting on a lady seat next to the window – the most stress-free place u can get in the bus. A man got in and sat next to me. I do not really look around in vain, but kind of noticed he was dressed decently. He put his arm on the back of the front seat and buried his face in his arm. I was making notes in my notepad, staring through the window and soon forgot about him. After a while I realized that my backpack, placed on my knees is somewhat disturbing - its straps were slightly rubbing against my thighs. I moved the backpack slightly, but somehow this slight rubbing carried on. After some 10 minutes I looked down and I saw the fingers on the men 10-15 cm right from the zip on my pants. Right... these are the backpack straps!!!! My firm and annoyed “Hello” resounded in the bus. I tried to burn him with my look. Needless to say, he immediately put his arm away, avoiding any eye-contact, yet remaining seated. Some minutes later he brushed against me with his arm and was pushed back with my elbow. He stood up and got off the bus right after.
I could not believe it – this decently dressed man sitting next to me did it!!! I am very alert in the busses after all those stories about girls being touched or grabbed. But I thought if I seat it would never happen this way. So naive! Probably it was the thought that millions of women suffer from it every day that made me calm down soon.
Suffer from it! IT!!! They call it eve-teasing here: in the sense, you as a girl tease those men just by the fact of appearing in public. Now I am aware that according to any legal definition (EU, US, India – any!) what occurred is totally sexual harassment. And that according to Indian Penal Code, this man has a potential to get 1 year in jail or fine or both (but I’m for 1 year only in this country, so I’ll hardly have any chances to see the end of the case even if initiated ;o)).
Now I get why sexual harassment is not seen by many women as such. It's kind of menatally hard to picture yourself as a victim of sexual harassment (and that's what you are). Way easier way to think that some man was stupid.
Anyway, I think my perception of the incident just confirms the finding of the extant studies: women in countries like…. (India, Russia…. other Asian ;o) and some South European countries) treat sexual harassment as a part and parcel of being women and they “developed a threshold of indifference or tolerance as learnt behaviour towards harassment, and deploying silence or ignoring the harassers as a strategy to deal with the harassment – since they felt that no one would either take them seriously or come to assist them” (PRATIKSHA BAXI).
..................................................................................
These recent days I’ve been doing small desk research on sexual harassment at work… And then this case came… God bless the cases from books, newspapers and NGOs’ reports...
posted by Olga Tikhonova | 2:30 pm
1 Comments:
not a new story
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