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How to fight back - By Maya Ganesh
By - 12:37 PM Saturday 10 December 2005
I was 20 years old when I moved to Delhi leaving behind a family that was with good reason, worried about their little girl in a big bad city. Delhi has for some time now had a reputation for being women-unfriendly and violent. But I chose to blank that out. At that stage, so too now, a city was not going to stand in the way of me having adventures and following dreams. Anything can be dealt with. While such confidence can be refreshing, its flip side can be hopeless naiveté
So I ended up doing all those things that some might consider risky.
When I was younger and pestered my parents to take me traveling, something my dad said would echo in my head as I traipsed around Delhi at all times of day and night: “Women need to know two things about travel: first, be able to pick up your own bags (that should teach you not to pack six pairs of shoes!) and walk the length of a railway platform; second, don’t expect anyone to take care of you.”
I used to have a Paying Guest arrangement in a fancy South Delhi colony. There was a peaceful park nearby where old aunty-jis and uncle-jis laughed like hyenas on speed at 7:00a.m. I made sure I went walking in the evening when they were tired out from laughing all day. And then one day it happened.
It was a narrow walkers track. I saw him 50 yards ahead walking towards me. Knowing it was a narrow path I moved to one side to let him pass. He moved to the same side. I thought I had not been clear enough. I moved to the other side. He did the same. We were approaching each other, closer and closer. Before I knew it we were abreast of each other and he smiled, and then casually reached out and squeezed my breasts.
Shock quickly gave way to something else. Raw anger. It was as if some other person inside me took over. I always carried my keys in my hand. I slapped him in the face with the keys and he was hurt. And then without thinking I put my leg through his and kicked them out from under him. He was down before I knew it. A little surprised and not really thinking, I started kicking him in the side over and over again. I was enraged. Until he started coughing and spluttering ‘sorry’ I realized that I had perhaps hurt him quite badly. I fled. It took me about 2 months to go back walking there.
And then there was that time I was having a drink alone in a bar in Defence Colony Market. There were only two other tables occupied, both by louts who like me had nothing to do. By now I had lived in Delhi about three years so I was prepared for the stares and leching, the whispering, the giggling. I decided not to ignore them. So from across the room I shouted to them: “what the f*** do you want? Want to say something to me?” They shut up and actually started looking down at the ground like reproached children. I told the manager that my sister was a journalist and that if they didn’t behave I would get her to write about the incident. They were promptly asked to leave.
The element of surprise always works. They don’t expect to be challenged.You can only fight back if you believe you can.
It sounds perverse but sometimes I would want them to do something so that I could fight back. Stupid I know, but that was ten years ago and I had virtually limitless energy for these things. Someimtes I think I was lucky that none of these men fought back. But somewhere I do believe I would have still come out on top even if they had.
A year after moving to Delhi I started interning at a women’s NGO where gender violence formed the staple of my work and new education. I think this intellectual understanding of why sexual coercion and violence occurs gave me a more meaningful sense of confidence.
We grow up learning what makes us good or bad, honourable or not: the clothes we wear, who we talk to, where we go, how late we come home, and who we love or have sex with. And then when we experience sexual violence we become deer in the headlights. Confused. All the rules we broke, the pieces of which settled into the bedrock of our guilt and shame, suddenly coalesce and become the Edifice of Morality. The judgments lurk inside our own hearts. It doesn’t occur to us that the responsibility ought to be the abuser’s because no one has suggested that to us.
I have learned that violence has an impact when you choose to let it define you. Moreover I think most of us just lie back and accept that the fraudulent power of sexual violence is inevitable.
Constantly managing our lives and what we will wear and how we will act, women bundle themselves into a hole in the ground hoping no one will blame them. “You should have known better” is a common refrain in a time when there is so much attention given to sexual violence. But that is dangerous ground because it’s just another way of placing responsibility with the victim. Even women completely covered in a burqa, the respectable housewife, they all get pinched and poked and harassed and raped. I think we need to be aware of the risks and take precautions, be smart. That’s not the same as retreating into a nunnery.
I remember the words of a well known lawyer, a role model for our times. As her daughters were growing up she told them: “you will want to stay out late with friends, and that’s fine with me. Remember that rape and violence is a possibility, it could just happen to you. But if it does happen, come home and tell me about it and we will deal with it together. There is nothing to be ashamed or scared about.”
If only more parents said these things as we were growing up.
(And thanks to mine who did it right)
Posted By - 12:37 PM Saturday 10 December 2005
Comments
Hi. I have lived in Bangalore my whole life before moved to Delhi. I still cannot adjust to the aggression and creepy feeling this city gives me. I mean there is just this fear that I carry around with me when I am alone on the streets even though I carry pepper spray with me. its a capital of the country and it makes me so angry that no one wants to do anything to make it safer for women. I envy your self-confidence.
Posted by
You have written good article maya. I am also ready to fight with people when they stare and sya bad things but my mother always scolds and tells me to shutup and I will be in trouble one day. Why only woman should be in trouble and not the dirty men who do dirty things. I will show my mother what you said.
thank you
Posted by
Dear Maya,
Your courage is quite commendable. It takes a lot to fight back....
I am a mother of 2 teenage daughters. And all I would like to say is that it takes an equal amount of courage (if not more) to say to your daughters - "Remember that rape and violence is a possibility, it could just happen to you." The first instinct as a parent is to always say - "No, nothing bad can and should happen to my children".
May be you will understand better when you become a mother yourself. :)
Posted by
Dear Maya,
I am from Karachi - Pakistan, and there has been an instance where I was abused on the road. I was 11 then, and I had stepped out to play. Things have improved manifold in the cities - however, I can completely relate to what you said.
However I also tend to agree with Raahat - it's more about how many people can actually afford to fight back, with the kind of police and judicial system, and tricky laws we in the south asia have to follow.
However at the end of the day, I believe that I have to make my daughters courageous, and strong. Parents aren't there all the time, and they should know how to protect themselves. A timely kick in the groin, is something we should all learn very soon, and very well :)
Posted by
Saman
Thats really well said...a timely kick in the groin should indeed be a subject in school curriculum.
love
anusheh
Posted by
Hi Saman
Welcome to the blog. Hope you will bring more viewpoints and stories from across the LOC and enrich the debate
love
Posted by
hi saman,just curious to know a couple of things:
1. Do you feel empowered with requisite supports from ngos and the like to give your best to your daughters?
2. How did you access this blog? Maybe others at ifsha know it, I am just curious...
whenever you have the time, please share, if you feel like.Thank You.
Posted by on January 10, 2006 06:05 PM
hi saman, welcome.
your daughters are lucky to have a responsive and aware mum like you!
i know you meant kick in the groin metaphorically, but to share something about the technicalities of self defense that we have worked out.. to actually get to the groin and make impact is difficult if you've never done it..and considering the presence of mind required at that moment. what the element of surprise always works, use the hand away from the other person to sweep across with force and hit in the face..eyes, nose, etc are all sensitive points. even just the back of the hand in the face works. though dont keep fingers outstretched! alternatively a sharp hard kick in the shin because thats closest to you...
eeks, this sounds so violent now that i'm thinking about it.
but i think girls should in fact forsee and plan what they will do if ever attacked. just thinking about your strategy can make you feel confident.
Posted by
na naaa - I ain't a mom yet :-) I'm 26, and hope to be mom one day. Never thought of an NGO. I was 11 in 1991 - different people react differently - I was very angry, hated men for quite some time, strangely fell in love too much earlier that I thought I would have. And yes, I have shared with my fiance, the "road offence", and thanks to him, I didn't feel awkward. He was most comforting and took it in the stride.
I can completely relate to Maya living on her own in Delhi - I was in Lahore for 4 years for my prof degree, away from home on my own. Pepper sprays are good, if one feels physically incapable to afflict substantial injury.
A friend of mine forwarded the link to this blog, I read, and just could sooooo relate to it.
Now I am back in Karachi. I work for an advertising agency and do a sports show on a satellite channel, and it feels powerful as hell! I'm beginning to understand, how as a woman, you can tilt situations in your own favour. After everything, and else, I am happy I am a woman, and thankgod, my parents believed in encouraging me despite.
Posted by
Thanks for that, saman..
Posted by on January 11, 2006 07:03 AM
well youre not a mother now but all this is for the mother inside you i guess!
and good to hear you came across the blog and are enjoying it (fwd it widely wont you?!) i found it interesting what you said about tilting power in your favour - did you mean at work? how so? i think its very interesting to hear women's accounts of using and having power - particularly in our part of the world - where for generations we have been hemmed in - do we do it any differently? (i doubt it - though not about you in particular saman, that would be presumptuous, no?)...theres a lot of managementspeak out there about women using power differently but i have my doubts about that. are you one of the few women in your organization? what are the others like?
Posted by
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Maya
So true. I wish our parents did tell us that it was no big deal. I'm a researcher and recently whilst doing some research on child sexual abuse I came across Finkelhor who said that the entire responsibility for the child not being able to heal its sense of shame and mortification after being sexually abused lies with prudent parents. So so true. If adults were to change their notions of 'morality' and 'immorality', virtue and sin, we would have a chance at least at holding our heads high and walking even after being sexually assaulted. The wounds would only be surface.