Featuring one of the most powerful posts I've read in quite sometime. The author is a friend and colleague.
Dammit, will you bloody FIGHT?
By Pallavi Ail
When I was 14-years-old, I was attending a school about 20 kms away from home. I used to travel to school by train with my elder sister.
One day, enroute home, I was waiting for my sister on the railway platform while she purchased some chocolates from a vendor. The platform was crowded, as usual, the way it is supposed to be at around 3 p.m. on a weekday.
Suddenly, I felt someone pinch my ass. I turned around immediately and saw a guy right behind me, reaching out again.
I saw red. I acted completely out of reflex. I stamped on his foot and swung my water-bottle in his face. I started clawing his face with my untrimmed nails, all the while screaming abuses. I kicked him, throwing all my weight on him.
People stopped and stared. My sister came running back, but didn’t help. She stood calmly, while I kept a strong grip on the guy, screaming. By then, some bystanders came to their senses and tried separating us.
(Later, she told me — she wanted me to learn to fight. “That’s the only way to deal with this,” she tells me even now)
My sister then walked up and said we wanted to go to the station master’s cabin. Couple of people in the crowd caught hold of the guy’s collar and dragged him there. We registered a complaint and my mother was called.
From the second my attack began till the end, the guy was shaking. The smirk which he wore while trying to touch me was replaced by absolute fear. He was crying and saying, “I didn’t do anything.”
I was 14. And I didn’t possess the Amazonian physique I have today. Maybe I didn’t cause any physical damage to that creep. But I am pretty sure, I scarred him psychologically. That he would have thought twice before trying to pinch any other schoolgirl’s butt again.
Yes, I am hellishly proud of myself. Extremely, in fact.
I.DID.SOMETHING.
———-
I don’t know what’s the ratio of actual rape to other minor molestation cases, an example of which I outlined above. But, I can safely assume, rape must constitute a fraction of overall sexual harassment cases.
Every Indian girl was been pinched, caressed, touched, add all the verbs you want. Every girl. I dare you to find a single girl who has not been sexually harassed. But how many of those sexually harassed girls retaliated?
I have realised from 26 years of being a female that majority of all harassment incidents occur in public. These perverts are cowards. They don’t want to be seen. They get their high on moving quickly through the crowd, handling as many females as they can.
I have also realised that majority females shudder when touched, feel dirty, feel like ripping their skin, etc etc. AND KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT. Do you have any idea how powerful you are? These guys get terrified even when you turn around look them in their eyes. They don’t expect that.
Remember, these people don’t get their kicks only from touching you. They get it because they feel powerful, they feel as they touch you, you cower: terrified, scared, hapless. They feel they own you, your body when they do that. That’s the source of their perverted pleasure.
So what do you do? You bloody fight back.
The last couple of weeks I have read innumerable statuses and tweets and blogposts on the following topics:
1) The government needs to enforce a death penalty for rape
2) Rapists should be castrated; chemically or otherwise
3) Indians need to change their attitude
4) Indian mothers need to raise their sons properly
Here’s my opinion on each of them:
1) The government needs to enforce a death penalty for rape
Death penalty doesn’t solve anything. Do you know that even murderers are not awarded death penalty outright? Even if the legislature amends the law and introduces a death penalty for rape, it won’t be that simple. They will introduce exceptions like “intention to commit rape” and “premeditated rape,” and the worst of the lot “rape of passion” — wherein the defense counsel will examine whether the rape was “instigated.” Want to hazard a guess where that line of questioning will go?
Now you will get angry. Why should there be loopholes like this? Why can’t it be simple and straightforward? Rape is rape. Rape is committed, hang the guy. Take a deep breath. Every law has an exception, because every incident has one too. Like rapes, there have also been cases of consensual sex, where the sex is later fabricated as rape. Yes, you will curse me now; but like no rapist should go unpunished; no innocent guy and his family should also be subjected to a draconian law which has no safety lines.
2) Rapists should be castrated; chemically or otherwise
I confess. Castration is a punishment I have literally screamed from rooftops for rapists. But will it deter possible rapists? Maybe yes, maybe no. India banned amputation and punishments in same genre, post-independence.
I am trying to be realistic here. Will castration ever be a punishment for rape? NO!! Because, while it is an option of the passionate, it won’t even be considered by cold-hearted, practical legislators. Punishments like cutting hands, feet, etc have a dead-end. Tomorrow if the accused is actually found to be innocent, then what? There is no overturning of the sentence. He is handicapped — for life!
3) Indians need to change their attitude and;
4) Indian mothers need to raise their sons properly
Seriously? Ok, take a deep breath again. And read the following sentence very slowly, absorbing each word in, muse over it very very slowly and then answer.
Do__you__think__men__will__change__their__attitude??
Do you actually believe that taking into account the volume and scale of the protests, perverted jerks will introspect and think “Oh, I am a bad, bad person. I resolve I will never touch any girl again.”
Yeah, right!
Do you also believe that male-centric, narrow-minded, orthodox establishment will change their mindset? Do you think that people will stop asking “So what was she wearing?” “What was she doing there at that time?” “Why was she with a guy?” etc etc
No, they won’t. Maybe 20 years down the line, when we are the “elders,” it may wane (I highly doubt that too, because majority Indians live in villages), but what about now?
WHAT ABOUT NOW?
NOW, WE FIGHT.
And this is not vigilantism. This is pure self-defense.
Next time you are pinched — turn around, yell, punch. You don’t need to know self-defense. I didn’t know self-defense when I was 14, I don’t know it now. Use your nails, your fists, use that 5-kg handbag which you tote around.
Look the goddamn pervert in the eye. Show you are not scared. Show him touching you hasn’t degraded you, but it will damn well cost him.
Now if EVERY girl does this, every girl “names and shames” the guy, do you think that they will have the guts to touch every girl? No, they won’t. They will be unsure, they won’t know whether the girl they are reaching out to won’t get them thrashed by an angry mob the minute the girl starts screaming.
There is still the chance that you will be accosted at night, when no one is around. Maybe 4 or 5 guys will try to overpower you. Maybe it is your most powerful punch, but the guy is huge. I don’t have solutions to these. This will happen, it won’t disappear overnight.
I am talking long-term solutions here.
Yes you can put up a “this is a pathetic country” status, you can tweet how your heart bleeds for the victim, you can “hang your head in shame” about everything. All that amounts to NOTHING.
You actually think you will honor her memory by doing that? She fought, dammit. Time for you to fight.
Stop cowering under your stupid sense of “modesty” and “what will people say.”
Its easy to say and not to practice, you say?
If you believe like I do that your body belongs to you, that its yours to fiddle with, then please respect it first. On what grounds do you say that “people won’t respect my honor, if I scream out?”
It will be a tough start. Many times, you will cringe, other times you will just try to forget and move on. DON’T.
If you can hold a placard, if you can post a status, you can SCREAM.
Start yelling.
PS- Link to the original article: http://mobiusmusings.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/dammit-will-you-bloody-fight/
