By Monalisa Padhee:
Editor’s note: Over 92% of women in India experience some form of harassment, yet, we hesitate to speak up. To help create safe spaces for conversations around these experiences, Youth Ki Awaaz and Breakthrough India have come together to encourage more individuals to speak out and support one another. The piece below is a part of this collaboration. We ask people everywhere to come, #StandWithMe.
I would like to be a little blunt and say that growing up as a girl is difficult.
The first time you are groped while visiting a mela near your house when you were just 10 years old still haunts you. As a child, I thought it was my fault and still wonder how I got that notion. I also thought it would be the last time I would encounter something like this. But who knew I would be proved wrong. Again and again.
Like many teenagers, you will be stalked and the moment you complain about it, you will hear statements like – “Who doesn’t like to get attention?” and “Stop complaining about small, petty stuff”.
Knowingly or unknowingly, I started becoming very conscious of what I would wear because one’s wardrobe seems to become a yardstick for character. Long sleeves and loose kurtas are supposedly protecting you from unwanted attention, and this is what I resorted to in many situations.
One time, when I was travelling in a bus and suddenly found a hand coming near me, I gathered the courage to shout at that man, thinking other people would support me. But alas I was laughed at! I was just an undergrad student, and I felt helpless.
When I was too scared to walk alone, I asked a male friend to accompany me. A leisurely chat with him outside a friend’s PG got us into trouble with the police and the reason was this: girls are not supposed to be out at 10 p.m.
In between, I moved to Australia for a few years for my studies and there – I felt as if I had got wings. I could travel in public transport without being groped, wear whatever I felt like and go to places whenever I wanted. Deep inside, I had started believing these incidents would never happen again. Naive, I know.
When I returned to India for a month-long vacation, I had a reality check. As I was getting down at Rajiv Chowk metro station, I saw a man trying to touch me inappropriately. I started shouting and ran after the man but he escaped. I looked around at the indifference of the people and got the feeling as if it was everyday’s scene and no one is bothered. Coincidentally, a friend happened to post on Facebook how a guy tried to grope her and when she started hitting him, people told her not to create a scene. Our society has become immune to such nuisances and it is crushing down our confidence and restricting our movements.
I felt violated and knew that even after 70 years of independence, as a society, we have failed to provide a safe environment. To stand up for what is right. To respect the freedom that we women ought to have.
If you’d like to share your own experiences – from dealing with everyday sexism and gender stereotyping, to period shaming, harassment and abuse, do share your stories using #StandWithMe, and help take this important conversation forward.
James Bond
You must be kidding me!
Men are 97% of combat fatalities.
Men pay 99.9% of Alimony
Men make 94% of work suicides.
Men make up 98% of work fatalities.
Men make up 97% of all war deaths.
Men lose custody in 84% of divorces.
80% of all suicides are men.
77% of homicide victims are men.
89% of men will be the victim of at least one violent crime.
Men are over twice as victimised by strangers as women.
Men are 165% more likely to be convicted than women.
Men get 63% longer sentences than women for the same crime.
Court bias against men is at least 6 times bigger than racial bias.
Males are discriminated against in school and University.
Boys face vastly more corporal punishment than girls.
60-80% of the homeless are men.
Women’s Cancers receive 15 times more funding than men’s
At least 10% of fathers are victims of paternity fraud.
One third of all fathers in the USA have lost custody of children, most are expected to pay for this.
40-70% of domestic violence is against men however less than 1% of domestic violence shelter spaces are for men.
Male fatality rates are vastly higher than women’s
Worldwide there are 107 men born for every 100 women, by age 65 there are 78 men for every 100 women, in countries like the USA & UK, its even worse, with 75/76 men for every 100 women. Despite the fact that health care spending for men is nearly twice as effective. In the few countries that have a majority male population and a preference for male children like China, Sons are legally obliged to care for parents when they are older, where as daughters are not. Many other countries like India have this as a social obligation. goo.gl/iZUcJJ
Despite all the pressures and risks facing men today support services for men are almost non existent compared to services for women. There are departments for women’s issues in the White House and the UN, but none for men. The UN promotes genital mutilation of male children but condems female genital mutilation. This is Real Sexism.
THE REAL MONEY GAP.
Men earn 61.5% of all income but only account for 25% of domestic spending. Men only spend 40% of what they earn after tax. In contrast women make up 38.5% of all income but control 75% of domestic spending, women on average spend 90% MORE MONEY THAN THEY EARN. Men are exploited as cash machines and even with spending on children accounted for women still spend more money on themselves than the combined spending for men and children. This can even be observed in the floor space allocated to women’s products in most shopping centres.
TAX & HEALTHCARE DISCRIMINATION
Men pay over 70% of income tax but the vast majority of public spending is on services for women. There is more money spent on breast cancer than lung cancer and prostate cancer combined, despite the fact that lung cancer alone has 3-4 times more fatalities than breast cancer. A man’s chance of getting cancer is 44% and 23% of men will die from cancer, 38% of women get cancer and 19% die. Yet there is vastly more money spent on cancer for women, this is lethal discrimination. Women pay 60% less tax despite spending 300% more in domestic spending than men. Women also consume two third of public spending, there are 3 times the amount of gender specific health services for women than men despite the fact that for equal increases in health spending a man’s life expectancy rate increases nearly twice as much as a woman’s.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
There are hundreds of surveys which shows women are as violent if not more violent than men in domestic violence cases. Men get arrested in 85% of all arrests but its estimated that Women are the perpetrators in most Domestic Violence cases. Most reciprocal violence is started by women and 70% of non reciprocal violence is perpetrated by women. Women however only get arrested in 15% of all DV arrests. This example of 572 different studies covering 371,600 people demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
More men than women were victims of intimate partner physical violence and over 40% of severe physical violence was directed at men. http://www.batteredmen.com/NISVS.htm
Despite this though,99.3% of DV shelter spaces are for women and even men who report violence against them by women are arrested far more often than the woman who is attacking them.