Sometimes an incident occurs in front of your eyes and forces you to ponder within yourself. What kind of a society are we living in? A society that treats women as an object to fulfill man’s desires? An incident that took place last night has filled me with anger and disgust. I went to watch an IPL game in an open area with a giant screen called Fan Park. It was dark and there were a lot of people with their friends and families; I was hooked took the screen when this ghastly incident shook me from inside. Two young girls probably in their late teens walked around us to go and sit with their friends who were sitting ahead of me. While looking for their friends they stood in front of some men who seemed to be in their 20s.
After a few seconds, those men started asking them to sit down as they were blocking their view to the screen. But due to loud music and commentary of the game, the girls were unable to listen to them. And when they failed to deliver their message to them, they started shouting and that’s where things turned ugly. One of the girls was wearing shorts and this made one of the men shout “Oo tangey, niche baitho( hey legs, sit down)”, and another one said, “aye r**** baith ja( hey prostitute sit down)”.
After witnessing all of this my anger shot up, but what irked me, even more, was the reaction of the people sitting nearby who heard this filth and choose to ignore it. One of the elderly men after hearing all of this started laughing and a few other groups of boys treated it as a jest and started enjoying. All of this those men encouraged those men to pass more unspeakable disgusting and sexist remarks on those girls.
The poor girls who were by now seated with their friends were totally unaware of the situation. After hearing enough, I decided to confront them. I told them to stop passing such comments, hearing which they looked at me with ridicule in their eyes as if I have committed a mistake. Those men saw took this as an opportunity to assert their masculinity and asked me to mind my own business. Things were about to get ugly when one of my friend said that it is better for the girls to remain oblivious of this situation, and if I pick a fight with these uncouth men it will create an unwarranted situation.
Hearing this I started thinking in a more practical manner and calmly asked them to stop passing such remarks on those girls, or else I will complain about them at the complainant center at fan park. Hearing this they stopped uttering nonsense. Soon after that the innings also ended and they came to me and said, “Bhai gussa kyun ho rahe ho, ye ladkiya aisi hi hoti hai 4-4 ladke se karwati hai, chalta hai (brother why are you getting angry, these girls are like this only, they indulge in sex with four different men)”. To which I said nothing in reply, after a bit they left and I also came back home.
After witnessing this brazen display of sexism and vulgarity, I couldn’t sleep the whole night. I was infuriated and ashamed at the same time. The face of that old man who was laughing when those men were passing those obscene remarks came to my mind, and I wondered what’s wrong with our society today. An old man laughs while girls his daughter’s age are labeled prostitutes, says a lot about the society that we are living in. Instead of asking them to stop, people sitting nearby encouraged them, which is a reflection of sheer misogyny that persists in our society.
What gives such people the audacity to label someone as a prostitute for wearing shorts, or to think that they indulge in sex with four different boys? This is the exact mindset which translates into ghastly crimes like rape, acid attacks and several forms of violence against women.
I blame the society, especially the entertainment industry for this blatant objectification of women. In Bollywood movies, the girl is often portrayed as someone who feels flattered when a random guy chases her down the streets and she ends up falling in love with him because “Naa me hi Haa hai (No means yes)”.
The daily soaps show woman protagonist as Saari clad ‘Adarsh Bahu(ideal daughter-in-law)’ and ‘Ghar ki izzat(family’s honor)‘. This subtly passes on a message that a girl is ‘loose’ if she is opinionated and wear short dresses and calling them prostitutes is no big deal because they called for it.
Our education system is only obsessed with degrees and grades, it teaches us nothing about gender equality. The situation is getting worse day by day, with crimes against women rising at an alarming speed. Its the need of the hour that we step forward to break this patriarchal structure apart to make this world a better place for the women in our lives.