A few days ago, a doctor friend shared a tale from his internship in a northern town. Every evening, the female staff, including interns and doctors, were sent to their hostels, and the gates chained shut to protect them from being kidnapped. Essentially, they were turned into prisoners, simply because they were women.
Thirty years later, murmurs have surfaced to curtail women’s movement in the wake of the horrific rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata. I can sense some of you asking why I am aghast. Isn’t the safety of women paramount? Do they have to go out at night? Or alone? The real issue isn’t women’s vulnerability but the persistent refusal to hold men accountable and change the toxic culture that puts women at risk in the first place. So let’s not go down the regressive path of curbing women’s freedom for their own good. What’s next, digital chastity belts marketed as “wearable safety solutions”?
How free did you feel this Independence Day? Seventy-seven years after India woke up as a free nation, nearly half the country’s population lacks the freedom the other half enjoys. Do women live as freely as men? Can we do all the ordinary things a man takes for granted? Walk in public at any time of day or night? Take public transport without being groped? Sit alone in a park, never mind lying on the grass without being accosted? Wear what we choose without being leched at? Eat or drink wherever we like without being judged? Go to work and not worry about being harassed or worse? And please, don’t point out the occasional solo woman in a movie theatre, at the bar, or on vacation as proof of freedom. You only spot them because they are uncommon.
The harder we push for change, the more elusive it seems. Ten years after the Nirbhaya case in New Delhi, the stricter laws enacted in response have failed as deterrents. Protests and demonstrations will fade, court cases will drag on, men will continue to be men, and women will live in fear or die. We take pride in the fact that the framers of the Indian Constitution were far more forward-thinking than those in many developed countries, ensuring equal voting rights for women from the very beginning. What good is the right to vote if it doesn’t translate to protection of life or enhancement of quality of life? The ugly truth is that while gender discrimination and violence are universal phenomena, they are more pronounced in certain countries and cultures.
Entrenched gender inequality is pervasive. Consider the reaction to the face-off in Parliament between Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar and Jaya Bachchan. It doesn’t matter which political party they belong to or who was right in that instance. The kind of hateful, petty, and misogynistic attacks Jaya faced were appalling. Some men, including a few I know, even posted sympathies for her husband and family, implying that living with her was an ordeal. I haven’t met Jaya Bachchan in person, but I’ve listened to episodes of the podcast «What the Hell Navya,» which features conversations between her, her daughter, and her granddaughter. All three come across as grounded and intelligent, and Jaya, in particular, holds her ground and speaks her mind—exactly the type who’s often labelled as offensive or arrogant by men who would rather she just smile and nod. If women are not forever condemned to be prey, laws won’t suffice. Nor will locking us up for our safety. Societal change at all levels is the key to lasting change.
How about you do this? The next time you attend a meeting, whether at your office, neighbourhood, or club, don’t keep quiet when a woman is not allowed to speak. Don’t be the man who speaks over, interrupts, or appropriates a point a woman is trying to make, or shoots down her ideas. Don’t be the woman who fills a gender diversity slot and accepts a post with no real power. Don’t keep quiet and carry on hopefully, thinking of the larger good you want to accomplish. Challenge the status quo. Be warned – you will be mocked by men and derided by some women. Don’t think that it’s not worth the trouble and head to the exit. Stay, because our homes, offices and communities must not continue as breeding grounds for male chauvinism. Speak, so they can be incubators of equality. Free the minds of men from ingrained toxic masculinity, and women will truly be free—no locks or chains required.
Sandhya Mendonca, author, biographer, and publisher, casts a female gaze at the world in this column.