” Every being has its dark side”; I tend to believe that there is a dark side to everyone and by dark, I am not referring to a psychopath or a sadistic personality trait. Our country has created an image where women aren’t safe and are prone to being harassed. From what I could gather from various Reddit comments in multiple threads, India is just a vile country filled with desperate men.
A few days back, I happened to overhear a person claiming very casually that he got cuts and bruises on his face as a result of eve-teasing a woman. What was worse was that he was bragging, and the ones around him had taken that piece of information in, like it was a great achievement. Later I heard the same guy tell others the same thing. I couldn’t believe it. Upon asking him personally, he told me it was some fight / accident on the road which seemed more likely. But why brag about something so disgusting? How could others not react or even question his actions?
I personally have never seen any such incident until today. As I was walking, I saw two men shouting and whistling and looking back, it turned out to be directed at a maid who was cleaning a house. She ignored it at first but these two men continued to shout, laugh and whistle at her which led to her going inside the house and closing the door. What does catcalling a woman achieve? Does making a woman feel unsafe and scared give a masochistic pleasure? Or do men who do it, think that it’s a form of compliment and they a shot at her? A recent poll on Twitter, which had more than 10,000+ participants, about catcalling showed that an overwhelming majority felt scared, unsafe and disgusted by such activities. Yet this continues to happen.
We can make a difference and slowly change this if we stop being spectators and stand up when we witness such incidents. That doesn’t mean, someone should go get into a fight vs four guys and get trashed. Women should be made aware that it’s not okay to be treated that way. I am not optimistic about my blog post with 5 views making any difference, but it was necessary to jot down my thoughts.
