Without the fear of attack

Image Credits: pixabay.com

                                                                                                       

“Sneha, you don’t just wear what you feel like, you don’t dress how you want, and you don’t just do as you please. Don’t ask me why, you know the answer. Yes, it’s all because you are a woman! Do you get that??? You are a woman!! Face it.” said the woebegone Rohini, ending her harangue.

“Mom first of all, I know I am a woman. I have known this from the time I have gathered my senses. But what I don’t get is your discrepancy. Are you being funny? What does being a woman have got to do with the way I look, dress or do stuff. I am 22 and I am sort of tired of your nay-say. I think you are jealous because I look way sexier than you did when you were my age”, detonated the snappy Sneha.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

All she wanted to go was for an office party. Sneha worked at a media agency as a client servicing executive and she wanted to look elegant and classy. So what if her dress was backless of if her dress was a little short. She looked nice and the people at the party are great guys who wouldn’t harm her or gaze at her in an offensive way. Her Brother will drop her and bring her back home too, so what is the big deal? But she knew that she has spoken way too far and she decided to quickly change into jeans and a stupid top which comes in her mother’s category of decent.

That moment Sagar, Sneha’s older brother enters the room and comments, “You girls dress that way and invite crude remarks and then you pretend to feel offended and cry. Wake up and smell the coffee behna; that dress makes you look like a slut!!

“That’s enough Sagar, I won’t hear such words ever again in my house!”, screamed Rohini.

“Ah well, now I get it! He is one amid the lewd men who pass such comments on women, there is no other way you could have said such things to me. I dress the way I do because I look good that way. I don’t roam naked carrying a Flash Card saying, “ I am naked, come attack me”. No I don’t. Showing a little bit of skin is not slutty. It means you are in love with yourself and that you love the way you look. I don’t want to dress shabbily because some random pervert is undressing me in his mind. Why is being a woman in India an unfortunate thing? Why can’t I walk alone on the streets at midnight listening to my favourite songs, why can’t I travel around and experience new things in life, why can’t I have the right to say what I want? Why?"

“Omigod Sneha, Do you or don’t you want to go for this party, said Rohini wearily.

“No, I don’t!!” exploded Sneha and slammed the door on their faces.

How many of you lovely girls can relate to this?

Meanwhile in a different place at a different time:

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Mallika was travelling late after work. She had stopped to meet her bed-ridden grandmother on her mother’s request. It took a longer time at Grandma’s place than anticipated. She needed to take an auto to her house and so she had to take a lonely passage way to the main road from the locality. She met a gang of goons who robbed her of her modesty and humility. Mallika was dressed decently in salwar kameez and she didn’t look slutty either. Then why was she attacked?

Over a period of time, I have been hearing a lot of statements from politicians and opinion makers one after the other blaming a rape victim for what she went through. If she is dressed in a certain way she is inviting rape. But what about the rural rape cases? According to a News Report from a popular daily, 75% of the rapes that led to convictions over the last 26 years came from Rural India. Why has it outnumbered the Urban India in this regard? After all the common perception is that it’s the women in urban India who have lost their roots, show their skin and attract the male population towards them.  There have been further statements from these opinion makers that item songs and sleazy looking women on TV are also the reasons for rape and that they should be banned. Doesn’t that clearly show the muckiness in one’s mind? A dance form performed by an artist is to entertain the audience and to make sure that the movie becomes a hit. It is not to form sludge thoughts in one’s mind about women.

I want you to ponder on this; does a woman get molested because she is works late-night, wearing a knee-length backless dress and doing what she has dreamt of live long? 

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Is there an end to this cruelty? Will there come a time when a woman can roam about the city freely without the fear of attack? Will there come a time when a woman chooses to wear what she wants without the fear of attack? Will there come a time when a woman is permitted to say what she wants without the fear of attack?

Will there come a time when a woman’s dreams are not questioned without the fear of attack?

Note: I would like to personally thank each one of you for the encouragement and support shown on my previous post. If any of you have any opinions on this post, please post a comment or connect with me on namrata.vinod9790@gmail.com

Be with you lovely ladies real soon....until then, continue dreaming J