Facing the faceless opponent

There were quite a few thoughts passing through my mind for the past few days, and I was wondering if I want to write about them at all. There has been a lot of Facebook updates, posts, news articles, rants, demands, speculations about the position of women in India, her safety, her existence, her dignity - triggered mainly by the recent rape case in Delhi. (Note that this is not the first or the worst of heinous incidents to have happened in India, yet for whatever reasons if this incident actually manages to kick start and sustain an awakening within the Indian hearts, then I am glad for that.)

Last year, around the same time, I was walking freely on the streets of Delhi by myself. Before I landed there, I remember my parents telling me to take extra care, because it is Delhi, and it is not safe. I myself was mildly scarred by an experience as a child. While travelling in a bus in Delhi, I recall a man standing next to me and trying to push himself onto me, while I was sitting and trying my best to veer away from him. Not a pleasant memory to carry with you at the age of 11 or 12.

However, when I came to Delhi this time round, after many years, and travelled in the metro, I was delighted and did not hesitate twice about moving about freely. And why not, I thought, I travel all over the world on my own. I don't get scared to walk alone on the streets of a foreign country, then why indeed should I feel scared walking on the streets of my own country? But this really shows how detached from reality I am. We tend to take our own life experiences and believe them as the truth. And this also means that we are still lacking in awareness. Many of us (the more privileged section of the society) may never fully understand the gravity of the problems that are lurking on our streets. And this means we are not prepared for a day when we are taken by surprise. And more importantly we are not prepared to fight the battle, which needs to be fought to actually make our society a safe place to live in.

While many people are asking for stricter laws and penalties against crimes like rape and molestation, somehow I can't help feeling that the degree of punishment is not the only way of attacking this problem. According to this news article, it says that out of 635 rape cases reported in Delhi in 2012, only 1 was convicted. And this is considering only the cases which were reported. Because I am sure there were several others which were not. How is giving capital punishment to the 'one' convicted criminal stopping the 634+ others? If this data is anywhere near the true figures, then there is only approximately 1/1000th of a chance of a rapist getting convicted. Is he really going to be scared of what punishment he may get if and when he is caught? I have a feeling most people who behave in this manner are not really thinking about consequences at all. What is it then that drive such behaviour? What is the root cause? And how can we attack the core of this problem?

Some points which come to my mind are:

1. Very low standard of living.
Poverty forces man to take jobs which no one wants to do. Imagine doing an extremely shitty job for 12 hours a day, getting paid like shit, and being treated like shit. How does he cope? He takes to cheap alcohol to get past each day, beats up wife to channel his frustrations onto the one person he believes is weaker than him. Such a person is looking for opportunities to take revenge of his own personal oppression over anyone he deems weaker than himself. How do we fight an opponent who has nothing to lose?
(Note: I cannot at this point ignore the polar opposites, the very rich and powerful people and their sons who  don't think any law and order can get to them at all. These are the people who have so much that they are also not afraid of losing anything!)

2. Age old traditions.
India being a male dominated society, there is always an excuse for discrimination against women. How will you argue with the head priest of a temple and convince him that what his 'god' told him about a woman's place in society is bull shit?? The head priest may not be a rapist himself, but he is encouraging an attitude among people (women included) which slots women into a particular role and makes her the weaker sex. How do we fight an opponent who has god on his side?

3. Bollywood item numbers.
This may or may not be a significant contributor, yet considering that Bollywood has a big influence on average Indian population, I cannot help wondering if somehow our casual attitude towards objectifying women in daily life and entertainment is somehow giving rise to something more evil than what we intended. For the past few years item songs and dances are no longer situational or realistic but more box office revenue generating additions, lapped up by general public. The catchy tunes and vulgar lyrics have made many of our feet tap (mine included), but now I am beginning to wonder if this in-sensitiveness is in fact contrary to what we are striving to achieve in our daily life. How do we fight our own urge to dance to 'Munni', 'Sheila' and 'Chameli' and deny ourselves the cheap pleasure we obtained from these numbers?

I know there are plenty other root causes, and I hope more informed and educated people are involved in studying and making policies against crimes like rape, oppression and abuse. I also hope that we don't all stop at  liking, sharing and updating our social network statuses but take at least one additional step towards recognising the evil we are facing and coming up with a concrete resolution of action in support. As usual I still think that education is the underlying, long term solution but in the short term we are left with many faceless opponents like poverty, traditions, corruption and of course our own personal attitude. We can and should make demands from the Government to take our ideas and concerns seriously but I don't think any external body on its own can come and save us from a mess which has been carelessly caused by each one of us.

And here like always I leave you all to ask your own questions, to make a difference in your own way and above all, as a new year plea (not resolution) I want to ask myself to not get so busy living an empty shell of a life that I forget to look around, feel and care.

Women are from Earth not Venus

So as expected I asked the most obvious question to the FAT (Feminist Approach to Technology) organisation. Why did they choose to call themselves feminists? Why not humanists?
The answer I was given was mainly the history of oppression of women. With time our society has become so male dominated that unless you fight for the cause of women you are not really bringing them up in the society.
I was also reminded that feminists are really looking for equality of men and women and they are not anti-men. There are in fact a few men who are part of the feminist organisation, who believe in the cause and have provided their support.

But I have a few thoughts about this.

Firstly, the word feminism has a slight connotation. Even if I am not afraid of the society and don't care about what people think about me, there are loads of people (women even) who are affected by this negative connotation. Calling yourself a feminist means losing the support of all these women who are not fighting for this cause just because of the image of the name.
Secondly, if this revolution is really about bringing equality, why not call it humanism? Calling it feminism instantly alienates many men, who are also part of the target audience and need to be educated as much as a woman. Making men aware of women being equal to them, automatically makes it easier for women to take more active steps to go out of their homes, into the world and do something meaningful with their lives. Educating men may lessen the struggle for an independent woman who otherwise will always be perceived as a rebel in the society.

I am very much in agreement with the activities the organisation is conducting. I agree that women have gone through hell, and need the support from the privileged part of the society to get truly liberated. It is important to fight for their equal opportunity. It is important that women take active part in science, technology, finance, politics, policy making and everything else that has for ever been predominantly a man's job.
But as I understand, this is a joint responsibility of every man and woman, and not just a few women. If equality was a product that I was selling, I would package it in such a way that every man, woman and child would want to buy it. I would not want to give it a name which has a possibility of alienating half the population. I would give it a more neutral name and conduct exactly the same exercises which this organisation has undertaken.

My personal belief is that a man and a woman are as equal to each other as they are different. This difference or equality is no different to the individual differences or similarities between a man and man or a woman and woman. As a woman I don't want to be equal to a man. I enjoy being different. I would only want that my society and immediate environment would acknowledge that I am as unique as any other human, man or woman.

Women and technology

I was reading up a bit tonight before I go to the FAT organisation tomorrow. Few different points were raised in the transcripts that I was going through.

• Actual use of technology as opposed to intended use - can/should this be checked?
• Penetration of internet in India is only 8%, which is very very low especially for a country which basks in the fame of being an IT country. Lot more scope for Indians to conquer the world (so to speak)
• Internet democracy - freedom of speech and choice.
• Policies which are supporting the cause of empowering and educating women.

Few other points, which I did not read there, but was thinking about myself

• Exposure to other kinds of technology, not just internet technology
• Concentrating on need based education, and making women more eligible to get jobs
• Spread confidence, not just the knowledge
• Discussions on subjects like sex, marriage, children, ego, independence, exploitation, torture etc.

I hope I have a more fruitful discussion about these points tomorrow, and can elaborate about them here.