My teacher of class 2nd, Mrs. Nanu never had a monitor for her section; instead she insisted on her one liner “each one of you, mind yourself”. This is what all MCP’s including our Delhi Commissioner, the Canadian policeman and all those who think that girls shouldn’t venture out alone at night or revealing clothes lead to molestation and rape, should know. Rather than restricting females and propounding regulations regarding their dress, hours of freedom etc., they should forbid males from unleashing their testosterone terror.
Notice the similarity that runs through the minds of men whether they are fanatics belonging to underdeveloped Afghanistan, relatively literate policeman of a developed nation and intellectuals, such as a Commissioner of a developing nation as India. Call it chauvinism, narrow mindedness or belonging to a utopian society, men from times immemorial have (im)matured with this superiority complex of being born to control and dictate terms to women and play overpowered hunters, instead of minding their own business and practicing self-control.
This is the only crime where the guilty goes scot free and the victim is further traumatised. That is being really unfair to the fairer sex. A girls clothing or her being alone at any time isn’t a reason for a man to turn into a beast and if he does he should be dealt as one and the female should not bear the brunt. All this hue and cry is because men still haven’t learned to curb their desires and this gives them a reason to behave as sex starved animals. A man targeting a woman’s sexuality in any way or seizing control of a woman's body, without respect for her as a human being is the worst form torture that can be inflicted upon her.
Do these Talibans in tuxedos give amorous glances to their daughters and sisters if they wear skirts or shorts? If your daughter or sister has dressed provocatively, you might be ashamed but I doubt if all fathers or brothers will end up raping them. Talking of sisters, in a daily dose of one of my mom’s favourite soaps, that I accidently happened to watch, was a line the protagonist uses when she reprimands her brother for hitting a girl. She very rightly points out that an animal cannot control himself but in all circumstances a human being is expected to restrain himself from such extremes.
So if men can control themselves in front of daughters and sisters, they must further exercise it to all females who are not related in blood, are alone at any of all 24-hours or wears provocative dress. Although I don’t advocate slut walks and degrading ourselves by wearing revealing clothes but this doesn’t gives a male reason to stare, molest or rape. It’s like knocking them off the Homo sapiens level and kicking them back to chimpanzee. Such altered species need to be locked in a zoo or end up in a rehabilitation center.
I remember, back in college, some of my classmates left for co-ed schools for better academic environment (and of course for boyfriends). To their dismal they were locked up in classrooms during recess or when teachers weren’t around and boys were allowed to roam wherever they wanted. Why males have the excuse of being mechanistic animals, who just can't stop themselves? Why only male-set of hormones, (incidentally also present in females, though smaller in amounts) give them the opportunity to be as immoral and beastial as they wish? Why is it that all the morality and self-restrain is expected from females?
I have been observing hijab since a long time now. Yet I still get those sick-at-heart and still-interested glances and my being covered head-to-toe hasn’t dissuaded men from staring. Dressing decently and appropriately by females is one thing. More important is that men should learn to exercise self-control, respect a woman as being a free human not merely a sex object, not just being a body and respect her right to say no to sex at all times.
