Do they never stop?
A couple of months ago, I read Mangs’ post about being assaulted on a train journey from Chennai. Reading it was … gut-wrenching … not just because of the feeling of being violated such an experience causes, but also because, as most women growing up in India, I have had experiences of this sort myself, and have denied them not only to the world, but also to myself. Reading this reminded me of those incidents, brought back feelings I thought I had suppressed enough to have forgotten back to the surface - no, I hadn’t forgotten at all.
After reading it though, I comforted myself thinking it was all behind me. I would never have to travel in a DTC bus again, I would never travel by train again. Essentially, I thought I could buy my freedom from a world populated with such pervs through plane tickets and rental cars. It was a selfish thought, I didn’t think about solving the problem, but I thought I was safe.
Then I read this. A 55-year old Indian man molesting a young woman on a domestic US flight. She screamed. He is in jail for seven years. But it means I’m still in the same world.
Links:
Not exactly. The difference that it’s worth paying attention to between Mang’s experience and the flight incident is in the social reaction. Mang spent hours after she got off the train going through all the paperwork of filing an FIR, she was first doubted, then made to feel guilty, it was almost as if the system was trying to get her to back down. And at the end of the day the guy got put in jail for 15 days after which he’ll be out and god alone knows when sentencing will happen.
By contrast, four Secret Service guys take this guy into custody, the Boston police are waiting at the airport to pick him up, he gets sentenced in less than 6 months and is safely behind bars for 7 years and then will be put under supervision. And I’m willing to bet that the woman who complained had a much easier time than Mang did.
This means two things - first, it means that in the battle b/w you and harassment society here is clearly and strongly on your side. This means that you’re not subject to the humiliation and guilt that the system often imposes on sexual harassment victims (Adrienne Rich writes: “You are guilty of the crime / of having been forced”; see full poem at http://users.rowan.edu/~mcneel23/Adrienne.htm) - and trust me, that’s no small relief. Second, it also means that the odds for someone indulging in this kind of harassment are much, much worse, which means that there is a strong preventive bias. It’s interesting that the story you refer to shows up in a section called Oddly Enough News - as some sort of bizarre thing; in India, as mangs’ post highlights, this stuff is way more common. It’s also instructive that the perp is 55-year old Indian man. The point is that I doubt many people in this country would have the nerve to try something like this - they’re almost sure to get punished. In India, on the other hand, people will do this sort of thing almost casually, partly because they’re reasonably confident that the woman won’t complain, and even if she does they’ll probably get away with it. So the probability of it happening to you are way higher.
Bottomline, you’re never going to live in an absolutely safe world. There will always be psychos and crackpots around and no society can do anything about that. But you can (and I suspect do) live in a society that does everything to a) minimise the risk of this sort of thing happening b) maximise the support and understanding the victims receive. And that’s a pretty good deal.
Comment by Gargravarr — August 8, 2005 @ 9:07 pm
Well, true - after the fact, if I choose to complain, things would be easier in the world I live in today. But it doesn’t take away that feeling of being violated. Essentially, when a woman is harassed and keeps quiet about it, she wants to avoid the guilt and the social reaction that is going to make her feel worse. If calling the cops isn’t going to result in a negative social reaction, your experience is going to be only as harrowing (not more) than if you didn’t complain.
And yeah, I noticed it was in the ‘oddly enough’ section. And this was an Indian man in the US, so he should have known that the chances of getting caught were higher. Was thinking about doing a post on why Indian men are so much more likely to do these things … is it because they are sexually repressed, or they feel impotent in daily life, so this is the only way they have to assert power … but honestly, I don’t care to understand why. If I know someone is a jerk, I’d rather think of him as a jerk and stay away.
Comment by Administrator — August 9, 2005 @ 3:24 pm
“your experience is going to be only as harrowing (not more) than if you didn’t complain”
I’d say it might actually be a lot less harrowing:
a) a positive reaction from society will provide a sense of vindication - you can keep telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault and you were just a victim and the guy was a jerk, but it’s nice to hear other people say it.
b) If you don’t complain, you’ll experience guilt from the fact that the guy is still on the loose - if you complain and society puts him away, you’ll feel a sense of righteousness from having done the right thing and saved some other woman the trauma
c) a big part of harassment is just the feeling of helplessness that comes with it - being able to complain and have the guy punished can be an empowering experience and
d) a strong positive response from society will leave you feeling safer than you would if you didn’t complain (though admittedly not as safe as you felt before the incident) simply because you’ll see the guy for the aberration he is and won’t be constantly afraid everytime you’re out.
I agree that there’s little point in getting into the deeper psychological drivers of this sort of behaviour (I can’t believe I’m saying this - me!) - specially since it has the dangerous effect of providing quasi-justification for these acts. For what it’s worth though, I don’t think it’s just sexual repression, etc. I think it’s also that societies have greater / lesser tendency to objectify women / stereotype gender roles - in other words some societies (and not just India, btw) are far more chauvinistic than others.
Comment by Gargravarr — August 9, 2005 @ 4:11 pm
Falstaff, your comment is not entirely true. There are times when harrassment can take on such a sophisticated form and the ripple effect of complaining can have repurcussions that one doesnt want to necessarily deal with.
Imagine a scenario where one is a flunk working with the blue-eyed boy(BEB) of the organisation. An inappropriate advance is made by this BEB. Unfortunately, no one witnesses it. Its Flunk’s word against BEB’s. And BEB is far too precious to this organisation. Flunk, inspite of having fiesty friends who rally around her, is unable to complain. Not because she lacks courage. But only because she lacks conviction that the organisation will be selfless enough to put her outrage above their extreme value of BEB. Fiesty friend cannot judge her at this point. Or vehemently emphasize why she should have complained. Fiesty friend understands. Without sounding whinny, the fact remains - its easier to complain when the perpetrator isnt *superior* to perpetratee; when the very basis of the complaint will not be questioned. And sadly, this basis, more often than not, has to do with a presumption of moral superiority of individuals who have a certain respectable station in life. What utter crap.
And hey, I ask you to imagine this. I didnt have to. I witnessed it in all its crumbling frustration.
Comment by Itineranting — August 12, 2005 @ 8:42 am
IT: I’m not sure how any of this is a negation of what I said earlier. I’m not saying that people don’t complain because they don’t have personal courage - I’m saying precisely that people don’t complain because they’re unsure of receiving social / organisation support. Except that there are societies where the probability of getting that support is higher than in others. Of course it’s harder to complain when the perp is senior in the heirarchy - but in some societies it’s just marginally harder and in others it’s virtually impossible. And the difference there is, in my opinion, mostly just the level of effective legal safeguards in place. The organisation may not want to take down their Blue Eyed Boy, but they will care a lot more about Flunk’s outrage if they know that she could sue the pants off them if they don’t. Or where even seeming to question the complainants claims can lay you open to subsidiary law suits.
As I said in my earlier comment the difference here is in degree, not in kind. Sexual harassment is a reality everywhere - but both the probability of it happening and the difficulty of dealing with it is much higher in some societies than in others. And that, in my opinion, is an important difference.
Comment by Gargravarr — August 12, 2005 @ 12:55 pm
rant: There a difference between sexual harassment that takes place along with the abuse of power, and harassment on the street like the kind faced by Mangs. The former, i believe, is a power play, and i would reckon it happens as much in the US as in India. The latter, i believe, is more likely in societies which objectify women per se, such as india. nyet?
Comment by geek god — August 12, 2005 @ 9:55 pm
geek god: I think the relative differences are likely to be different, yes. So
SH as Power Abuse (US) / SH as Power Abuse (India)
>
Sexual Harassment (US) / Sexual Harrassment (India)
(long live the geeks!)
but I’m not sure that the former is the same as in the US. I suspect the urge to abuse power is probably the same, but just because of the way the legal structure / system is in the US it’s probably safer and easier to indulge your taste for power in other ways than through sexual harassment. So powerful men in the US may want to use sexual abuse to demonstrate their power as much as their counterparts in India, but social constraints will keep many more of them from acting on those impulses (for fear of destroying their careers) than would in India.
Comment by Gargravarr — August 13, 2005 @ 1:05 pm
Guys … apologize for not responding to your comments earlier .. as some of you know, I was away traveling …
Falstaff: I agree the likelihood of this happening is a lot lower here because of the reasons you state. What doesn’t change is the feeling of being violated - and you feel this even if you know you’re a victim and it’s not your fault - whether you get the support of society or not. It’s an irrational feeling, because the points you state make complete sense … but I think most women would agree if I said that in terms of the instinctive/instantaneous reaction, that’s just the way it is.
Itin: In that kind of a situation, I think what makes it worse is that we think of ourselves as ‘women of substance’, and such a situation tells us that the people we work with objectify us just as much irrespective of what our resumes look like. Experiences like these lead women to deny their femininity, which I think is unfortunate, but I don’t really know a solution.
Geek God: Not sure there’s all that much of a difference. I have felt sometimes that the kind of sexual harrassment, or ‘eve-teasing’ that takes place in India is also about power - so what if you have a job and drive a car, I might be unemployed and uneducated, but I can still affect you, and thus enter your world.
Comment by Administrator — August 16, 2005 @ 3:56 pm