Eve teasing (Indian Context) : Personal opinion
Eve teasing, as I see it, spans from simple eye-balling (staring), to more verbal confrontations and physical assaults. I see eve teasing, in the Indian context, as stemming from the sheer ignorance of the aam-Indian household's stigma about sex. The hypocritical nature of post-colonial Indian ideologies juxtaposed with globalization presenting alternative worlds to our 'conservative' junta, distorts the craving / need for understanding the most basic of our instincts – the need to breed, pure hormonal drives. The suppressing of such hormonal drives and not being able understand feelings I deem as a latent motivator to the expression of these drives through media like brothels, dance bars & eve-teasing. This instinctive drive making men vulnerable to such deep cravings and drives them to explore these feelings.
This craving is natural and equally certain to be possessed by men from the most refined families of the societies to the men of lowest end of income levels. It's just the expression that is different in different levels of men. In the former type of men, there is a standing fear of the consequences of expression of their instinctive drives and it out pours in more uglier forms* than the seemingly malignant expression of the latter type*. The former then train themselves towards suppression & thus towards more kinky & silent closed door affairs. The socially lower placed men are however free of most fears possessed by the higher level counterparts and under-informed of consequences their actions tending to more explicitly presentation of their feelings.
I agree to the fact that you find men from all levels of society are involved in a certain amount of eve teasing. But then, is it not noticeably more so from the men of lower income levels. Also, more so it is the younger lots that are again much more active in such expressions.
From this viewpoint, I feel that eve-teasing could be necessarily cured or corrected through band-aid activities like penalizing men that indulge in such activities or assaulting them in any manner. This I feel will have counter-productive implications such as the men needing to express their superiority by taking aggressive & ignorant views to the many laws try to suppress them. However, I would not deny the need for these laws but raise more attention to the rehabilitation & correction post the identification of people who break them.
In this light I would like to take eve-teasing as a subject that needs a more holistic approach that starts from having children being educated in such a manner to be respecting of their female counterparts, sex education becoming a compulsory subject, parents being counseled into talking to their children about the subject, correcting the existent methods of treating & rehabilitation od the law offenders and also use other more creative modes of spreading the message across to the people.
~ Arun Raj
* MMS Scandals, Molesting under the influence of alcohol or drugs, teenagers indulging in sex (Delhiites say 49-55% females have had sex before they are 18), etc.
** The thought is still incomplete & I am open to clarifications. There are many things I still need to frame into words that are missing here.
This craving is natural and equally certain to be possessed by men from the most refined families of the societies to the men of lowest end of income levels. It's just the expression that is different in different levels of men. In the former type of men, there is a standing fear of the consequences of expression of their instinctive drives and it out pours in more uglier forms* than the seemingly malignant expression of the latter type*. The former then train themselves towards suppression & thus towards more kinky & silent closed door affairs. The socially lower placed men are however free of most fears possessed by the higher level counterparts and under-informed of consequences their actions tending to more explicitly presentation of their feelings.
I agree to the fact that you find men from all levels of society are involved in a certain amount of eve teasing. But then, is it not noticeably more so from the men of lower income levels. Also, more so it is the younger lots that are again much more active in such expressions.
From this viewpoint, I feel that eve-teasing could be necessarily cured or corrected through band-aid activities like penalizing men that indulge in such activities or assaulting them in any manner. This I feel will have counter-productive implications such as the men needing to express their superiority by taking aggressive & ignorant views to the many laws try to suppress them. However, I would not deny the need for these laws but raise more attention to the rehabilitation & correction post the identification of people who break them.
In this light I would like to take eve-teasing as a subject that needs a more holistic approach that starts from having children being educated in such a manner to be respecting of their female counterparts, sex education becoming a compulsory subject, parents being counseled into talking to their children about the subject, correcting the existent methods of treating & rehabilitation od the law offenders and also use other more creative modes of spreading the message across to the people.
~ Arun Raj
* MMS Scandals, Molesting under the influence of alcohol or drugs, teenagers indulging in sex (Delhiites say 49-55% females have had sex before they are 18), etc.
** The thought is still incomplete & I am open to clarifications. There are many things I still need to frame into words that are missing here.
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