Tag Archives: sexual harassment

Bad ideas, Feminism

Women Strike Back!

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Just to share with Kafila readers two wonderful performances against misogyny by two cool young women, Rene Verma and Vasundhara Kaul, putting down sexism with a light touch that cuts very deep indeed – take a look at the string of comments that follow Vasundhara’s performance , from scared and threatened men unable to deal with it.

These are already ‘going viral’ as they say – just wanted to add Kafila’s contribution to viralizing them!

Here’s Rene Verma taking on Honey Singh. Unfortunately we cannot skip the compulsory advertisement for Modi and His Technicolour Dream Coat That Costs as Much as a Small Village Hospital.

(Oh, okay, the ad seems to have gone now, but that coat – that coat!! Ain’t going nowhere, to use the slang of the land of Modi’s new unilateral BFF).

 

Here’s an interview with Rene Verma on The Ladies Finger:

I’ve always been invested in performance art and its relation to policy and society. My piece was never intended to be a takedown of an individual rapper or two, it was a beleaguered response to a culture that privileges narratives of violence, restrictive norms, and ideals of beauty that are often untenable. Pop music, and pop culture at large has been perceived as a sanitized area of operation, where anything and everything goes, but songs and the discourses they promote operate in insidious ways. There is a silencing of body diversity, queer voices, dissent, and anything perceived as ‘not-the-normative’, both in overt and covert ways. I love rap, but I often find myself confounded over the lyrics packaged within these catchy, and annoyingly pervasive songs. This piece was actually part of an inter-college competition where I was given an hour to prepare a spoken word piece on the theme, “Portrait of a ‘Lady’”. And I thought it would be nice to construct a normative portrait of a ‘lady’ through a rap parody and deconstruct it through contrasting voices.

And here is Vasundhara Kaul, telling “Men With their Big Penises – rahendo beta, tum se nahin ho payega…”

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwegkC3Z3V8

 

 

Culture, Everyday Life, Feminism, Movements

Storm in a Calm IIT Campus Over a Sexual Harassment Case: Pronoy Rai

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Guest post by PRONOY RAI

The serene, picturesque campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati has been witnessing some very noteworthy events in the recent past. According to reports in the popular media, a professor at the institute’s biotechnology department was accused of sending obscene text messages to his PhD student over her phone. Though the professor pleaded innocence, claiming that messages were sent from his sim card that was stolen, the local police found this hard to believe. The professor has also been accused of harassing the student during other instances on campus. Upon receiving the advice of the ‘Working Women’s Committee’ of the institute, the professor was recently suspended. This narrative constructs for us a simple, fair story of a just state-society system. A person breaks the law, and he is disciplined, as one would expect in a fair democratic society. If only that was the case.

The suspension of the professor was not immediately followed by the submission of the report, let alone the filing of complaint at the institute and with the local police. On August 13, Amingaon police in Assam arrested the professor for sending obscene text messages to a student. The arrest happened because the student had to file a FIR in order to request a telecom company to reveal the identity of the owner of the phone, from where the obscene messages being sent to her, were emanating. The delay in the inaction of the institute administration is unjustified, but perhaps not very inexplicable. Continue reading Storm in a Calm IIT Campus Over a Sexual Harassment Case: Pronoy Rai →

Debates, Genders, Sex, Violence/Conflict

To travel or not to travel to India: Karen Dias

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This is a Guest Post by KAREN DIAS

The most recent ‘Incredible India’ video ad campaign shows a young woman of seemingly European descent traveling alone through India. She is seen drinking coconut water and being friendly with a man, playing chess with holy men, being helped after a fall by two men, cheering at a snake boat race on a boat filled with men, playing Holi surrounded by more men and strolling on what looks like a deserted beach with a male mahout and his elephant. Sadly, the truth is far from what the video depicts for foreign women traveling in India, and most of them will try their best to not find themselves alone in situations like the ones shown in the video.  Stories of foreign women being verbally and sexually harassed are not new in this country and being accompanied by male friends or relatives is almost never a deterrent. Continue reading To travel or not to travel to India: Karen Dias →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Genders

Modesty of Dress and Indian Culture: Suchi Govindarajan

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Widely circulating just about everywhere, but for the unfortunate few who may have missed it…

I for one want to kiss the hem of her salwar/sari/jeans/other modest outfit.

Sir/Madam,
I write to complain about the abysmal standards of modesty I am noticing in Indian society. All bad things – sensationalist TV, obscene movies, diabetes among elders, pickpocketing, dilution of coconut chutney in Saravana Bhavan – are a result of Evil Western Influences. However, to my surprise, in this issue of modesty, even the Great Indian Culture (we had invented Maths and pineapple rasam when westerners were still cavemen) seems to encourage this.

The problem, sir/madam, is that revealing attire is being worn. Deep-neck and sleeveless tops, exposed legs–and these are just the middle-aged priests! Some priests are even (Shiva Shiva!) doing away with the upper garment. And I am told some temple managements even encourage this.

Read the rest of this brilliant and biting piece here.

Everyday Life, Genders, Metropolis, Movements

A woman in Delhi Metro, two women in a bus

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Many years ago, I was travelling in a DTC bus – or was it a private-run Blueline? – in which the usual sense of calm-with-commotion was disturbed by a sudden act of strategic, small-scale violence, followed by a moment of stunned silence, then some bickering.

Two women were travelling in a bus full of men, and one of them had slapped a man. The man tried to argue and claim innocence, but to no avail. It was obvious to everyone in the bus that the woman would not slap him without a reason. He must have molested her. Most passengers watched silently, eager to closely observe the tamasha so they could relate it to others, like I’m doing now. But quite a few voiced their support of the women, and the bus conductor asked the man in question to get down at the next stop, returning his entire fare. Continue reading A woman in Delhi Metro, two women in a bus →

Everyday Life, Genders, Politics

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the union maid: Dean Baker

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A little-reported fact of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case is that his accuser is a union member – with rights the IMF opposes, says Dean Baker in the Guardian.

But do listen to this song first!

 

“The reason that this is an important part of the story is that it is likely that Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim might not have felt confident enough to pursue the issue with either her supervisors or law enforcement agencies, if she had not been protected by a union contract. The vast majority of hotel workers in the United States, like most workers in the private sector, do not enjoy this protection.“

Received via Mini Mathew

Bad ideas, Debates, Genders, Sex

JNU and the ‘sex scandal’: Aprajita Sarcar

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This is a guest post by APRAJITA SARCAR

As a former JNU student, it is a pity that I have to write this post in order to draw attention to a crisis that needs urgent attention: the inability to talk about intimacy.  I say intimacy, as against sex, as against scandal, as against molestation, as against the “professionally shot” footage that made it to the front pages of newspapers.

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has a crisis to face that has been imminent for a while, and it comes from the inability to talk intimately, about intimacies. Because intimacies are distinct from rhetoric. Continue reading JNU and the ‘sex scandal’: Aprajita Sarcar →

Debates, Genders, Law, Politics, Sex

Anand Jon wants to be tried in India – I would too, if I were him

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Fashion designer Anand Jon has been sentenced by a Los Angeles court to 59 years in prison for violent sexual assault on seven young women, some of them under-age. His defence tried to move for a mistrial on the grounds that one of the jurors had contacted Jon’s sister during the trial, but a new trial was not granted by the judge. The concerned juror delivered a “guilty” verdict along with the other 11 jurors in the case.

A month ago, his sister Sanjana had pleaded with the Indian government to extradite him as he would not get a fair trial in the US, being Indian. She claimed then, and did so again after the verdict on September 1, that Jon is a victim of racist discrimination.

Would Anand Jon have been acquitted of such charges in an Indian court? Almost certainly, yes. In a justice system in which alleged rapists are routinely acquitted for “lack of evidence” and proven rapists given a reduced sentence because of their youth and the promising life ahead of them, Sanjana is right to insist that he be tried in an Indian court. In an Indian court, the testimony of women who had willingly gone to his home on the promise of jobs in the fashion business, and then claimed they were raped, would be dismissed out of hand. Especially if the women are white. Gratuitous references to “western women” and their supposed attitudes to sex, pepper judgements and statements by officials on rape in India.

Continue reading Anand Jon wants to be tried in India – I would too, if I were him →

Culture, Everyday Life, Genders, Movements

Women’s Day 2009, Thrissur

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