For some Eve teasing is a joke for some it’s a trauma. Here the question is, How come a thing that’s traumatizing for someone can be fun for others. Maybe because people don’t know the consequences of their actions or to be precise they don’t care. Firstly tell me,
What is Eve teasing?
Eve teasing refers to the act of sexually harassing a woman by a man in public places such as workplaces, bus stops, metro, etc. Passing sexist comments, whistling or any vulgar actions are considered eve-teasing. Sometimes men are so amazed by the female body that they don’t seem to relate to them as a human but as an alien or mystery that they have to know.
For some men, this eve-teasing is the way of showing their superiority over females. They want to show that they rule the place and could say or do anything they want and women have no right to go against them. Eve-teasing is a serious issue it’s more than just teasing, it is more than just touching, it’s more than just staring. It’s a trauma.
And clearly, it is not a way of flirting
Different from Flirting
People don’t understand the difference between flirting and eve-teasing.
Flirting is more of an innocent way of expressing that you are attracted to someone and eve-teasing is harassment. While flirting, there is always respect for the other person. On the other hand, eve-teasing is due to a lack of respect for the other person. Usually, people do eve-teasing in a group. So don’t misunderstand it with flirting.
In flirting other person feeling and their self-respect is more important which is clearly not the case in eve-teasing. Flirting is a sort of flattering, it is a way for a person to approach others in the matter of love interest or specific liking, however, when we talk about eve-teasing it is an uncomfortable situation where the person feels abused in different ways.
We can say when the actions or words of some person makes others feel abused or harassed then that is eve-teasing
Reason for Eve-teasing:
There can be many reasons for eve-teasing like evil company, gender discrimination, lack of proper education. But the environment they grow in plays an important role.
They have seen their father mistreating their mother, use violence against her. This domestic violence plays an important in corrupting young minds. A boy who has witnessed domestic violence as a child has a higher chance of being abusive himself. Children who are exposed to domestic violence may lose their ability to feel sympathy towards others.
Another important reason is our patriarchal society where they question a woman for no reason, criticize her for no reason and even deprive her of her rights. When a child sees such behavior against her woman, they somewhere start thinking of women as a commodity rather than a human being.
Our Indian cinema also plays an important role in promoting eve-teasing. India is a country where people idolize movies. In our movies, eve-teasing is shown as a way of flirting. Remember Badrinath ki Dulhania, in this movie Badri our protagonist, stalks a girl just because he had a crush on her. Another movie R..Rajkumar takes it to another level where the protagonist not only stalk a girl but also kisses her hand while she was slapping him.
There are many such movies and the irony is, many of such movies are Bollywood blockbuster. Our Indian audience loves these movies. Our Bollywood songs give tough competition to our movies. They are the equally worst. Songs like
Tu mere agal bagal from Phata Poster Nikala Hero have lyrics like Tera peecha karoon toh tokne ka nai,
Hai tujh pe right mera, tu hai delight mera, Tera rasta jo rokoon, chaukne ka nai.
Gandi Baat from our favorite R..Rajkumar have lyrics like
Raja beta banke maine jab sharafat dikhayi Tune bola ‘hatt mawaali’ bhaav nahi diya re Thandi aahein bhar li bohot Acchi baatein kar li bohot Ab karunga tere saath… Gandi Baat…
A song from Dostana (1980) have lyrics,
Bahut khubsoorat jawan ek ladki sadak par akeli chali ja rahi thee, fakat naam ko usne pehne thhe kapde, ajanta ki murat nazaar aa rahi thi. koi diljala us se takra gaya, mere doston tum karo faislaa khata kiski hai, kisko de sazaa? Hua haadsaa jo woh kaise na hota, ke banke qayamat woh nikli thee gharse Koi man manchala muft mara gaya, mere doston tum karo faisla khata kiski hai, kisko de hum sazaa?
These type of movies and songs motivates silly men to think that a woman is a commodity and then they can do whatever they want with her because apparently for them it’s normal. They don’t even care if it’s legal or not. So,
Eve teasing is a crime?
Yes, it’s a crime and it is not a way of flirting.
Under section 294 of the Indian Penal Code, if a person is found guilty of harassing a girl by any means such as making obscene gestures, passing vulgar comments, he can be sentenced to months of jail. Under 292 of IPC showing pornographic pictures, videos, and books to a woman or a girl can result in a fine of 2000 Rupees or 3 years of imprisonment. In case of repeated crime, it can be extended up to a fine of 5000 and 5 years of imprisonment.
But clearly, our society doesn’t know these laws, and even if people knew these laws some of them ignore these laws and some won’t use these laws to protect themselves because they don’t want to create an issue.
Consequences of eve-teasing…
Have you ever heard a parent telling their daughters to change their route when their daughter tells them about such eve-teasing incidents? If you have not heard it, you are either lucky or not paying attention to your surroundings.
So what’s the reason behind such advice from parents? Is it because parents don’t care about their daughters?
Not at all. Parents give such advice because they care too much about their daughter and they are scared of the inhuman man. There are many cases seen where, when a woman has raised her voice against such harassment she has to pay higher prices for this, the crime from eve-teasing leads to bigger and brutal crimes like rape or acid attacks, and criminals do not seem to get punished. They can’t let their ego hurt by women and this egoistic results in brutality against women.
While talking about the consequences of eve-teasing how can we forget the mental stress a woman has to go through when something like this happens.
These incidents force her to question herself, whether something is visible or not? Whether she did something wrong? Did she ever pass a “wrong signal”? Sometimes these situations can lead a woman to depression. Eve teasing leaves a scar on a woman’s mind which is much deeper than it looks.
I don’t know whether you have seen the incident in public places like buses where a girl misunderstands a boy for harassing her even if the boys didn’t touch or pushed her intentionally. In these incidents, we always say why this girl is overreacting he didn’t do it on purpose but did you try to imagine what might have happened with her that made her so suspicious or how many times she had to go through this unintentional pushes that now she can differentiate between them. This is the mental trauma and stress I am talking about that a girl has to face because of these eve-teasing incidents.
At last, I like to ask a question to all the male community, attraction towards someone or horniness are emotions so you can’t be the only gender that feels them right? So why you are the only gender that to do such a disturbing act to express these emotions.
Another amazing article related to eve-teasing: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017697168
Article related to psychological distress among adolescent girls: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6327490/
Affect of domestic violence on children:
https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/domviolence/impact/children-youth/
https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/domestic-violence/effects-domestic-violence-children
