Dusting –
done
Best crockery
displayed - done
Sofa cover
put without crease – done
The girl has
changed the clothes – done
After all this is done the guest can enter the house. I can’t
stop but say that this is the first and a very passive way when we start
objectifying our girls. The girl needs to dress properly which by default has
started to mean that her clothes shall not show even an inch of her skin. Well before
you say that Swati please don’t exaggerate, nobody asked us to cover the face
(it has skin too), let me tell you that it is not about the few liberties they
give us, rather it is about them assuming that they have an unsaid right on us(girls).
In school my skirt was brought a bit longer than it should
be and the socks a bit taller than they should be. And hence there came a point
where they met. However I did find a way out, by folding my socks and wore the
skirt from previous grade. I am mentioning
this incident because this factor was emphasised every time my school uniform was
purchased. Somehow we have equated the safety with wearing clothes that don’t show
much of your skin. A reason to buy clothes a size bigger was that they could be
used for longer duration and hence this saves money, but I find it difficult to
accept that this was the only reason.
If you are wondering that why am I writing this today, it is
because of the anger the incident - “BoysLockerRoom” has caused in my head and
in my heart. I will not be talking about the incident here because I think
there is much more important thing that we need to address or else the
incidents like this will not stop. I don’t know what is wrong with our society
that we blame everything (from clothes to social media or education) but not
boys. I feel ashamed to say that we need to teach the majority of our humans to
have humanity. Funny to hear, right? But it is not.
All of us remember Nirbhya case. Very recently the guilty
were hanged. 34000 rapes were reported in India in the year 2018. I don’t need
to say that rape is still a taboo in India, hence many cases go unreported. So you
can imagine the real numbers for yourself. I am glad that the Nirbhya offenders
were punished. But can I ask what has really changed after that? Nothing I would
say. There is no report that says that the cases are decreasing or showing such
symptoms.
Don’t deny the fact
that you believe that the chances of a poor person committing rape is more. Well
you are wrong. Check out the latest- “BoysLockerRoom” case. We also assume that
rape happens because of the girl’s short clothes. We assume that by simply
making rules will decrease the crime. In
Nirbhya case the criminals were not as educated to know the law, but do the
educated (BoysLockerRoom) not commit crime even after being aware of the law. It
is stupid to say that we have made the laws and the work is done.
I am not sure if a death sentence is right or wrong. I am
still trying to study more about it to form an opinion. However we need to
think about the girls who are to be born in this world or are untouched by the
harsh reality of our society. We need to think about how we can give them safe
environment so that they don’t have to worry about the amount of humanity in
the man standing next to her in a bus. I think it is important to study the
criminals. A criminal is not made in a day, neither is a rapist. It is the
result of the tiny details that we ignore every day or may be simply laugh at
them. It is not okay to make a tik-tok on the song which says “I’ll buy you the
purse, only if you show me you boobs”. Today it is just a song, tomorrow people
might start using to as a new normal. And this is not okay.
