Mute Goat Dilemma

Walking on the streets all by yourself certainly is a charming experience. It was one such fine morning when I stepped up to cross the service road to the bus stop. Suddenly, out of the blue came a roaring motorcycle, spinning to a halt inches from me. The two beefy riders thoroughly ogled me up and down, their lips a thin red smirk, leisurely chewing on ‘paan’, before pumping up the engine once again. The motorcycle disappeared down the road with a loud roar, but not before ensuring that I had clearly heard the loud wolf-whistle dropped guiltlessly behind. I pretended to ignore this benevolent morning gesture and crossed over to the bus stop.

My bus would arrive any minute now. “I am invincible”, I told myself, wrapping my dupatta even more firmly around myself. Once more, I found myself pretending to ignore the seven pairs of masculine eyes glued upon my bundled-up form, making me feel naked within my little cocoon.

Disregarding the lot, I looked beyond. Ah, my bus was finally here. I clambered up for dear life and found a place on the double-seat. With a sigh of relief, I sank down. Another bus stop approached and suddenly I felt a skinny male form rub purposely up my side as the offender bended his way through the compartments’ dividing door, before creeping out the bus. I squeezed myself a little more into the poor lady sitting next to me, bracing myself for any more of such pleasurable encounters. To my relief, however, there were no more skinny, slimy male forms trying to force their exits through the female compartment.

Mollified, I tried to settle a little more comfortably into my seat when I distinctly felt someone’s foot jammed up between my seat’s bottom and backrest. Now you might be thinking me a trifle bit too touchy, but this happened to be a bit too much for my tender feminine sensibilities. I clambered to my feet with a dozen eyes pinned upon me. Thankfully, my bus stop had incidentally arrived. I clambered down, uncannily thinking it wasn’t such a fine morning after all.

Pardon my pessimism, but this was just one day among the countless others when I had gone through the penalty of being a woman. Mind you, I am not seeking sympathy or playing little-miss-damsel-in-distress through this exposition. Consider me as one of those defaulting female loudmouths who cannot stay mum, once provoked. And this happens to be the perfect excuse.

Admittedly, I have fallen prey to the incident of Eve-teasing frequently and in hefty proportions. I realize that it is not only I who feels this way. According to a survey, “Every 51 minutes, a woman is sexually harassed. Every 21 minutes, one woman is molested. What is more surprising is that the victims vary from middle-aged women to school and college going girls.”

Today, if you are a woman and you go and stand at the bus stop, all eyes will instantly turn towards you and remain there, piercing, glaring, leisurely checking you out from head to toe. Still, this is perhaps one of the milder incidents that go around every where. Women encounter situations every day where they are slapped from behind, jostled around, fondled, grabbed at and felt up. Cheap sexual comments, tunes of erotic Indian songs and wolf-whistles are just a part of every day routine life for a woman on the street. But Eve-teasing occurs not only on streets, bus-stops and in buses but also in bazaars, shopping malls, crowded places, eat-ins and even formal work places.

A university cohort of mine relates of the unpleasant time when she went with her mother to a bazaar: “I had a bag full of groceries in my hand. I made my way to the parking lot and was putting the bags in my car when I heard the whiz of bicycle wheels just behind me. Before I realized what was going on, some one had deliberately brushed by hard behind me. I was so shocked, all my things fell down. But that bicyclist went away whistling without even a backward glance. I didn’t say anything then though. I was shocked and distraught and embarrassed. I didn’t want to make a show out of it.”

Very apparently, she is just one of the thousands of women who undergo such experiences every day. Most of the times, young women opt to ignore or remain mute rather than revolting on the spot.

Asma, a working woman, drives her car herself. It seems that Eve-teasing seems to have particularly targeted such independent ladies a great deal. “It has been two years now since I have been driving to and from work six days a week. And I can say with surety that there hasn’t been a single day when I have not been harassed in some form or the other. Especially at traffic signals, a crowd of motorcyclists actually swarms around my car at the stop sign. And then slowly, they creep around. They continue to stare and ogle until the green light, and I have to sit in there and ignore them. Once, things went so far that a motorcyclist even stalked my car for quite a distance.”

As a woman, if you are not used to travelling in an auto rickshaw, then I’m afraid I happen to be a messenger of bad news. You will not ride in an auto without the driver fixing his rear-view mirrors solely upon you for a better look. The same is the case with local bus travel: you are sure to find yourself staring point-blank into the face of the bus driver if you happen to be sitting up front. And as for the double-seat by the front door …well, that is another chapter in its own. Lightly put, you will experience all the pleasures of having to keep the bus conductor from sitting in your lap or brushing against your legs like a cat, throughout your delightful journey.

Have I said enough? I’m sorry but this just happens to be somewhere in the mid-beginning. As a Karachiite, you all must have been to the local zoo or the beach or entertainment parks. On one such expedition of mine, I ended up at Sandspit along with a bunch of friends. And of course, who should be there to greet us but a bunch of local stud muffins? It wasn’t long before we were (absolutely coincidentally) surrounded by a hoard of wet, top-less, belly rolling, shalwar-clad masculine figures who seemed to have decided that only the water within a 10-metre-radius around our group was good enough to splash around in! I am sure you must have guessed our natural reaction. Yes, we retreated back to our hut, disappointed, drained and frustrated, only to discover that there were actually a few more of these God’s-gifts-to-women sneakily taking photographs of us outside our hut!

At times like these, I wished mom were around. Yes. Super Mom, with her age-old experience and insight into handling local cranky perverts, has seldom held herself back when she has seen me being victimized. It is no surprise that middle-aged ladies know better how to handle situations without staying mum, when they become the Eves at the wrong end of the line. With time, women are realizing that staying quiet and acting the mute goat in front of such heinous male figures is not the solution. So when you see a woman yelling at a male, making an issue on streets, it is most probable that he was messing around with the wrong Eve, and it is time for him to do the disappearing act. But these Power Puff Girls who manage to take a public stand against Eve-teasers, just form a small part of the women’s population.

The question remains: why do men exhibit such behaviour towards women? Women sure don’t act this way towards men on the streets. We certainly haven’t heard of Adam-teasing, have we? Many claim that men here have a tendency towards patriarchy, where they feel a need to express a masculine superiority through suppressing women; and most women do suppress themselves when mistreated this way. Others say that men have “an inherent perverted streak”, and they reveal this around women.

Generally, women can learn to become more vary of their surroundings and the people around them. If a strange man is walking by, the woman should keep an apparent eye on his hands to ensure he keeps them to himself. Women should stick to well-lit, busy areas while walking alone, to avoid trouble in isolation. This way, at least they can cry for help and expect some form of response from the people present. Others might travel with an escort as much as possible. Most women try to nip the evil in the bud and avoid potential harassers (read: most strange men) altogether. A microscopic minority actually claims to be taking defense lessons in case they are caught in nasty situations. Women may and some even are carrying small self-defense weapons of sorts including pepper sprays, eye stingers and even pocket knives for protection. This does provide some comfort and confidence to the lone woman out on the streets, since there are no police forces or disciplinary authorities trying to reduce this problem.

The rest of the woman-population continues to play the mute goat out on streets and bears being victims of miserable street experiences every day. Presently there seems to be no end to this menace, and women here have learned to take things in the flow of every day life. Perhaps there will come a day when I will step out of my door without bracing myself against another wolf-whistle or cheap comment or body-piercing gaze following me at every step towards my destination. Perhaps … But as for now, it is just another day out on the streets…and so I firmly wrap my dupatta around myself and step out my door.