Friday, July 7, 2006
Blips in the buzz of static
Last evening I went to the Blank Noise tea party in Malleswaram.
I first come across Blank Noise at Jasmeen Patheja’s graduation exhibition at Srishti in Jan 2004. The impression then was of distinct hostility. The campaign was against eve-teasing, or specifically, sexual harassment of women by men. I was male (heck, I still am). Was I one of the targets of the campaign? Jasmeen is an attractive woman. One look is all you’d need to want to invite her out to coffee. I admit, I wanted to. And yet, there she was in her basement setup, surrounded by exhibits that amounted to saying I would be precisely the kind of person she was targeting if I dared make a move. It was scary. How was I supposed to sympathise with her cause when a Potential Offender label hung overhead?
I came away uneasy.
Jasmeen’s kept at her project beyond gradution, gathered a team of volunteers, indulged in direct action activism, made leaders out of her team (hi Chinmayee, Hemangini), spawned initiatives in other cities, and — if you will recall the Blank Noise Blogathon a few months ago — has created a fairly remarkable initiative. It may not be a household name yet, but it’s not obscure either.
All the while, my reservations remained. The entire approach seemed superficial, like a knee-jerk reaction, attacking the symptoms instead of the cause. How many offenders would you have to scald before you ran out of them? How long could her volunteers fuel the fire?
I met Jasmeen again at a party late last year. There would have been no reason for her to remember me but for that we were both on the Sarai Independent Fellowship last year. I had been studying the effects of user interface design on community formation. She wanted help with her blog and forthcoming website.
For various reasons, we didn’t follow up until this March when Nishant and I finally met her. We had been working on conceptualising community oriented sites (including two ongoing projects) and had some insights that we thought would be useful to her. My unease had since been tempered by a realisation of the pressing need for what she was doing. I’ve been “eve-teased” myself. I used to have chest-length hair a few years ago. When wearing a helmet, I could easily pass for a girl. Boys on bikes would regularly overtake me to turn around and peer into my visor. Sometimes recognition and shock would register. These irritating incidents made me realise what the other half must regularly experience in a world that’s perfectly normal to my XY-type. It has been a growing awareness since.
I’m also given to understand now that my reservations weren’t unique. Her team is aware of the criticisms to their approach and seeking to transcend to dealing with the causes, but for one little problem: nobody really knows what the causes are. Sure, you and I can argue all we want about how one cultural factor or the other is responsible, but unless it is careful research that has survived scrutiny and debate, we’ll just argue endlessly. It’ll take generations for attitude changes to propagate down to our children’s upbringing, while women continue to get harassed on our streets. Blank Noise has a need to deal with the problem now. Worrying about effectiveness and deeper change comes after.
As Yashas Chandra put it at the gathering yesterday, they’re hacking society’s attitudes, one little bit at a time. Power to them. As for the revamped website, that must unfortunately wait for funding.
Deepa Mohan — Jul 7, 2006 9:37:49 PM — # ↩
Found the post riveting
Nice to see a man's point of view on all of this. We need more sensitive people like you around Jace. Spread the word and may the word be widely read!
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 7, 2006 11:20:54 PM — # ↩
Hemangini’s posted her thoughts from the meeting:
hemanginigupta.blogspot.com/2006/07/thoughts-from-question-asked-at-blank.html
Mangs — Jul 8, 2006 11:14:57 PM — # ↩
hfkjfdh
Hey...
three things:
Those thoughts were from a long-ago meeting... i've lazily put them up only now :p Yashas Chandra was THERE that day? and... i wonder really if jasmeen would've minded you asking her out to coffee as much as she would've minded if she'd said 'no' and you'd persisted. (though i should really NOT be speaking for jasmeen, should i?!). it's a little disturbing though that BNP comes across so, well, militant. am wondering how to define for another, what would be intuitive for me. i guess we're not talking about men approaching us per se as much as we're talking about them approaching us... aggressively and irrespective of our initial vibes back to them. yes? or too much fluidity?
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 9, 2006 12:28:04 PM — # ↩
Yashas came in after you left.
My initial impressions arose from overall discomfiture with approaching someone at that time -- I'm a lot more comfortable now. However, it does seem that to an average male of conservative upbringing who's never been comfortable approaching a girl, BNP could indeed come across as hostile. You may have to figure out how to present yourselves as approachable yet demanding a base standard of dignity in the approach. I don't know, just a thought.
chinmayee — Jul 9, 2006 2:34:58 PM — # ↩
hi kiran. i agree with hemangini about the persistence. and i guess the point about hostility is valid though i guess we are approachable? in the sense that we're not out there to go hammer and tongs at anyone but to explore all the possible angles of the issue. this question also brings in the social aspect, as we did discuss briefly, about the concept of going up to say hello, or the curiosity element, doesn't it? nice meeting you there, though!
miss machlee — Jul 9, 2006 11:53:32 AM — # ↩
thankyou for thinking and sharing!
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 9, 2006 5:32:20 PM — # ↩
Jasmeen, where's the picture you promised me? I wanted it as part of this post.
Jasmeen — Jul 11, 2006 1:19:30 PM — # ↩
The pic
Hi Kiran
Yes the pic comes in an hour.
about the post: let's meet over coffee :)
over coffee: 4 years ago....much before Blank Noise started. I was in an auto, at a traffic signal near windsor manor. noticed this guy on this bike. He followed me until the mekri circle bus stop( about 3.5 kms?). Then I got onto a bus to get to Yelahanka (30-45 mins), and he followed me all the way to yelahanka, stopping at every bus stop, to see if i would get off. When I got off at Yelahankanka and he continued to follow me, I started hurling abuses at him and asking him to go.
bike guy: " why are you screaming? I am just asking you out for coffee. I have not touched you"
me :" you are stalking me. will you leave!!"
bike guy: " let's go for coffee."
me: " do you want to go to the police station or to my office( both were close by)
bike guy: "Take me to the police station, lets see if the police can stop a man from talking to a woman."
Passersby saw the scene. After much screaming he left, laughing.
and yes, he just asked me out for coffee.
We cannot deny that by being a human being we are subject to various biological, cultural and economic factors that may or may not be beyond our control. Yes, it is natural for a person to be attracted to another person but definitely not at the cost of making another person extremely uncomfortable. When you stare/glare/glance in a particular manner, follow, pinch someone’s butt you are transgressing some-one's personal space and in a way you are causing them harm. Everyone knows when some sign or gesture is layered with sexual innuendo’s but it is hard for me to objectively define what exactly one person does that makes another uncomfortable but what I know for sure is that BOTH THE parties-the transgressor and the transgressed know when that boundary is crossed. We could sit, discuss and argue about the cultural/biological/economic reasons for why some-one eve-teases or sexually harasses someone on the streets-but the problem remains- a woman's private bubble is in constant threat of being disrupted every time she is in a public space and it is unfortunate that women have to reengineer their lives in order to account for the harassment they will have to face on the streets...(e.g.: why does walking through a crowd have to be out of bounds for me JUST because I'm a woman?, why does walking on a beach alone always have to be accompanied by a constant fear that "something might happen..."??)-As a coder/hacker you might be aware that the energy/time this re-engineering of our lives takes is better spent doing something constructive :)
Rajan — Jul 12, 2006 8:52:11 PM — # ↩
Fascinating
I hve'nt experiened BNP closely but when I read about in the blogs/papers I had some of the simillar kind of thoughts that you had jace. There is such fascinating perspective given by both you & Jasmeen. But what I find really fascinating that technology(blogs) has helped form a mediation mechanism. I just can't imagine how would it been possible for you to share your perspective and Jasmeen to put hers. Were it not for the blogs the renewed chance of a coffee meet happening would have just not got created. Blogs allow us to reveal a little but of our preferences and thus are able to better coordinate.
Cheers,
Rajan