We don't need men to be our saviours

It was a bad day for politicians to say stupid things. One of us, a working woman, a journalist, was gang-raped while on assignment and minister RR Patil wanted to rise to the occasion, to say a leader-like thing that would make us all sleep better at night. “If women journalists demand police protection when they go report at unsafe locations, it will be provided.’’

Wow! You really had to stand back and read that statement a couple of times to realise that it was monumentally stupid. A woman got raped while going about her work at six in the evening, and Mr Patil made her occupation out to be some kind of daredevil stunt performance. I find it precious, because to me it conveys everything that’s wrong with how we all tackle rape and other crimes against women.

I guess even though Mr Patil is the home minister, he doesn’t bother to read the literature that’s made available by his own department. If he’d had the time to just glance through the National Crime Records Bureau figures (even if it was to just brush up on facts before making that photo op-tough guy statement to the media during this hour of crisis), he would have seen that the danger of rape isn’t hiding in the bushes or the dark, desolate dungeons of Shakti Mills. It’s actually all around.

In 2012, out of the 24,915 women who got raped across the country, 24,470 were acquainted with the rapists. That means 98.2% of the time, Indian women are being raped by their relatives, close family members, neighbours or some other acquaintance. Men we know...who are rapists in disguise, which means Patil’s offer of a police bodyguard means nothing at all.

While this attack isn’t about journalists but just working women, or other women who need the freedom to move around, I thought back to ‘dangerous’ assignments and whether having my own personal security officer (PSO) would have helped. Like the time I went to Etawah in Uttar Pradesh to report on elections, and they were so surprised to see a woman attend a political meeting at night, that they literally tried to break the wooden platform I was standing on! Problem is — what would I have said? Give me a police officer so I can hear political speeches till whatever time in the night? The police in charge would have rightly told me to ‘Go to hell’ (or maybe, go home) as he would have better things to do, and he’d be right!

Besides, minister RR Patil or anybody else who is in charge doesn’t tell us any way to deal with the lurking threat that is there — the threat that journalists and non-journalists, Mumbai city slickers and non-metro girls, American students visiting India like Michaela Cross and desi girls — all deal with on a daily or hourly basis. For instance, the comment I had to hear over the phone from a minister’s staff because I was calling too often from my newspaper office to get him to react to a story. This was way back in 1999, but I still feel as if I was slapped across my face because when I called him for the nth time at about 8 or 9pm, the man said, “You’re still in office? Kya baat hai, madam, I thought there’s only one type of women who work at night.’’ “What?” I asked incredulously, to which he calmly repeated his suggestion that I was like a sex worker simply because I called someone for work in the evening.

It’s the mindset, silly...that’s what the experts keep telling us, repeatedly, since December 16. The mindset that cannot accept women as independent equals, the mindset that blames mannequins, non-vegetarian food, lack of clothes, jeans or salwar kameezes without dupattas, pornography, everything and anything for setting off rape. The mindset of the police which tries to shirk responsibility of maintaining law and order, by inviting a new male warrior race — remember the advertisement in newspapers after the Delhi gang-rape exhorting men to keep women safe? Or the cellphone ad which tells a woman to make policemen their rakhi brothers as a kind of insurance safety policy?

I’m sure these efforts were all made with good intentions but they aren’t doing us any good. I don’t want the men around me to be my saviours. I need all men to know for certain that if they even look at a woman to make her uncomfortable, they are breaking the law. Voyeurism is a punishable offense, by the way, thanks to stricter laws post December 16, but it isn’t any good if the police isn’t implementing any of it or striking fear in the hearts of perpetrators in every part of this country.

By the way, I don’t know what the experts suggest to change the majority mindset about women.
Maybe, they should change our textbooks finally for a good cause and teach gender equality from nursery. Recall how children are refusing to use firecrackers during Diwali because they’ve been taught pollution is bad. Till then, let’s teach our sons and daughters — no always means no and a woman’s body isn’t public property.

Sunetra Choudhury is an anchor/reporter for NDTV and is the author of the election travelogue Braking News.