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'First accept there is a problem': Man shares emotional post on FB after Bengaluru molestation row

In his Facebook post, 23-year-old Rameez Shaikh wrote that his biggest concern was what men weren't being taught about women, particularly respecting a woman's consent.

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A few days after the mass molestation in Bengaluru, Mumbai resident Rameez Shaikh, put up a post on Facebook where he addressed the ‘Not All Men’ issue, which became a talking point on Twitter when a few men, while trying to talk about the incidents, said that not all men were like that. This drew a lot of criticism from women, who said that despite the gravity of the situation, men still wanted to make it about themselves.

In a post that has since been widely circulated, 23-year-old Shaikh, who works as a freelance writer, said that his biggest concern was what men weren't being taught about women, particularly respecting a woman's consent. “As an Indian man, I can vouch for the fact that not once — not in school, not in college, not at home, or anywhere else — has anyone educated me about consent. If anything, incidentally, it was quite the opposite. Being in an all boys' school, I know that most boys in their teens view women as objects with tits that exist solely for their sexual gratification,” he wrote.

While talking about a few incidents, Shaikh said that he witnessed his seniors in college pouring water down a woman’s chest during Holi. They would argue that the woman wouldn’t mind, plus her "‘t***  are fu***** sexy," he wrote.

Shaikh emphasised that this was the mentality men grew up with. “If you’re sitting there thinking, "but hey not all men because I don't think like that", then get your ignorant a** off your moral low pony, because this is the reality of every single man out there, which, unfortunately, makes it hell for every single woman out there too. I concede that we're all victims of patriarchy, but as you shout "NOT ALL MEN" from behind a screen, you fail to realise that women are the only ones who bear the brunt of it all,” he wrote.

The writer also said that if one could not wrap his head around it, then it would make sense for that individual to speak to random women — not including your family and friends — and ask them whether they have been groped, molested or sexually abused. “After you're done hearing their multiple horrific stories, ask yourself a simple question: do all of them dress in the same manner? Speak in the same manner? Smoke, drink, have piercings, or do whatever is deemed against our 'culture'? As a man, you can walk shirtless in a street thronged with 50 women without the fear of as much as being touched. Can a woman do that in a street full of men? As the Bangalore incident proved, they clearly can't — and they don't even need to be topless for it to happen,” he stressed in the post.

Shaikh, whose post has already been picked up by a few agencies such as ScoopWhoop and Homegrown, added that to change the mentality, the Indian man needs to first accept that there is a problem. “Choosing to prevaricate it isn’t the solution to it at all,” he said.

You can read his full post here:

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