Sexual harassment of white women in India

I wasn’t going to write this originally. I had started a similar entry last week in Delhi in my private travel blog, but changed my mind, telling myself that it is “no big deal.” But events over the past few days have unfortunately ‘inspired’ me to do so. And so it is with regret that I have to write this. I decided to create a new blog, a public one, specifically for issues pertaining to 'Traveling while female'.

I want to add a disclaimer that this post is not intended to diminish any cases of sexual harassment or sexual assault experienced by Indian women in India whether they are Indian-born or foreign-born or that experienced by people of any other ethnicity. I do however feel the need to single out whiteness as a factor in targeting for certain types of sexual harassment and sexual assault in India. It is this uncomfortable issue that I want to address.

India has a sexual harassment problem. Big time. In particular lack of respect towards white female foreigners. This attitude stems from a variety of sources, but the vast majority of this comes from their misperception of white women as being loose as depicted in both Bollywood and Hollywood movies. When the occasional foreign woman herself flirts with a local, this supposed looseness is then ‘confirmed’ in their minds and thus all manner of inappropriate behavior is ‘justified.’ This supposition is likewise ‘confirmed’ by Western clothing also, which is scandalous by Indian standards. The assumption regarding  women who wear such things is that they must be sexually loose. Thus white women are the subject of numerous male Indian fantasies. That alone is not unusual. After all, how many straight white men have fantasies of “hot Asian women”? The problem however is that in India, because white women do not belong to Indian culture, they are not subject to its social norms or cultural rules. Their whiteness affords them certain privileges in India, but also excludes them from the social norms that protect (some) Indian women from these types of regular harassment. The same general respect that would be paid an Indian women is not necessarily afforded a white person. Even those such as myself who choose to dress ‘local’ by wearing modest Indian clothing continue to receive considerable sexual harassment. I have experienced this many times over and have myself minimized this phenomena by saying things such as “oh, I’ve been harassed like that in the US before.” or “It didn’t really bother me.” Both of which are true to an extent. There are only 2 or 3 times in the past 3 years of visits that I have actually felt offended and bothered by unwanted attention of that nature in India and I have certainly received catcalls or other unwanted attention in the US before.  But are catcalls really equivalent to having someone run their bike in front of you or the rickshaw you are riding in to make sure you see the hand gestures propositioning you as a prostitute? Is it equivalent to having someone try to touch or grab you on a bus or train? No, I say they aren’t equivalent, neither in degree nor in the social norms governing them.

I was with two white foreigners yesterday, one from England and one from Hungary. They had been traveling in India for two weeks. While discussing clothing, I mentioned preferring to dress local because it cuts down on the amount of sexual harassment I receive. The British girl remains silent but the Hungarian girl vehemently says they have never been sexually harassed in India. The British one counters that just the previous night a group of boys had called out vulgar propositions in English to them as they were walking home. The Hungarian one, surprised, replies that she had not noticed because she was busy flirting with someone else. I was surprised, but pleased to hear that they had not had any other problems. As it turns out, this was not true, but I wasn’t to find this out until later. 

The incident which inspired this essay was a rather uncomfortable rickshaw ride home from the city (Varanasi) back to Sarnath in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The ride was about 30 minutes long. Throughout this ride, the driver began a series of conversations, each of which would start out as appropriate (such as Bollywood movies or where we have visited in India or where I learned Hindi), but would gradually devolve to either him discussing his sex life, his intended sex life, or (more disturbing) our sex lives and/or marital status and us “appearing” in his dreams in a sexual manner. The majority of this was innuendo, but some of it was rather explicit. What can you do in this kind of situation? This guy was obviously not going to harm us physically. Neither I nor the others felt physically threatened by him in any way. We needed a ride home, it had grown dark (though it was only 7:30pm), we had bargained for  an acceptable (if overpriced) rate, and we were in a moving vehicle, so there was a degree to which we may have felt ‘trapped.’ But since there was so physical danger, I chose to set boundaries in the conversation. Whenever the conversations started reaching (or reached) inappropriate topics, I would reprimand him in Hindi. This unfortunately happened  about every 5 minutes or so.

I was reminded of the 12-hour Self Defense that that is taught at Thousand Waves. In the section on ‘relationship violence’ the ‘cycle of violence’ is illustrated. First there is the act of violence, which can be physical, emotional, etc. Then there is the attempt to apologize and make up for the act of violence, coupled with promises to never repeat said offense. Then there is the so-called ‘honeymoon’ period where everything is ok. This was the dynamic that governed the entirety of this ride. When the conversation would reach an inappropriate level, I would reprimand the driver in Hindi and he would apologize and mention some fault in himself and promise to stop. He would be quiet for a few minutes. Then talk about mundane topics, such as Bollywood movies, or travelling in India. Then the conversation would again intensify and would start to border on inappropriate. I would either reprimand him or politely ask him to change the subject and the cycle would continue. This was not the first nor is it likely the last time that I will be grateful for the boundary-setting techniques I’ve learned, practiced, and assisted in teaching through Thousand Waves.  Translating these techniques to a new language, in a new culture, however is something I am still relatively unpracticed at. I found myself performing the role of an offended Indian ‘Auntie’ (adult aged Indian woman) as I spoke to him in Hindi, realizing that this was the method that Indian women would likely use to handle this situation. Needless to say, I was quite grateful that I knew Hindi. Engaging in boundary-setting in Hindi adds extra authenticity to the performance. My hope was that a successful performance as an Indian Auntie would remind him that we are no so foreign and deserve the same respect afforded Indian women. We arrived safely, if a little shocked and shaken by his brazen speech. The girls later thanked me and admitted feeling very grateful that it had not been just the two of them in that rickshaw, and that I had known enough Hindi to handle the situation. It was while decompressing from this incident over dinner that the Hungarian girl admitted the following experience:

The two girls had been at a rest stop on a long bus ride either to or from Orccha (Madhya Pradesh). The Hungarian girl asks around for a toilet, but there seems to be none. A 16-year-old boy seemingly helpfully says “Come this way Madame,” leading her into the restaurant building upstairs. She thought she was being led to a toilet. Instead she was led to the roof where she was encouraged to pee in front of the boy who promised he would turn away. She was wearing pants, so of course this would involve her squatting and showing all of her private areas. She tells the boy to go away and he doesn’t. He replies that he’s seen all sorts before so it’s no big deal. His cards finally shown, she decides to leave the roof. He blocks her path and demands a kiss from her before allowing her to leave. Fortunately the story ends well. This was not a meek woman and so when confronted in this way, the Hungarian girl begins chewing the boy out, reprimanding him for treating foreigners so rudely and telling him off for not giving foreign women the same respect he would give an Indian woman. He appears quite quiet and chagrined after this. So she peacefully and safely leaves the roof and the situation.

It is important to point out the double standard in this scenario. This is not a scenario that would have (likely) happened with an Indian woman. A 16-year-old boy would not have tried this scam with an Indian woman, or he likely would have been beaten by someone. This Hungarian woman was singled out for her supposed sexual looseness, which was marked by her whiteness. When she reminds him that she is a woman that should be subject to the same respect as his own culture own demands he is embarrassed, not unlike our brazen rickshaw driver. What is remarkable is that the Hungarian woman hadn’t recalled this incident until we had the shared rickshaw incident. Though she had vehemently protested that she had not previously encountered any sexual harassment in India, this is clearly not the case. This was a clear case of sexual harassment, dangerously bordering on sexual assault. When asked why she hadn’t mentioned it earlier, she admitted that she must have blocked it from her memory. Understandable. But should these kinds of experiences be minimized and shrugged off as “no big deal”? I say no. There is no need, certainly, to make mountains out of molehills. After all, sexual harassment exists most everywhere. But more extreme instances such as the above two experiences, and many more that others have experienced are different in essence, and sexual harassment of white women in India should be addressed as a serious problem.  I choose not to go into details about my experiences being sexually harassed in India over the past three trips. Most of my experiences are hardly story-worthy. But the frequency of them is. It is one thing to be the recipient of cat-calls occasionally. That happens in the US and Europe as well. It is still inappropriate and needs to be addressed. But it is another thing altogether to be marked by your whiteness and singled out for sexual harassment on a regular basis. As when I lived in Jaipur, I now cover my head—not out of convention, for this is not a Muslim area—but out of an attempt to minimize the obviousness of the pale color of my hair and skin. In short, I try to hide my whiteness in order to avoid being singled out. But while this may help me and a few travelers who choose to dress locally, does this help the many thousands of other white females who visit India who wear 'appropriate' clothing but don't try to hide their whiteness? What about the double standard of clothing? When I walk down the street I often see Indian (and Tibetan) women wearing Western clothing less modest than me. But as I have indicated above, clearly, clothing is not the issue, nor should it be. This is a serious problem that should be addressed.

As I think more deeply about it, I wonder if this isn’t much like other kinds of ethnic- or sexual orientation-based profiling that many American minorities experience on a regular basis? Such as the harassment and threats that gays and lesbians often receive? Or phenomena such as “driving while black” or other racist presuppositions. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Indian men for their treatment of white women. Perhaps the stereotyping of white women in India isn’t all that different from stereotyping or certain minorities in the US . Maybe all that differs is the details. But regardless, this lack of respect towards white women in India is highly problematic for a nation that aims to be developing. It is bad enough that touts will routinely follow westerners for blocks, trying to convince them to buy this or that thing or that rickshaws will often try to charge anywhere from double to five times the going rate. But if white foreign women are not afforded the basic minimal respect shown to most Indian women, then how can Indians expect female tourists and students to want to come to India to learn about Indian culture, let alone spend foreign tourist money in India? It is a problem that as a female scholar researching on India I feel compelled to address, though it is far from my topic of research. As a white foreign scholar I am an ambassador of sorts. I hope that through the remainder of these six months in India I have the opportunity to make a difference, no matter how small, in how foreign women are treated.