The Yell Finger of Self Defense Part 2: De-escalation

In my previous post, I wrote about ways to successfully apply boundary setting while traveling in South Asia. As the Winter holidays approach (and more people are traveling about), perhaps it becomes even more poignant to discuss the second aspect of the YELL Finger: De-escalation. 


Making mistakes in a foreign culture
In the context of street harassment, de-escalation is perhaps not as useful a tool as verbal boundary setting (or non-verbal bodily communication). Street harassment—or any harassment, really—involves some kind of boundary crossing: one person violates the physical and/or emotional space of another person. In these cases, the safest response is usually some form of boundary setting; and if that does not work, exiting the situation (the RUN Finger).

However, not all forms of violence begin with boundary crossing. Sometimes they begin with an offense, whether real or imagined. When traveling in a foreign culture, we are bound to make mistakes. No matter how well we study the culture, there will be clues obvious to locals to which we are oblivious that would have informed us of a cultural violation. Others may be offended and become angry; there may be a need to apologize. Sometimes conflict arises simply as a result of differences between cultural expectations. I have both experienced and witnessed this on multiple occasions. 

During one home-stay experience, I was living together with another foreigner in an Indian household. The other foreigner had a difficult time digesting Indian food and preferred to eat lighter meals. Rather than eat the meals prepared by the host family's cook, this foreigner snacked lightly on her own during the day and then quietly picked at her food at night.  In her eyes, this was a non-confrontational way of handling the situation. No one's feelings need be hurt; and no one went to bed hungry (or with stomach pain!). From the perspective of the Indian cook, however, this was interpreted as a supreme offense. Choosing to eat earlier so as to not be hungry for dinner effectively communicated (even without words!): "I don't like your food." In an Indian context, and I suspect throughout South Asia in general, cooking food and sharing meals is more a communal process than it is a simple necessity (as it is for many Americans used to eating on-the-go). To reject food that is offered in South Asia is difficult because of the social implications. As someone who struggles with quite a few food allergies and sensitivities, I have become all too aware of the social complexities involved in politely declining food or drink.  

One night (when my housemate was absent), I overheard the cook complaining loudly to our host mom in Hindi that my housemate must not like her food, because she never eats it. The cook was very plainly offended and hurt by these actions. I spoke with my host mom later to try and clarify the situation, but because it was a communication issue between my housemate and the cook, my words alone could not resolve it. My housemate had intended no offense; but because no verbal communication was given, this was a tension that remained for the remainder of her stay. This could have of course ended in a different way. With different personalities this tension might have escalated into a full conflict with yelling, screaming, and throwing things. 

De-escalation is difficult in part because it requires us face the possibility that we may have made a mistake; we may have caused offense, even without intending to do so. More importantly, it is difficult because it requires us admit that we may need to apologize for offenses unintended. The number of times I have accidentally stepped on, or too close to something sacred while in India are too numerous to count. I often (er, usually) err on the side of rudeness when negotiating with rickshaw drivers. I have raised my voice at bureaucrats, rickshaw drivers, and shop clerks alike while traveling, more times than I care to admit. Traveling can be a very highly stressful situation wherever in the world you are; this is probably doubly true in South Asia. But de-escalation is not simply the nice, polite thing to do; sometimes it is a safety necessity. Because sometimes—and like with street harassment we never know when—the situation has the potential to escalate to physical violence. Just like in road rage situations, we never know where that final line is beyond which a person snaps and may try to hurt us.  


'Road rage' in Sarnath
One day in Sarnath (Varanasi, UP) I was riding a bicycle home from my research institution. There is a turnabout (traffic circle) not too far from my guest house. I was still trying to get used to the seemingly bizarre rules of the  road--not to mention riding on the far left side of the road.  I accidentally went the wrong way on the turnabout, swerved to avoid being hit by an auto-rickshaw, and stopped just short of full collision with the thigh of a middle-aged man who had been standing at the corner. Or at least I hope it was his thigh. 

It was clear I had still hit the man despite trying to stop in time. The man was (understandably!) quite angry and approaching me, very apparently preparing to yell at me. I stepped down from the bike, stepped back, placed my hands in front of me in a placating and apologetic gesture, and apologized to him calmly and sincerely in Hindi: "Mujhe mauf keejiye Uncle-ji!...Aap theek hain?" (I'm so sorry, Sir!.... Are you ok?). I repeated this quite a few times before he registered what I was saying. Taken aback by my response, the man was shocked out of his anger and started calming down, begrudgingly wobbling his head to indicate, "No."  With his attention,  I asked him once again if he needed help, to which he again (but more decisively) wobbled his head, "No."  He waved me on, and so I left as quickly and safely as I could. 

This incident was clearly my fault; I made a mistake and had nearly injured someone. But the situation could have clearly been reversed. I could have been standing on the side of the road and nearly hit by someone on a bicycle who then became angry at the inconvenience of having to stop. How many times does it happen with car accidents (or bike accidents) that both parties exit their vehicle yelling and screaming at each other? While an apology may not be the appropriate response to every incident, de-escalation itself is a powerful tool that can go a long way towards diffusing anger and stopping violence before it starts.

How is de-escalation applied in South Asia?
De-escalation requires us be honest with ourselves; we have to honestly evaluate whether or not we have caused harm and what, if anything can be done to remedy the situation. The key is often to apologize if appropriate, and offer to do something to help "fix" or remedy the situation if that is possible.

We also have to be aware of what could escalate a situation, which is also important in the context of street harassment. While we may feel tempted to snap back at someone in anger or strike them with physical force, is it worth the risk of escalating a conflict? Recall the story I shared in the post on Boundary Setting, where a woman stood up to slap her harasser in a restaurant. In this case, woman's response escalated the situation; the harasser struck her in the head with a beer bottle from the table.  While aggressive responses are generally safer than passive ones, aggression carries with it the additional risk of escalating the situation. This is not to say that we should err on the side of passivity to avoid confrontation. If an assertive response does not work, and the harasser intensifies the harassment, at that point it might be safer to leave (if possible) to exit the situation. If you can't exit the situation, a seemingly aggressive response (preparing to fight to defend yourself) might be the only safe choice left. Once your physical safety is threatened, remaining passive or attempting to bargain or negotiate is not the safest approach. But this does not mean that aggression is the safest first response to harassment while traveling in South Asia. It is important to be mindful of the effect our reactions may have in the context of a culture foreign to ours. 

Boundary setting is the Self Defense tool I have used most frequently while traveling in India. However in my experience, de-escalation is no less important a tool and can be crucial for increasing our safety while traveling. For the most part I have found that the de-escalation tools I use in the US are quite effective in South Asia as well. When someone is yelling at you in the moment, I have found that breathing deeply (to calm yourself) and speaking calmly and repetitively, like a "broken record," can be effective in South Asia as well as the US. Tools that we teach in Thousand Wave's Self Defense seminars include:

• Using apologetic but assertive body language (not aggressive);
• Apologizing sincerely when appropriate;
• Offering some form of assistance, aid, or compensation to remedy the situation;
• Speaking in calm, sincere tones repeatedly, like a broken record;  

I have found distraction also to be a powerful tool. While that was not my intention, apologizing in Hindi had the unintended side effect of distracting the man from his anger. Of course, like anywhere in the world,  there may be a time when words and the offer of compensatory actions are not sufficient to de-escalate a situation, in which case exiting the situation (the RUN Finger) might be safer.

One final note about de-escalation in South Asia: I have noted that there are differences between the way and men and women display and react to aggression in India compared to the US. Women in the US are more likely to try to avoid raising their voice and often rely on polite, bordering on assertive responses sooner, preferring to avoid aggression in most situations. Sometimes even women's assertive behavior is viewed with hostility in the US (and I suspect in many Western countries). We are often made to feel uncomfortable for simply asserting our rights to not be touched, whistled at, or otherwise objectified. If we assertively communicate to a harasser that we don't appreciate being commented upon, a common response is the indignant phrase "ungrateful b&*%h", conveying that we somehow have transgressed the gendered norms laid out for us as women. It is a useful contrast to note that I have never been insulted in response (even in Hindi) for assertively—or even aggressively—calling out a male harasser in India.

I believe this difference in responses to assertiveness (and to female displays of anger) is related to gendered norms for displays of anger and 'aggression' in India.  Throughout my travels I've noticed that Indian women are more likely than Americans to passively (or passive-aggressively) ignore a given situation for a while, but will then switch to an aggressively angry response quite quickly in many situations--whether they are being harassed, cheated by a rickshaw driver, or offended in any other way. I have observed--both from my personal experience and from the experience of others--that Indian men are made visibly quite uncomfortable and embarrassed by an aggressively angry woman (whether Indian or foreign) and will often do what they can to de-escalate the situation themselves by offering apologies (and sometimes compensation)! I have noticed it is considerably less common for men in India to display such aggressive forms of anger--at least in public. For foreigners accustomed to the gendered norms for displaying assertiveness, aggression, anger, and so forth common in the US, navigating these differences can seem daunting; however, the basic principles and tools for de-escalation still apply.

I wish everyone safe travels during the upcoming months!

The Yell Finger of Self Defense Part 1: Boundary Setting

I decided to split the Yell "Finger" into three separate entries.  I start with boundary-setting because this is the issue that comes up the most in conversations I've had with female travelers in South Asia and with women from South Asian. The next two forthcoming entries will deal with de-escalation and intervention respectively, following Thousand Waves' model for teaching the Five Fingers of Self Defense.  

Yell or Fight?

So I want to start with the premise of the Yell Finger. Why should we use our voice? Why not just hit the guy who is harassing us? Well, it depends on what your goal is. If you want retribution, then fighting seems commensurate. But I’m not writing to teach people how to retaliate against your attacker/aggressor. I’m writing to help people better understand the tools and choices we all have to increase our safety and feel empowered as we travel, whether traveling in a foreign country or in public within our own native country. 

When people learn I’m a karate student, many ask me: "Why don't you hit the guy?" It seems to be popular suggestion, especially for women traveling alone in India. I'll admit that at times it's a very tempting thought. The premise is that if I were to hit the offender--especially if I hit him hard--he would be so embarrassed that  he would never engage in such aggressive and insulting behavior again (or at least not with me). 

I wish that were true. The sad fact however is that while the thought of smacking someone who is making rude comments and catcalls as you pass may seem pleasurable and it might be safe to do so, it is not always the case. Sometimes--and you can never be sure when that time will be--aggressive responses will actually escalate the situation, leaving you less safe than when you started. 

When I assisted for a Self-Defense class in South Delhi in March 2013, the instructor--Pooja Agarwal of Seido Karate Noida--shared with us a story that directly contradicts the assumption that aggression is best. 

Pooja told us of one woman who was at a restaurant with her female friend. She overheard a man from the next table loudly talking about her in harassing manner, commenting on her body, her clothing, and so forth. The man was with at least one other friend. Angry, the woman stood up, walked over and slapped the harasser in his face.

The harasser picked up the beer bottle sitting on his table and hit the woman in the side of the head with it. The woman was very fortunate. She was severely injured, but she did survive the attack. 

Using physical force can be dangerous. If you engage in physical force (the Fight Finger) this is a serious choice with real consequences. Any act of aggression--whether physical or verbal--has the potential to escalate a situation. I fully believe everyone has the right to use physical force to defend themselves and others from harm. But I also firmly believe it is best and safest to use the least-violent approach possible first. This is why at Thousand Waves, we teach the "Fingers" in a specific order: Think, Yell, Run, FIGHT, Tell. We think it's best and safest to first use our other tools, including using our voice, first. I'll talk more about options and tools for fighting in a later post; however, here I want to focus on the Yell Finger. 

The Three Levels of Boundary-Setting

Words and body-language communicate more than we realize. If we are scared, that is often communicated through passive body-language: maybe we stand with our arms crossed, balanced on one leg, looking down towards the ground. One reason why this is important is because appearing passive increases our chances of being chosen as a target. Attackers go through a selection process to choose their targets. Most attackers don't want a fight, so they look for "easy" targets, people who appear (even mistakenly!) passive, weak, uncomfortable. If we are looking down towards the ground, it is much more difficult to see an attacker approaching us; we appear more vulnerable. However appearing aggressive or hostile isn't necessarily the safest approach either. While aggressiveness may scare some attackers away (making it safer than passivity), in some cases it may escalate the situation and encourage the attacker to respond in order to 'punish' the target. 

So how do we strike a balance between passivity and aggression in our verbal responses and body-language? It starts with assertive body-language. The exact details may differ for each person, but the basic idea is standing up straight, with your eyes, shoulders and hips forward, showing all five major points of the body towards the harasser (head, both shoulders, both hips). If someone approaches us threateningly, at Thousand Waves we teach our students to take a strong "defender’s stance" (one leg steps back at a 45-degree angle) with a loud 'Yell'. This Yell is not a scream, but rather a shout, loudly voicing a word or phrase such as “No,” “Back off!”  or "Leave me alone!" What does this do for us? It clearly communicates to the harasser and to others that this is unwanted attention, it gets the attention of passersby (who might intervene for us), it potentially embarrasses the harasser, and it also energizes us. At Thousand Waves, we call this a Level-3 response. 

The vast majority of boundary-setting experiences, may not require a Level-3 response. In Chicago we tend to teach a Level-1  response  (a polite, but simple "No") for more commonplace boundary-setting situations  --such as responding to manipulative family members, pushy co-workers, etc. When teaching Level-2 (a stronger, more firm "No!" without moving into defender's stance), we tend to describe more uncomfortable situations, such as when a stranger approaches you in public, asking questions or engaging in behavior that makes you feel uncomfortable and you want them to leave you alone; or when someone (possibly a friend) grabs your hand or shoulder in play and you want them to stop. Generally Level-2 is where I start and remain during street harassment experiences in the US.  I might use the same phrases as in Level-3 ("Go away!" "Leave me alone!") but I say them with less intensity and I maintain assertive (but not defensive) body language. In the US, I have found this works for me virtually 99% of the time. 

When I first tried to apply these techniques to harassment in India, however, my words and body language appeared to have virtually no effect. For months I suffered through daily street harassment, not understanding why these tools and techniques weren't working. I continued to feel vulnerable, threatened, and dis-empowered to an extent that my work started to suffer. In desperate need of a break from harassment, I chose to leave my first research site early. After finding ways to adapt the techniques I had been taught, I did return two months later, somewhat refreshed, and fortunately was able to finish my work before leaving India. So what happened? Why didn't the techniques work?  

Boundary-setting in a South Asian Context

What I hadn't yet discovered is that boundary setting and de-escalation become more difficult in a foreign culture. No matter how much you have studied about a foreign culture, there will be things you don't know. The norms for gender roles, and the way passivity, aggression, and assertiveness are expressed by different genders in that culture will be different from the ones you are accustomed to. Harassment may be more or less subtle, or appear in ways different than you expect, and thus harder to detect at first. For those who study a local language and want to use that language to communicate while traveling, there is the additional complication of the difficulty of expressing emotion and boundary-setting in another language. Additionally, the spectrum of passive, assertive, and aggressive itself may differ, making it more difficult to determine what will be interpreted as assertive.  

In my experience, Indian harassers often appear less aggressive in their body language than harassers in the US. If you are used to assessing aggression by US standards of body language, you will often misread aggression as passivity. Unfortunately this means that the red flags you would notice in the US won't go off until much later.  This is in part governed by gender norms in India. In the US, it is not uncommon for a man to strike up conversation with a woman in public or vice versa, depending on the social context. In many parts of India, it is less common for men in India to converse with women of their age who are not related to them (by blood or by marriage). This kind of public interaction between male and female strangers is thus often interpreted as flirtation. Even conversations that start out innocent ("Oh, what do you study?" "Have you been to India before?" "Oh, how do you know Hindi?") can escalate to more uncomfortable personal questions ("Do you have a boyfriend?" "Are you married?" "Would you consider dating an Indian man?") or to flat-out harassment, such as questions about your sex life or physical acts of intimidation such as stalking, following someone to their room, etc.

In fact, very few Indian men actually behave this way. The vast majority of Indian men I have met will politely avoid making eye contact or will simply observe you with curiosity in their eyes, not aggression. Or they may be genuinely interested in talking with you and learning more about life in [insert your country here]. The point I am making is that harassment can be subtle. Cultural differences make identifying harassment in a foreign country more challenging. This is why the Think Finger is so important.  The best tool we have at our disposal to assess whether or not a conversation is going to turn to harassment is our instincts. 

So what do we do when the conversation turns to harassment? Or when we notice someone openly staring and making catcalls or obscene gestures? This is where verbal boundary-setting comes into play.

For months, while facing daily harassment in Sarnath I applied what I thought was a Level-2 response, to no avail. After observing women in public displaying more aggressive responses to men in other situations, I decided to turn up the volume on my Level-2, using something closer to 2.5 (or possibly 3, depending on your definition). My experiences and training in the US had taught me that if you are verbally aggressive, saying things like "What are you looking at?" you are likely to attract more negative attention from the harasser. In India, however this level of response almost seemed to be the expected minimum level of response to indicate disapproval or disinterest. 

Phrases such as Kyaa dekh rahee ho?!  (What are you looking at!?), or sometimes in my feistier moments: Mujh se kyaa chahiye? (What do you want from me?), or Main aap ki dost/patni naheen hum! (I'm not your friend/wife!), became my mantra as I walked through the streets in Varanasi and later Jaipur and Delhi. I felt uncomfortable at first, fearing I was being aggressive. But when I saw the impact, I realized I had finally discovered what "assertive" for women appears to be in at least some parts of India. Using this approach, roughly 95% of the time, harassers would turn away, embarrassed. A few even apologized.  It seems my calibration had been off. What I had perceived to be aggressive--or at least as bordering on aggressive--was interpreted as though it were assertive. 

This observation was confirmed for me months later, when I was assisting Pooja with her Self Defense class. When she asked women to demonstrate "assertive" I was shocked to see most of these women standing with their hips cocked to one side, with one hand on one hip and the other wagging a finger as if reprimanding a child. But that's aggressive!, I thought to myself, mystified. And then it clicked. Assertiveness and aggression are expressed differently in India than in the US. And therein lies the problem for foreign travelers. Many, if not most Indian women experience harassment from virtually day-one of their lives. They learn how to interpret aggressive behavior and they learn how to express assertiveness appropriate to the spectrum in their culture, just as foreigners do in their own respective cultures. We all instinctively know what passive, assertive, and aggressive looks like in our own culture. But identifying it elsewhere is not so simple. For a foreigner traveling in India, the expressions are different, and that makes handling harassment that much more difficult for foreign women, many of whom might not have previously experienced such regular or intense harassment before. 

Why Learn to Boundary-Set?

Because identifying harassment and ways of responding to harassment that are appropriate to a given situation is more difficult in a foreign culture, it is easy to feel frustrated and powerless in the process.  If you spend your time in South Asia passively ignoring the harassment you struggle to even accurately detect, the experience can tear you down emotionally. And if you spend your time yelling and screaming at harassers, it is easy to feel powerless, vulnerable, and irrationally angry towards the people in the country you are visiting. 

Boundary-setting is both a valuable tool for safety and a valuable tool for empowerment for travelers. Sometimes just feeling as though you did something is enough to enable you to feel strong and confident in the face of harassment. For me, as a female scholar who travels in South Asia, this is the goal I strive for. There is no magic phrase or tool that will work against harassment 100% of the time. Harassment or even assault is not always avoidable. And if it does happen, it is not the fault of the victim for some perceived 'failure' to do everything to prevent it. The goal is to learn to use the tools we already possess to increase our safety so we can enjoy our travels, learning more about the culture and cultivating meaningful relationships along the way. The goal is to feel empowered as we travel, rather than terrified or angry. In my experience, boundary-setting is an important part of this. Further, boundary-setting  can increase our safety, reducing the risk of harassment escalating to other forms of violence such as sexual assault.

Applying boundary-setting in our own culture can be challenging; applying it in a foreign culture while traveling can feel like a daunting prospect, but it can be done. It takes patience and the openness to explore different ways of expressing yourself. 

But I guarantee it's worth the effort. Travel. Try it out. And come back and share with us here what you've experienced. 

My experiential knowledge of expressions of passivity, assertiveness, and aggression in India are of course limited, and mostly learned through trial-and-error in harassment situations in various parts of urban North India (Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur). As a white foreigner my experiences with boundary-setting in India may be very different from that of an Indian woman. If anyone--Indian or foreign--has any similar experiences from travel around in South Asia, or any counter-examples that could elucidate this, please feel free to share them in the comments section. I suspect that what language you use to boundary-set (your native language verses some local South Asian language) has very little impact. I have heard success stories from Indian and foreign women who have used English and I have heard success stories from foreigners who have used an Indian language, but I am very much interested to hear what phrases others have found helpful. I invite anyone who has used a boundary-setting technique while in South Asia to share their experience. What phrases and techniques have worked for you?  What language did you respond in?   

Research on Indian responses to recent rape scandals

Greetings! If you are an Indian living in the US reading this blog, some colleagues of mine are doing research on Indian responses to the Delhi Gang rape and other recent rape scandals in India. If you are interested in participating in this research, please see the below announcement forwarded from the RISA-L list serve: 

Nupur Agrawal, and I are conducting research on the recent rape scandals that have enveloped India. Nupur, a senior Religion and Psychology major, is a native of Gurjarat. She carried out surveys and interviews regarding attitudes towards rape and related issues this last summer in North India as part of a Mellon Undergraduate Summer Research grant. 

I originally conceived of the project during my visit last December-January to India, arriving in Delhi the day after Jyoti Singh Pandey (aka Nirbhaya and Braveheart, as the press initially called her) died in a Singapore hospital. I went to the protests near the Jantar Mantar and talked with a number of protesters, and like many, was deeply moved by the tragedy. 

During the spring semester, Nupur and I applied for the Mellon grant, and also created a First-Year Seminar course here at Trinity on the subject of "Rape in India, Rape in America, and Rape at Trinity." Nupur is serving as a peer tutor for the course, which we are teaching this fall. At the conclusion of the summer research, we realized we would like to obtain the views of Indians currently living in the U.S. to compare with the attitudes of those we gathered in India (about 550 responses to a SurveyMonkey survey).  

Accordingly, we slightly revised the survey, updating a few questions. For instance, we now ask two additional questions about the sentencing of the convicted rapists/murderers in the Pandey case. Most of the questions remain the same. This revised on-line survey can be found at:  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ML2GSYV 

Participants must be 18 years or older. A participant is indicating his/her consent by completing the survey. 

If you are Indian, we would greatly appreciate your time and effort in completing this survey. We would also be most grateful if you were willing to send the link to this survey to Indian friends, colleagues, students, acquaintances, or relatives, or to post a link on appropriate web-sites or blogs.The survey takes approximately 12-15 minutes. The survey will be open for a few months. 

We guarantee your anonymity and of anyone who takes the survey. The survey is for educational and scholarly purposes only. The results of the survey, with analysis and commentary, will be utilized in a presentation at the national meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November of 2013, and eventual publication in a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article or book. 

This study has been approved by Trinity University's Institutional Review Board (IRB). If you have any questions about the IRB approval, you may contact Trinity's IRB chair, Dr. Jane Childers, at: jchilder@trinity.edu. 

If you have any questions for the researchers, you can email us at mbrown@trinity.edu, or nagrawal@trinity.edu, or call Mackenzie Brown at 210-999-8429. 

We thank you in advance for your time. It will be greatly appreciated. 

Dr. C. Mackenzie Brown and Nupur Agrawal

See verbal and physical Self Defense techniques in action!

For anyone interested in seeing in action the violence prevention and empowerment message my self- defense Center, Thousand Waves Martial Arts and Self Defense Center NFP, promotes, our Director of the Violence Prevention program, Dr. Kate Webster was featured live on local news in Chicago: Two segments on Fox 32 Good Day Chicago aired live Friday morning September 20th. 

While brief, these interviews give a snapshot of the type of approaches to Self Defense we take at Thousand Waves. The first segment is on How to avoid being a victim of a crime and and second is What to do if you are attacked.

Enjoy! :)

A response to RoseChasm’s CNN iReport

I have been reluctant to post on this topic, but given the enormous volume of chatter online about this article and given that the author is a college student from my home institution,* I feel ethically obliged to give some kind of response. For those who have not yet read it, I advise everyone read the following CNN iReport “India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear,”written by a University of Chicago undergrad writing under the pseudonym RoseChasm. The author’s real name is now public knowledge due to the The recent CNN article covering the worldwide responses to RoseChasm’s piece, however to preserve her ‘privacy’ I choose to refer to her by the handle she used for the iReport.  Before you read further into this response, I encourage everyone to click on the link above and either read or re-read RoseChasm’s report.

RoseChasm was one in a group of college students that went to India for a 3-month trip, mostly unsupervised, but (as I understand it) somewhat organized by faculty the University of Chicago.  As she reports, throughout her trip she was regularly harassed in public, violated on numerous occasions, and survived two attempted sexual assaults in a 48-hour period. At least one other girl in her group was also the victim of an attempted sexual assault. After returning to Chicago, she started experiencing anxiety, depression, etc. and sought psychological help. She was eventually diagnosed with PTSD and is now on a temporary medical leave of absence from the University. This much is uncontroversial and documented in her iReport.

What is apparently controversial is the way she tells her story. RoseChasm frames her experiences in a way which forms a personal testimonial about the violence she suffered. There is no attempt to make arguments for how India can change, there is no attempt to nuance why or how this violence occurred, and there is no attempt to distinguish between Indian men who enact this violence and Indian men who are respectful of women. In short, her piece is not a scholarly attempt to describe a phenomena. It is a testimonial, written from the perspective of a traumatized college student, sharing her story in an attempt  to bring greater public awareness. 

RoseChasm opens her report with the following:

When people ask me about my experience studying abroad in India, I always face the same dilemma. How does one convey the contradiction that over the past few months has torn my life apart, and convey it in a single succinct sentence? 

“India was wonderful," I go with, "but extremely dangerous for women.” Part of me dreads the follow-up questions, and part of me hopes for more. I'm torn between believing in the efficacy of truth, and being wary of how much truth people want.
 
Because, how do I describe my three months in the University of Chicago Indian civilizations program when it was half dream, half nightmare? Which half do I give
 
Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?
 
Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?
 
When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for forty-five minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd? 

Do I describe the lovely hotel in Goa when my strongest memory of it was lying hunched in a fetal position, holding a pair of scissors with the door bolted shut, while the staff member of the hotel who had tried to rape my roommate called me over and over, and breathing into the phone?   

These events that she details in her report form a cohesive narrative about her travel experiences. While RoseChasm had many pleasant and positive experiences, the memories of (at least some of these) is tainted by the traumatic experiences that followed. She reports the tension she faced when friends and family asked her about her travels. This is a tension I think many of us who travel face, though perhaps to lesser degrees. For me, travel more generally is a complex series of experiences, not all of which are positive.  If your experiences include intense forms of harassment or other potentially traumatic events, the complexities are even greater.  It can be challenging enough simply to process the complexities of travel experiences, let alone create narratives to be consumed by friends and family. Yet when I return from travel (to the US), I find I am bombarded by people seemingly wanting to live vicariously through me, wanting to experience all the joys of my travel (but none of the sorrows) and so it appears I have little choice. Everyone expects an exciting, happy story. But what happens when, like RoseChasm, you don’t have one to sell? This in part, is what to me is compelling about RoseChasm’s piece. It reminds us of the burden of responsibility we often place on travelers to come back and report happy travel stories.  
 
If we treat RoseChasm’s piece as a scholarly assessment of fact, it is of course hugely problematic. The framing device RoseChasm uses necessitates her identify discrete positive experiences which were in some way tainted by the more traumatic experiences.  Criticism has been levied by some, arguing that the particular positive experiences RoseChasm identifies depict an India that is an Orientalist consumerist paradise: an exotic place full of opportunities for cheap shopping and exciting activities such as public dancing at religious festivals, etc. This paradise is then contrasted with RoseChasm’s traumatic experiences of violence which then depict an alternate India as savage and violent. In this narrative, there is seemingly no middle ground for an ordinary (non-paradise) existence in India or for an Indian voice (male or female) to arise. Perhaps for some (under-educated) readers of this CNN report might conclude that India is a horrible violent place and no one should visit. The recent CNN article covering the worldwide responses to RoseChasm’s piece certainly thinks this an issue.
 
A female student from the same program wrote an iReport in response to RoseChasm titled “Same India—Different Story” under the pseudonym twoseat criticizing RoseChasms’s failure to include an Indian (or other minority) voice. Twoseat reports:

As the only black woman (and individual in general) on the trip, I can definitely say that I had a very unique experience in my program. Men stared at me in India. Women stared at me. Children and teenagers stared at me. All the time. I wanted to become invisible in the crowd. I felt that I stood out even more because I stood out very starkly from the Indian population and especially from my white and Asian peers. I was also targeted with harassment, and I felt violated many times on the trip. However, in my experiences in India, I have met a solid handful of warm and honest Indian men- men who are also college students, men who also love the thrill of riding on a motorcycle in the busy streets, men who defended me at necessary times, and men who took the time to get to know me and my culture. And that should not at all be surprising.
…
So why should all Indian men be subjected to judgment for the rapes that some men have committed? RoseChasm does not address the fact that there are warm and honest men in India. When we do not make the distinction that only some men of a population commit a crime, we develop a stereotype for an entire population. And when we develop a negative stereotype for a population, what arises? Racism.

Twoseat makes a very valid point. RoseChasm’s account does appear to generalize Indian men and fails to address the fact that this violence will have been enacted only by a certain small percentage of Indian men. Regarding RoseChasm’s report, twoseat says:

I believe that [she] had every right to tell her story, but I wanted to alleviate the burden that it put on many Indians and other people in general. I had no intention of lessening the significance of her experience. I just wanted to highlight the dangers in writing such a one-sided piece on a population.

An Indian woman from Bangalore named Meera Vijayan also responds to RoseChasm under in an iReport titled “India: a Different View.” If you visit her profile page you’ll see Meera has written iReports on various topics relating to gender-based violence in India. Meera tells the CNN reporter:

I was inspired to respond because I am an Indian girl who has faced similar experiences that Michaela Cross describes on her ireport. Sexual harassment is common in India. And this can be frightening and traumatic for anyone who travels here. The air of hopelessness for women here is frustrating and I wish that things change. However, I know that although I have faced sexual harassment, there is a side to India that one can truly enjoy and appreciate. And given the heavy air of cynicism about the Indian mindset (which truly is deeply chauvinist), I wanted to point out, on a positive note, that one can also have a beautiful experience here.

Meera opens her iReport with the following statement:

I wanted to post this in response to the video of ireporter Michaela Cross's account of what the situation is like in India. First of all, I wanted to express my deepest regret for what she faced. As a girl, who lives here in India, and who has faced several similar experiences I wanted to take this moment to tell you all - yes, this is a side of India that is a reality to most young women who reside here or for that matter travel here.

Meera then expresses her concern that foreigners such as RoseChasm may judge India (and Indians) in an unfairly harsh way for the harassment experiences they endure and encourages foreigners to open up more while traveling:   

One, as a foreigner, be it a man or a woman, I know that it's an extremely different cultural environment here in India. And sometimes, unless you are in a city, it is common to be stared at. It is definitely not uncommon for people to express an interest to how foreigners dress or behave in public. This can be incredibly uncomfortable, but often times, the tension can be easily broken by merely ignoring this unless you truly sense physical danger. Sometimes not understanding the complexities of Indian life can make you judge its people rather harshly.

Second, I definitely would really advise female travelers to practice caution when making decisions such as travelling alone at night or being anywhere where you aren't quite sure about. It is a fact that it isn't safe. I have been stalked before and groped as well, and these experiences can be frightening and traumatic. But that said, this shouldn't stop you from living your life and exploring India. While India can largely be unsafe, you cannot stereotype a whole nation. Remember, people will always be alien to you if you wish to see them as alien to your life. Once you open up, it is often a very different experience. You will form stronger bonds, understand the situation better and have a positive experience while here. Yes, I find it infuriating that women have so much to fear but then women also have so much to look forward to. And we shouldn't forget that. I think I will leave it here saying - Yes, there are many things wrong about India, but then there is a lot of good too. And that's true of every country, isn't it?

While encouraging American travelers to open up while traveling is generally something I would agree with (I think as a nation we tend to spend too much time when traveling connecting with other foreigners rather than connecting with locals!), I’m not certain how Meera’s advice would help someone like RoseChasm, whose experience of harassment in India far exceeded a mere “interest to how foreigners dress or behave in public.” Is public masturbation now an accepted form of expressing curious interest in foreigners? I assume of course that Meera’a target audience is not RoseChasm, but rather future travelers to India who might be reading articles addressing violence against women in India. One thing I greatly appreciate about Meera’s response is the fact that while encouraging foreign travelers to remain open, and look for safe ways to travel to and and enjoy India, she does not try to defend Indian men, nor does she in any was try to lessen RoseChasm’s experience.
 
However other respondent’s comments are much less supportive. Polly Hwang, a Korean-American female who has traveled to India over the past 5 years with her Indian boyfriend, wrote an iReport in response titled “People who Generalize are Evil: My Response to Michaela Cross's Experiences in India.” As you may guess from the title, this iReport is far from a scholarly critique of perceived one-sidedness of RoseChasm’s report. Rather it reads like a polemic, blaming Michaela (RoseChasm) for all of her traumatic experiences. My favorite paragraph is the following:
 

Why was I not sexually harassed? It could be that I was just plain lucky. It could also be the fact that I took a lot of precautions to avoid dangerous areas, wear appropriate clothing, behave appropriately etc. Not to chastise Rose Chasm in anyway but she should not have been dancing in the Ganesha street festival known for its hordes of extremely drunk young men. She should not have stayed in cheap shady hostels in Goa which I'm sure had no positive online reviews. She should not be flipping fingers at locals and most importantly, she should have left after her first incident of sexual harassment, instead of staying for over 90 days and developing PTSD. I'm not victim shaming in any way, the pigs who tormented Rose Chasm take 100% of the blame. However as foreigners, it's our responsibility to be aware of how to behave and live in the local culture.

 
Well Polly, if you are not intending to engage in victim-blaming, you might want to reconsider attributing all the harassment and ill-treatment RoseChasm experienced to the apparent “choices” she made in India (public dancing, choice of hotel, etc.).  As foreigners it is certainly our responsibility to “be aware of how to behave and live in the local culture.” But that does not mean that if we experience violence (as harassment and attempted sexual assault are), that this too is our responsibility. The unfortunate truth is there is no method or strategy  that can guarantee freedom from harassment. There is no way to 100% prevent the possibility of sexual assault. Individual choices we make in life may impact the risk of encountering some form of violence, certainly. But that does not mean that if we do experience violence, the violence is our responsibility as well. The responsibility and fault always lies with the attacker. Anything else is victim-blaming. Even if we do everything in our power to reduce risk, there is no guarantee of safety anywhere in the world, let alone India. Would you have foreigners hide themselves in expensive (rather than “seedy”) luxurious hotels apart from the way locals live to increase their safety? Would you have women traveling solo hide in their hotel room all day and night long unless accompanied by a friend? Because those are the only ways I know of to completely avoid the risk the public harassment. And sadly, even that is no guarantee of personal safety as I have received reports of even expensive hotels in various parts of India where the staff attempts to assault or harass solo women travelers. Even RoseChasm's "choice" to stay in India long enough to "develop PTSD" is apparently to blame in Polly's account. Now granted if someone is experiencing traumatic experiences while traveling, I would agree it is likely healthier for them to leave a trip earlier than expected if their finances permit. But leaving early isn't always an option for people. There's also the fact that PTSD by it's definition is "post-traumatic," meaning symptoms are experienced only after the trauma is experienced and thus leaving early would not necessarily prevent PTSD nor is it easy to predict when or if someone will experience PTSD. Every statement Polly writes in this paragraph starts with the phrase "she should," implying that RoseChasm is responsible for the violence she experienced in India and the trauma she endured as a result because of things she either did or didn't do. If the author of this response was hoping to dispel misconceptions regarding foreign women's experiences in India, I fear she fell far from the mark. On the contrary, it seems this author contributed a few new misconceptions. 


If what we hope to find in RoseChasm's piece is a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of gender-based violence in India, then there are certainly plenty of problems with her account. But I find it highly unlikely that this was in fact RoseChasm’s intent. From my reading of her piece, RoseChasm’s iReport is a testimonial of her personal experience in India, written in response to all the friends and family members who demand exciting, happy travel stories  from someone whose experience didn’t allow her to generate them.  As RoseChasm herself says in the closing line of her piece: “This is the story you don't want to hear when you ask me about India. But this is the story you need.” Because of her traumatic experiences, RoseChasm could not fully participate in that ritual so many of us feel obliged to endure when we return from a trip—the sharing of travel stories. Because no one wants to hear a downer. Rather than shutting down and avoiding discussing her experiences, she chose to make it fully public and open to critique from others and eventually released her real name to the media.
 
RoseChasm’s iReport is an act of bravery. It takes courage to share experiences like this in a public forum, in a way that leaves you open and vulnerable for attack and criticism. This is something I understand all too well. Every time I click “publish” on one of these entries I experience a new dose of terror, knowing that I have placed yet another personal experience relating to harassment on the internet in a truly public forum available for everyone to read, analyze and criticize. I write and post about these issues, not because it is easy for me, but rather because it isn’t easy for me.  As long as one person benefits from what I write, the risk is worth it to me. But then again, I have never shared an experience so personal as what RoseChasm wrote. And for that alone, if nothing else, she has earned my respect and admiration.  
 
Before I finish, there is one more issue I think should be addressed if we are to fully benefit from RoseChasm’s story. As a public educator, I am highly invested in providing students and other travelers with resources to enable them to travel safely. RoseChasm’s experience greatly concerns me. Is there a way we could have better prepared her for her travels? How do we prepare students for study abroad programs in places like India, Egypt and Kenya with record-high percentages of harassment and sexual assault? Is there a better way she could have been supported while on her trip or after returning? I have no hard-and-fast answers, merely vague ideas. So I want to open these issues up for discussion. I welcome your responses to this post, but I request everyone be polite and respectful.  What are your thoughts regarding how we can best prepare solo women travelers heading to India, Egypt, Kenya, and other places with high rates of harassment and assault? What are your responses to RoseChasm’s (or anyone else’s) iReport?
 
 
*Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of the University of Chicago, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, or any of its affiliated faculty or staff members. The views contained therein are solely the opinions of this author and should not be taken as representing the University of Chicago or any of its representatives.

The Think Finger of Self Defense

One day I was on the Delhi metro with my luggage.  I was standing next to a pole near the entrance to the train, guarding my belongings. I fully expected stares and leering, since (a) I was a white foreigner wearing local clothing traveling alone and (b) I had luggage with me—not exactly a common sight on the Delhi metro at the time. I had discovered through my own empirical testing over the past few months that if I turned towards my harasser and, with not a small amount of attitude, clearly said  in Hindi “Kyaa dekh rahe ho?!” (What are you looking at?!) roughly 90% of the time, the harasser would appear very embarrassed and would turn away, sometimes even mumbling back in Hindi something like  "Kuch naheen!" (Nothing!)  or "Naheen dekh raha..." (I wasn't looking!..) Inwardly I would always smile at this exchange. It felt like a mini-victory to me.  I bet you weren't expecting the gori (white girl) to know Hindi, were you? I would think to myself. When you are tired from daily harassment, you cherish these moments.

I decided to apply this strategy one-by-one to each and every man who stared during this metro ride. Most on the train turned away, apparently losing interest in staring at me the moment I turned towards them. Others waited until I spoke and then turned away without a word, visibly embarrassed. I used this phrase 5-6 times over the course of my 35-minute train ride. After almost every stop, there would be a new person who entered the train and began staring, so I kept applying this method. Until the last person. He was tall, hovering almost a foot above my 5’3” stature. And he stared, looking at my luggage and me, eyes following me up and down, taking in my Salwar top, scarf, and khakis. I waited, counting off 30 full seconds in my head before I turned toward him, met his gaze and firmly replied “Kyaa dekh rahe ho?!”

But this man was different. Unlike the others, my speech did not embarrass him—rather it seemed to make him more interested. He took a step towards me and leaned in, moving closer into my space. He stared through me with even more intensity and replied in English with a heavy accent “Oh, were you speaking Hindi? How do you know Hindi?...” The words were innocuous, but the intent behind them was anything but. Everything in my gut told me: This man is dangerous. My gut also told me something else: Don't respond to his questions. It's not safe. I made a choice then to actively change strategies. I stopped speaking to him and did not reply to any further attempts at conversation. I consciously and intentionally turned my head away from him to convey disinterest in conversation, but angled my body so that I could actively monitor him through my peripheral vision. The train car had started to empty out a bit, but I knew I was safe so long as I was on the train—still too many people around. My fear at that moment was that he would follow me to my stop, the more isolated Vidhan Sabha stop and exit with me. For what felt like an hour, but in reality was probably about 10 minutes, I watched him out of the corner of my left eye. I was out of his range—I knew he would have to take at least a step to grab my arm or make any other sort of threatening move. He continued to try to evince a verbal response out of me using aggressively coaxing tones, but he remained standing where he was out of range, and did not move any closer, so I continued to stand firmly and confidently without saying a word. I kept my muscles loose but tense, prepared to react with both my body and my voice if he came any closer. I alternated between forming a fist and a knife-hand weapon with my right hand—not because it is a practical self-defense move (it isn't!)—but because it made me feel strong and reminded me to breathe and focus. I held my belongings, but was prepared to drop them. Although he eventually quit trying to make conversation, this man never quit looking me up and down until he finally exited, just a few stops before my stop. As he left I breathed a sigh of relief, but did not let my guard down until after I reached the "safety" of outside. Needless to say I was quite shaken by this incident.

Intuition and the "Gift of Fear"
So what is the point of this story? I share this story to illustrate two important aspects I want to highlight from the Think "Finger" of Self-Defense. One is to trust your intuition. This man’s words were not threatening in content. He was not making lewd comments or actively threatening me. But my instincts and my intuition told me he was unstable in some way; he was unsafe. In self-defense scenarios, we often doubt our intuition. We think we are being irrational. We notice someone following behind us at night, but are afraid to turn around and face them for fear that they are innocent. We don’t want to be perceived as paranoid. We tell ourselves that logically everything appears safe, therefore we’re just paranoid; we’re over-reacting. But irrational fear is different from intuition. Intuition is an informed emotional reaction (a fear response) to a perceived threat; it is neither illogical nor paranoid. On a more subtle level a similar thing happens when people close to us use words to manipulate us. We may intuitively know we are being manipulated. But then our good friend Logic comes to our attacker's rescue and convinces us that there is no "rational" basis to what our intuition is telling us.

Let’s re-examine this scenario. I had discovered a verbal strategy that so far had been overwhelmingly successful for me in Hindi-speaking North India (Varanasi, Jaipur, and Delhi areas). And in fact I had successfully employed it several times in a row on that very same train. But in this once instance, it had the opposite of the desired effect. Rather than embarrass and discourage the harasser from leering, it encouraged and emboldened this man. Logically his words conveyed:  I am friendly. Talk to me. I am safe. Yet my intuition saw through the manipulation and correctly assessed otherwise: Something is different about him. He reacts differently (red flag!). Further if we examine his particular reactions, we see even more disturbing behavior. This man's body language changed, indicating interest. He turned towards me, took a step and leaned in, taking up some of my space (red flag!). He used seemingly friendly words but the affect was off. He was a little too interested in the fact that I had spoken in Hindi. My ears detected the intensity in his vocal tones that his careful choice of words tried to hide, and my eyes took in the intensity of his stare and his body language (red flag!). Based on these indicators—most of which were too subtle or too transient for me to form immediate rational judgments—my intuition then informed me that something was not right about this man and that my words had actually increased his interest in me. Intuition is a powerful tool we all have at our  disposal. If you want to learn more about how to use intuition  and "fear signals" as tools in Self Defense, I highly recommend Gavin de Becker's book The Gift of Fear.

You Can Always Change Strategies
The second aspect of Think I want to highlight from this story is that you can always change strategies. My intuition told me that my typical strategy had not worked on this man—on the contrary it encouraged him further! So I made the decision then to change strategies. I strategically chose active silence as my tool. I chose to stand firmly and confidently (not passively!) allowing his further queries to pass without response, waiting to see what he would do next. After a minute or so of  receiving no verbal response from me, he stopped speaking, apparently content to simply leer for the remainder of his ride.

This is a success story. This man was testing me, to see if I was a "good victim." He wanted to hook me into a conversation to observe me, seeing how I responded. I was targeted. Maybe he wanted to mug me. Maybe he wanted to convince me to come to his cousin-brother's shop to buy something (unlikely). Or maybe he wanted something much worse. My intuition told me not to comply, even to his demands to converse. After attempting to intimidate me both with his body language and tone, I responded with body language that clearly conveyed I was not a passive target and I would fight back. While it wasn't my intention at the time, the fact that I was forming a fist/knife-hand with my right hand probably helped communicate that as well. While in most instances I have found using your voice to set boundaries and clearly state what you want ("Leave me alone! Go away!") to be a very effective strategy in India, in this case, sensing that further verbal communication might actually escalate the situation, I changed strategies (**see disclaimer below!). I chose to wait to use my voice, deciding that if he crossed a physical boundary I would respond then both physically and verbally. I failed his "good-victim" test and he left me alone.

The Think Finger of Self Defense
Self Defense starts long before you raise a fist (or palm heel). It starts long before you are even in the situation. The First "Finger" in the Five Fingers of Self Defense is Think. On the surface level it is about 'thinking', about being aware of your surroundings: Where can I go nearby where there are more people around? Where is the closest policeman or police station (if that is a symbol of safety for you)? How can I increase the distance between me and the apparently drunk group of teenage boys leering at me from down the street? Is the man walking behind me meandering—as is more typical for Indian men—or is he speeding up to follow me more closely?  But there is also a deeper level of application. When traveling Think may involve taking steps to educate yourself about what behaviors are typical in that culture and what aren't so that you can notice anomalies like a local person might. If we actively inform our intuition by educating ourselves then our intuition will be based on rational assessments of our surroundings and of people's behavior and not based on blind fear. Think may involve learning a variety of tools and strategies that can be used and deciding ahead of time where your personal boundaries are, and when you would feel comfortable using a given strategy. Think might also consist of being aware of your emotional reaction while in uncomfortable situation (am I nervous or scared?—yep!) and choosing an active strategy to deal with your emotions (counting to 10, deep breathing, etc.). Think might start with the choice to use a particular strategy but then require the flexibility to change your mind about what strategy to use. The uncomfortable truth is that there is no one magical tool that will work for every situation. The good news is we all have many tools and strategies at our disposal, and we always have a choice to decide which one(s) to try in a given situation.

I shared an abbreviated version of the Delhi metro story with a group of women in a Self-Defense seminar in Delhi. I was assisting Pooja Agarwal with a 4-hour seminar for female employees of  Nucleus Software in Noida. I had trained with Pooja and her husband Rahul who is a fourth degree black belt (Yondan) and head of the the Noida branch of Seido karate (the same style I study in Chicago). Up until the point when I shared this story, I wasn't certain that these women took me seriously. After all, what can a white foreign woman understand of their daily experiences of harassment? Of being afraid to travel alone on overnight buses? Of being afraid to travel alone by rickshaw at night?  But there was one woman in the class, who had earlier shared with us a personal story she had experienced where she had tried on three separate occasions to report an attempted assault to the police (once by phone and twice in person) and had been thwarted by police incompetency and/or disinterest on all three occasions. She exclaimed to the class that women needed to take action into their own hands and that the only way to respond to harassment is basically to beat the snot out of every harasser. I watched to see how Pooja handled the situation. Pooja was supportive in her response to this woman, but followed up with a particularly powerful story offered to demonstrate how physically violent responses to harassment can escalate the situation and do not necessarily increase your safety. The story ended with the woman getting hit in the head with a beer bottle swung by the man she had just slapped for making lewd comments from a nearby table in a restaurant.

In the wake of their shocked silence following that story, I jumped in with the above story, hoping to also illustrate that not only is the most aggressive response not necessarily the safest response to harassment but also that sometimes you might need to change strategies along the way. My previous attempts to offer "success stories" from the US had landed flat with this crowd, so I decided to offer a personal story from my travels in India. As I began to tell this story I was shocked to realize these women were listening, apparently riveted. After I finished, I was met with applause. A disorienting experience to say the least. Now, I don't for a moment think that the applause was because I am a good story teller or because my success story was so compelling. But rather, in that moment because of sharing this highly personal experience and sharing how I used these tools that we had been talking about in the past two hours of class, I made a connection with these women. I was no longer just a foreigner assisting Pooja with the Self Defense class. I was also one of them, a fellow woman living with harassment who had successfully used the tools we were describing to keep herself safe.  All from the power of sharing this one experience—one of the most common experiences shared by Delhi women—namely, harassment on public transportation. But that's jumping to the Fifth Finger of Self Defense (the Tell finger), which I'll address more in a later post.

**Disclaimer: In this instance, I chose to avoid using my voice to interact with this harasser, but this may be a fairly rare case, even in South Asia. In every other situation I've (so far) encountered in India, I have found that using my voice to state clearly what I want ("Leave me alone! Go away!" or even "I'm not your girlfriend. Don't talk to me that way!")—especially if I raise my voice a little and insert a bit of Indian Auntie attitude—works much better. I would not generally recommend remaining silent as a strategy. It can be misinterpreted as passive, especially if your body language tells them you are feeling uncomfortable. I'll be discussing strategies for how to use your voice in a South Asian context in my next post on the Yell Finger.**

In the meantime, let's focus on the Think finger and how these principles might be applied to travel to South Asia. What are your thoughts? Anyone have a success story they want to share? 

Put pressure on the Indian government to protect women

I am taking a break from my regular posting to make a request of my readers. The recent events concerning the 30-year old American women who was gang-raped in Manali have disturbed me. While I am very grateful that the police and government chose to act quickly to barricade roads going in and out of Manali which allowed them to locate the vehicle where the rape took place and arrest those suspected, I know that the only reason the police acted in this fashion is because it was an American tourist. I have no illusions that had the victim been Indian anything of this nature would have been done. Likely the rapists would still be roaming free to repeat their violent acts against another woman.

This event gives us a unique opportunity. Because it was a US citizen who was attacked, those of us who are also US citizens can be justified in contacting the US Department of State and demand actions be taken to encourage the Indian government to protect American women, which in turn I hope will also serve to protect other foreigners and domestic women as well.

So I am starting a letter-writing campaign. I enjoin everyone who is a US citizen to please contact the  US Department of State requesting they act. If you are a citizen of another country, I ask that you please contact the equivalent agency in your country (whoever is responsible for travel-related concerns and travel safety for the citizens of your country) and ask them to act. If you are a reader from India or South Asia, I urge you to keep doing what you’re doing to convince your government to act to protect women! My hope is that if there is enough pressure from both within Indian and from outside to protect women in general, then the government may be embarrassed into doing something.

If you feel comfortable, you may even want to request your country issue a travel advisory for women traveling to India. Given that the percentage of foreigners traveling to India has already dropped 25%, and the percentage of  foreign women traveling to India has dropped 35% since the Delhi gang-rape made international news in December, a travel advisory just might embarrass the Indian government into doing what it should be doing in the first place: enforcing existing laws to protect women. I understand this is perhaps a controversial move.  However, being a realist, I know it is quite unlikely an advisory would actually be issued, so I see this request more as an opportunity to stress just how important this issue is to travelers so that the Department of State is more likely to at least do something, rather than nothing.

If anyone is wondering what they might say in this email communication, I am copying (part of!) the letter I sent to Secretary Kerry in the Department of State. Please feel free to use whatever from this message may be relevant for you. 

Dear Secretary Kerry,

I am a concerned US citizen who has worked and studied in India and traveled in India several times. I recently read that a US citizen gang-raped in Manali. This is sadly only one out of a series of gross acts of violence against foreign women in India. As female scholar and traveler, I have seen first-hand how US citizens who are female are routinely harassed, groped, and molested  in both public and private in India. I have also seen how little the Indian government and law enforcement does to protect women in India. It is clear that American women cannot trust the police or government in India to protect them and so I am writing to ask you to put greater pressure on government of India to do more to protect American women. 

I would also like to ask you to consider issuing a travel advisory for women traveling to India... which I believe would further encourage the Indian government to act to protect foreign (and hopefully domestic) women. 

Sincerely,

Erin H. Epperson

PhD Candidate, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations

University of Chicago

  

Upcoming series of posts: The Five Fingers of Self Defense

I apologize for the long break. I returned to Chicago recently from my travels in India and have needed some time to get re-settled and re-adjusted to living in the States. This break has been good for me, as I was starting to struggle with potential topics for future posts. Over the past month or so I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this blog—where it began, where it is going, what I have accomplished and what I hope to accomplish with it in the future. I am humbled by the support so many of you have given me (in-person and electronically) over the past month or so since this blog has become more widely circulated. The many conversations I have had with others about this blog and about the Self-Defense work I did in India have encouraged me to continue to be active in this work even while in Chicago, and have inspired me in new directions. My karate school in Chicago, where I serve as an assistant in the Violence Prevention program has been eager to hear about the work I did abroad. It occurred to me that since many of you following this blog may have only recently joined this conversation, some of you similarly may be interested to learn more about the Self-Defense work I did in India as well. I wrote a detailed summary about this work  for the May issue of my dojo’s bi-monthly newsletter, Kiai!, which I share here for your perusal. I also wrote an article for the December 2012 issue of Kiai! as well, reflecting on one of my experiences teaching Self-Defense in Sarnath. 

But now for something completely different. I wrote this post to introduce a new series of entries I am currently working on.  Rather than bog down the first entry in the series with a long introduction, I decided that the introduction of this concept deserved a post of it’s own. I’ve wanted for a while to share some of the insights I gained from teaching Self-Defense in India, and from talking with various women (Indians and foreign female travelers) about their experiences. I also want this blog to serve as a medium for those who have suffered from harassment and other forms of gender-based violence in India to feel safe to  share their experiences, and also to provide a forum for other experienced travelers to share their advice. 

To this end, I decided to embark upon a new format for a 5-part series of posts, based on the model of Self-Defense taught at my karate school, Thousand Waves (and Seido Noida in Delhi) called the “Five Fingers of Self Defense.” The five fingers are, in order: THINK, YELL, RUN, FIGHT, TELL.  Each finger represents a collection of skills and techniques that can be applied to any potentially violent situation. Some of the skills or techniques may overlap between one or more of the fingers so organization of the tools we teach may become confusing, but as a whole the model is helpful as a mnemonic device. As you can see, the Fight Finger is fourth and comes only after Think, Yell, and Run. This is intentional. We teach physical fighting as a last-resort, only to be used when all other methods have failed—a method which requires an active choice. The following five posts that follow will attempt to practically apply the “Five Fingers of Self Defense” to travel-based situations, in particular travel to South Asian countries. The reason for this is, as I have discovered, the tools and strategies we teach to students in Chicago need to be modified in order to be most useful for those traveling around in India and other parts of South Asia. Each of the following five entries will explore a different “Finger” of Self Defense, examining ways in which the skills and tools we teach in Chicago might be successfully applied to various situations in South Asia.

I will use this format as a springboard for discussing issues specific for safety of women traveling to South Asia, but which I also hope will be helpful for Indian men and women struggling to understand and deal with these issues as well. I welcome (and encourage) comments, suggestions, and feedback along the way. I hope that through this we can all work together to discuss issues, strategies, share stories, and support those who have suffered.  You may feel free to post with your name, under a pseudonym, or anonymously.   I do request that all comments or replies—especially replies to those brave enough to respond with their personal experiences—be supportive in nature. It is never supportive to tell someone who has suffered violence, no matter how “small,” that they “should have done X or Y thing.” That is not the point of this blog.  If there is a situation you regularly experience while in South Asia for which you are looking for suggestions or advice, please feel free to share that as well (but be sure to let us know you are requesting advice!). “Success stories” (stories about ways in which you successfully dealt with some form of harassment or violence, or strategies that helped you feel empowered) are particularly welcome. I hope that this blog will encourage more people to become ‘allies,’ speaking up for and supporting those who have experienced harassment and other forms of violence in South Asia.

Why should women come to India?

Over the past few months I have spent much time posting on sexual harassment, inequality, rapes and other gender-based violence in India. This has caused me a great deal of introspection. My focus throughout most of these posts has been to educate and to caution foreign female travelers about the potential risks and offer tools they can use to protect themselves while traveling. But all the while, I have neglected a question that creeps up from time to time among female friends and colleagues from the US, but also among female companions I have met while traveling in India. Given these issues, why should women come to India in the first place?

Each female traveler who has been to India (who wishes to return) is likely to have a different answer to this. I have heard some answer based on religious or spiritual grounds: such as  “This is the home of the Dalai Lama,” “India is where Buddhism began,” or even “India is the best place to study yoga/meditation/[insert practice here].” I have heard other women respond based on a desire to do meaningful NGO work, whether it be for ecological, educational, or gender-discrimination related issues, or other volunteer-oriented enterprises. Others still, respond from a more pragmatic career-oriented practical perspective, offering reasoning such as “India has the best libraries/institutions/scholars for X field of study.”  For simplicity, I myself have often given the latter of these as the “reason” why I come. Other women may choose to downplay instances of harassment and emphasize the more adventure-based opportunities (exciting, colorful, and noisy festivals, beautiful landscapes, trekking opportunities, etc.).  Most travelers I have talked to would certainly highlight affordability (compared to 1st-world standards) as important for the choice of India.  And many women would probably cite more than one of the above reasons as important for their decision to come to (or return to) India. Many women travelers (whether intentional or not) may travel in groups or with a male companion and thus avoid the bulk of harassment issues, but for the purposes of this article I focus on the experiences of lone female travelers.

All of these above reasons to coming to India have in common one common assumption: the good (the potential benefits gained by visiting Indian) outweighs the bad (harassment, etc.). In other words, harassment and discrimination can be ignored because the opportunities India has to offer outweigh the risks. In other words, experiences of harassment and discrimination are necessarily minimized by female travelers in order to support and justify their reasons for coming/returning. My first post in this blog began with such an instance—a female traveler from Belgium who nearly succeeded in completely blocking out from her memory a recent disturbing experience of sexual harassment and gave a narrative describing India as a place where “harassment isn’t really  a big deal.” I have likewise met numerous female scholars and students who told me that harassment is simply a part of being female in India, a "rite of passage” that foreign women have to experience before eventually feeling ‘comfortable’ in India. Several among these women conveyed to me a certain amount of pride for successfully enduring these experiences. In other words, if you are a female and want to come (let alone return) to India for work/studies, the ability to endure harassment is almost considered a prerequisite; female scholars should toughen up and not let pesky things like harassment bother them. These views function as a sort of defense mechanism, allowing women to temporarily tolerate the experience of harassment in order to do what they came to India to do. But like all defense mechanisms, they are temporary solutions at best and unhealthy in the long-run. In her book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010),  Holly Kearl devotes several chapters to discussing the context in which harassment occurs (fear of rape, gender inequality, and it's combination with other forms of discrimination) as having a significant impact on how street harassment impacts women.  For anyone inclined to minimize their own or anyone else’s experience of street harassment as “no big deal” and/or something not worth being concerned about, I highly recommend in particular Chapters two and three from this book.

The demerits of these kinds of dismissive attitudes are evident. Dismissing harassment as something which women “should” get used to is demeaning. Studies of harassment around the world  (I refer you to Holly Kearls’ book among many others) show that the long-term effects of harassment do not necessarily stem from individual isolated instances of harassment, but from the repetitive and pervasive nature of these experiences and from the fact that harassment occurs in the context of both gender inequality and a pervasive fear of rape. I hope that my personal experience of street harassment can be instructive in this way. Whenever I would initially return to India, I would have a honeymoon phase where everyone seems friendly and even the actions of harassers seem meaningless and trivial. But as the weeks (or sometimes merely days) pass, I would start to feel the impact more and more. I started making small choices designed to minimize harassment, such as limiting how often I would walk alone in public. I found riding a bike to in Sarnath freeing, not as much because of the speed or the exercise (which were both exhilarating), but because it was much more difficult for men to harass you while they also are trying to keep their balance and avoid collisions on a bike! The few attempts to do so resulted in embarrassing near-collisions (on their part—not mine!), which I took to be adequate punishment for attempted harassment. I found myself gradually choosing to avoid walking around in public places and felt relief whenever I realized I did not need to leave the guest house on a given day. From conversations with other women, I know that I was not alone in choosing to react this way. One white foreign woman I know admitted that she grew so tired of harassment that eventually she gave up on going out in public without her husband or family with her. Simply stated, harassment impacts women greatly in the long-run and it is neither practical nor necessarily healthy to minimize experiences of street harassment. So if ignoring or ‘toughening up’ is not necessarily a practical solution then how can we encourage women who travel to come to India?

One female traveler from Germany recently told  me (regarding harassment) “I love India, but I don’t always like Indians.” I have heard this type of response numerous times from female travelers and it is a perspective that at times of great frustration I too have felt affinity for. But embedded in this statement there two fallacious assumptions regarding harassment in India which need to be addressed.

Fallacy # 1 – a large percentage of men in India will harass women.
Actually, in my experience the percentage is quite small. There is undoubtedly a larger percentage of men (left un-addressed here) who may in fact side with victim-blaming attitudes, but among those, very few will openly harass women in public. When I enter a subway train in Delhi, although covered modestly in local clothing, I feel tension from the perception of unwanted stares and glares. But when I look at the percentage of men in a given subway car packed with 70-80 people, maybe only two or three are openly looking at me, and out of those 2-3, if confronted (by me) for their behavior, only one may remain unembarrassed and unapologetic. We are looking at a percentage of men (among Delhi male subway riders) of perhaps under 2%. In Sarnath also, while I was harassed several times daily on the way to and from the university, while 4-5 boys or men may have been the cause, I passed (or was passed by) several hundred more along the way who left me alone. Why then does it seem like a much larger number than it is? One is of course perception. When you become aware of harassment, you feel self-conscious, which increases the intensity of the experience. When harassment becomes a repeated experience, that self-consciousness increases and everyone becomes a potential harasser. At least twice while in Sarnath, I initially ignored people who approached me because I was anticipating harassment. In the first case, it was a kind man who had noticed my headphones had fallen out of my pocket and were dragging on the ground. The second time was actually another foreigner who was asking directions. Both times, I felt embarrassment at having prejudged them (incorrectly). But the point is, I initially ignored them because I had found that to be the safest way to avoid or minimize interactions with harassers—in other words the percentage of harassers felt sufficiently high to warrant antisocial or even rude behavior. The numbers always feel higher than they are.   The other reason is the population of India. Since street harassment is highly understudied, it is difficult to obtain statistics of percentages of men who admit to harassing women, but even if we take a percentage as low as 1% of the male population of India to be harassers, in a country of 628.8 million males (see 2012 census), 1% amounts to 6.28 million persons, which while a small percentage is still a large number of people, especially in larger cities. If we suppose a higher percentage, such as 10%, the number of harassers is of course astounding (62.8 million). While in 2012, reports indicate 78% of women in Delhi were harassed in 2012 (see this report), I would argue that it is unlikely this harassment was conducted by a majority of Delhi’s male residents. Simply put, India has a huge population, so even if a percentage as small as 1% or as large as 10% of men will harass you, it feels like a large percentage because it is a large number of people. Should a country be abandoned because a small minority of men harass women? Certainly these percentages of people engaging in bigotry and mistreatment of others can be found in any western country, the US included. If we consider discrimination and bullying levied at lesbian, gay, bi, or transgender people, Muslims (or even those simply ‘appearing’ Muslim or Arab), people with mental illness, and many other groups, the US doesn’t come out looking so good. For instance, some recent statistics on the bullying of gays in schools indicate that “about 9 out of 10 LGBT teens have reported being bullied at school within the past year because of their sexual orientation. Out of those numbers, almost half have reported being physically harassed followed by another quarter who reported actually being physically assaulted” (see this article). Reports indicate that in the workplace also, 90% of gays received some form of harassment or discrimination on the job in 2011. (see this report ).  But does this mean that gays, Muslims, and other targeted groups should avoid the US out of fear of discrimination or ill-treatment?  If we take the part (male harassers in India) to represent the whole (male population of India) we succumb to the informal fallacy known as “fallacy of composition.” Likewise, if we take the fact that some Indian men harass women to indicate that Indian men in general are horrible people, we commit the logical mistake known as “ecological fallacy.”

Fallacy #2 – Harassment is simply an accepted part of Indian culture
Next is the assumption that India and it’s residents (male included) want India to remain this way. Anyone who paid attention to International news in December and January will have noted that countless Indians across the country rallied for weeks, protesting the Delhi gang rape, and clamoring for greater enforcement of (and revision of rules) concerning sexual harassment and sexual assault.  The citizens care. That much is certain. While there are plenty of people in power (including religious clergy and politicians) granted air-time and/or print-space in media who espouse victim-blaming attitudes, recent protests and recent handling of these types of statements in media has shown that these views are controversial and no longer necessarily the majority view. Even before this incident, in numerous cities there have been women’s right’s organizations and other NGOs working to combat street harassment and sexual assault (Safe Delhi, Blank Noise, among others come to mind). Several of these NGOs exist to educate the public and to give women tools to combat discrimination, harassment and even sexual assault. In Delhi, there are women-only train cars for subways and there is a move to create women-only taxis as well. I have recently served as a coordinator between Thousand Waves’s Violence Prevention program  in Chicago, IL  and Seido Karate Noida’s  Violence Prevention and outreach programs in Noida and other parts of Delhi. Programs like this exist in India just as they do in the US and are growing. So why haven’t these reform movements ‘fixed’ the problem? There are numerous challenges that make reform difficult.  India is a vastly diverse place. Over 75% of the population still live in villages, rather than cities, and have less access to TV, computers, and other media which enable reform movements to impact a society quickly. Secondly, India is still very much a region-based country. I have often commented that going to a different state India feels like going to a new country. With various regions and regional identities competing for power, any country-wide change will be slow. However if we take the slowness to be an indicator that people do not want change, we dis-empower those individuals who are working hard to create the change us foreigners speak of. By misrepresenting and mis-characterizing India as a whole in this way, we fall into the fallacy of the “Straw Man” argument.

But perhaps those two counter-arguments are insufficient. A female traveler could argue that even given all this, if a woman knows her experience in India may be uncomfortable and she is almost guaranteed to face harassment of some sort, then why should she go to India? Why not another place? Why is India worth the risk?

For this, I only offer my own anecdotal response. Other women will doubtlessly have different answers. But mine is this: While some may choose to avoid India because of the people, for me, the best reason to come to India is because of the people. The relationships I have formed with individuals and families here in India alone to me makes it worth it. When I returned to India this trip (Sept 2012) and realized I was bringing as many gifts for friends here in India as I imagined I’d be bringing back to the US, I had the realization that India too has become my home, and I have “family” here as well. In all these cases, my family was 'earned' without a male companion. I have never been mistreated or discriminated against in any way by these people on the basis of my gender, nor do I believe I ever will be. For me, travel is always about the people—learning about the language and the culture through interacting with people. The amount of hospitality, kindness and generosity that I have experienced in India far exceeds the amount of harassment, and mistreatment I have experienced. For me, I would in fact argue that the good outweighs the bad—statistically and otherwise. But for me this is not about minimizing the experience of harassment, it is about accepting that there is a problem and having open, honest discussions about these issues with other people (domestic and foreign) in order to create change. I also choose to work in other ways towards change by coordinating with local violence prevention programs and by teaching individual women skills along the way. I choose to have discussions with other foreign tourists to provide the space for them to share and process their experiences. And I choose to write publicly  to share the experiences of myself and others, to give victims a voice and a safe space to process. 

What are your thoughts on this issue?