Responding to harassment from acquantainces and professional contacts while traveling

In previous posts, I've focused almost exclusively on interactions with strangers, ignoring the quite common form of harassment many women face while traveling in South Asia (and for that matter, wherever they are in the world): sexual harassment by acquaintances, colleagues, and professional contacts made while traveling. 

The risks of 'immersion'

When traveling in a place foreign to us, as I have discovered, it is easy for common sense to fly out the window. There are so many things around that can distract us from our senses and our intuition—our easiest means for judging whether or not we are at risk. And to an extent, as travelers we may want to be distracted. We may sincerely want to feel out of our element so that we can more deeply immerse ourselves in the foreign culture. Or, at least I do. This experience of immersion and distraction from our own views and presuppositions is one of the many reasons I love to travel and meet with new people.  

There is, however, a risk to this attempted immersion. Especially if we are uncertain of the cultural norms, it can be easy to become so 'immersed' that we may ignore the signals that our bodies tell us when something is wrong. We may misinterpret social cues as benign which would ordinarily register as being "red flags", signals that we should pay attention and increase our awareness. For this reason—and for many others which will be addressed below—setting boundaries for contacts you meet while abroad can be more challenging.

Many who attend our Empowerment Self Defense courses at Thousand Waves in Chicago report that they find boundary-setting more difficult when it is directed toward a friend, colleague, family member, or other intimate person. While many Americans in particular—especially those of us from the South or more rural Midwest—struggle with guilt over coming across as “rude” or “impolite” when conversing with strangers who violate boundaries, there is sometimes an even greater social pressure experienced when people we know push those same boundaries. Setting boundaries for colleagues, friends and loved ones can be more challenging for many people, even those quite adept at setting limits for complete strangers! 

I am one of those people. 

I was raised on the south-east coast of Virginia, a delightfully urban area only a 30-minute drive from the nearest rural areas in the state. I was taught to be polite, wave, and smile at strangers—which I still enjoy doing even in Chicago, to the annoyance of more than a few passersby! Quickly learning that smiling at strangers was far from the norm in India, I saved my smiles and friendliness for those I had a chance to converse with first. From living in Chicago, and eventually from traveling in India, I learned to set limits quickly and efficiently with strangers, both with my voice and body language. The same was not the case for acquaintances. 

When I was a beginning student of Tibetan and Hindi languages, I strove to practice these languages while traveling, by speaking in Tibetan/Hindi as appropriate with scholars, language tutors and other professional contacts, hotel workers, taxi and rickshaw drivers, and with anyone else I had the chance to meet. This practice created for me an incredible amount of opportunities to have meaningful conversations with a variety of persons across the spectrum of gender, ethnicity, caste, class, education, religion, etc. as I traveled throughout India.  This practice has served me well over the years as a grad student and researcher. I have met many incredible people in India, and forged life-long friendships with more than a few. I love traveling around South Asia and have no regrets about my choice to be open and friendly towards potential friends and colleagues while traveling. 

However, one of the most basic facts of Self Defense is that—no matter our gender, no matter our age—we are much more likely to encounter violence from someone we know than from a complete stranger. And just as gender-based violence from strangers often begins with smaller, and sometimes more subtle forms of violence (such as staring, catcalling, invasion of personal space) and escalates to larger forms (i.e. stalking, attempting groping on through groping, sexual assault, rape, battery, etc.), so does violence perpetrated by people we know.

For me, while I struggled daily with street harassment which threatened to wear me down emotionally on a regular basis, it was the persistence and prevalence of acquaintance-harassment which I found to be the more difficult challenge throughout my travels. 

While this kind of experience may be common knowledge among scholars trained in ethnography (or alternately for those with personal experience traveling and enduring harassment from contacts abroad), this experience is not commonly discussed among academic women outside of private conversations. This post, in part, aims to serve as a beginning attempt to discuss the obstacles female students and scholars face, which socially and perhaps professionally hinder us from addressing these issues.

When a conversation partner turns harasser... 

In one of my research sites, there was a local Tibetan man who worked at a restaurant attached to my guest house. I made it a habit of speaking in Tibetan while in Tibetan-run establishments and in Hindi while in North Indian-run establishments. I will call him Dorjee. 

Our relationship started out friendly and amicable. He would approach my table at the restaurant whenever I dropped by for tea, and strike up conversation, which I enjoyed. It was a relief for him to speak to a foreigner in Tibetan and a relief to me to have someone with whom to practice my Tibetan. Then, gradually his behaviors over the weeks started escalating. 

I was sitting in the restaurant one day. I had briefly chatted with Dorjee in Tibetan while ordering food. After finishing my meal, he returned to chat some more. He joked around with me verbally pretending to mishear me. I had called him “chok tsa po” (funny) which he pretended to mishear as “chu tsa po” (hot water) and so he proceeded jokingly to ask the kitchen for hot water. While his language was playful, something in his tone caught my attention and I began to feel uncomfortable. I played along with the joke anyway, and corrected him saying “No, chok tsa po.” After this exchange however, I started to find him considerably less funny.  

As I left the restaurant Dorjee asked me where I was heading. I answered succinctly in Tibetan “my room. ” He said “ok” and proceeded to follow me closely in a joking manner up the stairs from the restaurant  towards my room.  Confused, I asked him what he was doing. He replied "Going to your room." Realizing he was, in part, playing on a linguistic particularity of Tibetan (my first answer could have also been translated as "[we] are going to my room"), but wanting to set a boundary immediately,  I turned to face him and firmly said in Tibetan "I am going to my room. You are not going!"  He pretended to finally 'catch on' and  stopped following me.  I retreated to the safety of my room and promptly blocked out my reactions to Dorjee's behavior out of my mind. After all, I had more important things to worry about, like doing research for my dissertation!

More disturbing, however, was what happened half an hour later.  I was heading out to go to a coffee shop to do some work. I was on the phone with my partner so I was distracted. Dorjee grabbed my backpack from behind to slow me down and again in his joking manner asked where I’m going. Still not recognizing Dorjee's behavior as harassment, I answered honestly that I’m heading to a coffee shop to do some work. He continued to hold on to my backpack 'playfully'. It didn't feel very playful to me. I was so surprised that I forgot temporarily how to say “let go!” in Tibetan, so said it loudly and firmly in English. I switched to Tibetan and told him just as firmly that I needed to go and that I was on the phone. He then apologized and backed off.  I played it off in my mind as “just playing around” and “harmless” and explained it as such to my partner on the phone who had overheard only parts of the exchange. It wasn't until the next day that I recognized this collectively as aggressive, harassing, and controlling behavior.

A week or so later, on one cold day—a very cold day—I walked into the restaurant for some tea. Dorjee approached me asking me “Tsa po goe”? (Want something hot?) Forgetting the alternate meaning of tsa po in Tibetan (sexually hot or cold), I wasn’t sure what to make of this strangely phrased sentence. I decided to reply with my order of hot chai and momos. He took my order and then returned to my table and repeated the phrase “Tsa po goe”?  I knew at that point that he was trying to tease or play at something but it wasn’t until the third time that he repeated the phrase that I realized he was propositioning me. My initial reaction was embarrassment at the realization that a) I had just missed sexual innuendo in his first statement and b) he was saying something so sexually aggressive to me. Flushing with embarrassment, I made eye contact and glared at him solidly for about 5 seconds to indicate how I felt about his question, said something along the lines of “Not you! Go away” in Tibetan, and pretended to ignore him by burying myself in the book I had brought. Dorjee left me alone for the rest of the day.  I decided to avoid the restaurant after that day. 

I returned to the restaurant only one other time after that incident, about a month or so later. I had decided to move to a different guest house, but one night I had a craving for their pizza (it can be so hard to get good pizza in India), so I went to the restaurant. Seeing Dorjee there, I remained standing by the counter and placed my order to go. I pretended to be uninterested in conversing with him (which wasn't difficult at this point!). He asked why I wasn't sitting down. I politely but firmly replied (in Tibetan) that I'd rather eat in my room. He asked if I was staying at the place next door and I shook my head no, but refused to answer the implied question, again pretending to be uninterested in conversation. When the food was ready, I took it to my guest house room and ate alone in blessed silence, feeling relieved. 

So why did I hesitate to respond in these situations? Those who know me well have probably seen much more assertive (and possibly aggressive) responses from me when I feel my boundaries (or someone elses') are being violated. 

I have spent quite a lot of time thinking through these experiences, and others, recalling what I felt at the time, and in particular, what discouraged me from reacting. One challenge was that my mental energy was tied up, trying to communicate in Tibetan. I was so focused on the immersion experience, on trying to communicate that I lost touch with my body. For me, the process of foreign language immersion made it more difficult for me to be in touch with my body and instincts, which were telling me Dorje's behavior was aggressive. 

In the case of professional contacts while traveling (interviewees, language tutors, scholars, etc.), there is potentially the additional complication of wanting or needing something from that person. There may be some reason why we may feel we need to maintain that professional relationship despite the abusive behavior. Much like harassment experienced in the traditional workplace, we may feel uncomfortable responding to harassing behavior because we perceive the other as having power over us. Others simply fear cultivating a reputation in the workplace for appearing "rude" or "oversensitive."

There is a similar phenomena, I think, that occurs when traveling, especially for those interested in immersion experiences. It is easy to focus so much on showing "respect" for the culture we forget to protect ourselves. Assuming that the behaviors that make us uncomfortable are accepted in the foreign culture, we avoid speaking out, for fear of offense. 

It is easy to forget that just as every American in the moment is not necessarily expressing American cultural values (and may in fact be transgressing them!), the same goes for persons of every other culture. Harassment and violence may manifest differently in different cultures, but that doesn't mean they are accepted by the mainstream culture. South Asian women speak out daily against harassment, so why shouldn't I? Perhaps more importantly, if speaking out is what I feel I need to do to feel safe, then shouldn't I do that anyway, regardless of what I assume to be "culturally appropriate behavior"?   

Over the years I've learned to accept the risk of appearing "rude" towards someone who is violating my boundaries wherever in the world I am. But every once in a while, a new situation emerges—such as this one—where I am just distracted just enough that I don't recognize the behavior for what it is: harassment. And I have to remind myself that I too am only human and will make mistakes on one side or the other as I progress through life. 

Cultivating cross-gender relationships while traveling

I've thought a lot about the gendered aspects of interactions while traveling. Certainly it is more likely in South Asia than in the U.S. that even polite conversation across genders will be misinterpreted as sexual interest (or more accurately, assumed to indicate sexual interest). Should I then avoid conversations with male strangers while traveling—which my male-identified colleagues may not have to do—and thus disadvantage myself as a female scholar? Throughout India, even today it is still more common to see more men in public than women (and to rarely see women in public alone). Should I disadvantage myself by limiting access to conversation partners? As a woman, I am already restricted in terms of safe physical access to public (and private) space. The options many of my male colleagues take advantage of without question (taking local buses in large cities, traveling alone at night, etc.) do not feel like safe options for me. Should I restrict myself in the socially as well by limiting access to professional and/or social contacts? 

Or, perhaps more importantly, isn't even the assumption that I should avoiding interacting with men in public a form of gender-based discrimination? Is it fair to judge an entire gender-identity (even within one country) based on the actions of a few? 

I've endured harassment (and worse) from men I've cultivated 'relationships' with over my travels. But there are countless other men (and women) I've cultivated relationships with—professional and personal—who have been respectful, supportive and empowering: male scholars who treat me as a professional peer, women who have offered rides without demanding anything in return, men and women who sincerely want to chat and exchange stories about experiences traveling, and men and women who I consider to be my family abroad. 

There are risks in any relationship you cultivate—with persons of any gender—whether at home or abroad. Most relationships will not devolve as mine did. But some might. I share these reflections in the hope that other travelers might feel empowered to cultivate healthy relationships with a variety of people as they travel—and feel empowered to weed out the unhealthy ones as well! 

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!

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.

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?

Recent narratives on rape in India: responses to the Delhi Gang rape

Originally the purpose of this blog was to provide resources for female travelers who visit (or want to visit) countries like India which are known for street harassment problems and create a space for them to discuss issues and share their experiences. Until recently, my posts have been tailored rather specifically to that aim and thus have talked most about ‘videsi’ (foreigner) issues and have rarely addressed the issue  of street harassment or rape of Indian women. Given the events of the past few weeks, as a (junior) scholar and activist dedicated to women’s rights causes, I feel this blog now must expand to serve a larger purpose—to educate others on the more general situation regarding all women in India, desi (local) and videsi. 

Over the past 2-3 months since I arrived in India late September, I have noticed a steady rise in the reports of rape in India. For a couple weeks in October, the local news headlines centered on a series of unrelated rapes in West Bengal and on Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee’s response to these rapes (and her response to media coverage of the rapes). It was clear to me at that time that in India people are still very divided regarding how they attribute blame in the event of rape. There are currently at least two competing narratives used to speak about rape in India. One narrative is advocated by activists and women’s rights groups such as Blank Noise and Safe Delhi which seek to educate men and women on issues of sexual harassment (‘eve-teasing’ as it is usually called in English-language Indian media) and the harm it does to women. Not unlike violence prevention programs found in Europe and the US, the narrative promoted by these groups places the burden of responsibility for harassment (and rape) on men. The different ways in which sexual harassment manifests in India is enumerated. Statistical information is offered, demonstrating how women are harassed or molested in clothing ranging from full ‘desi’ (salwar-kamize with dupatta, burka, saree, etc.) to ‘Western’-style clothing (jeans, skirt, etc.) and are harassed or molested at all times of day or night. This evidence serves as counter-evidence to the opposing narrative (which I discussed more fully in my post on Chief Minister Banerjee) which asserts that if a woman is harassed or raped, she must have done something ‘wrong.’  This narrative is promoted in ways ranging from the subtle to overt. More subtle promotions include the persistent habit of news reports describing exactly what the female victim was wearing at the time, whether she was out late at night and whether or not she was drinking. More overt promotions can be found in  statements openly condemning the actions of a victim immediately prior to her attack. Discussing a molestation one blogger for the Times of India reported the following conversation while on a Delhi-bound train from Assam:

As the train’s attendants came with a fresh supply of bottled mineral water, the conversation turned to the Guwahati molestation case of July 9 this year when 15 men were caught on TV pouncing on a teenaged girl outside a bar as one of the goons whipped out his camera to record it for titillation and posterity.

“But what was the girl doing so late in the night?” asked the Air Force officer in the traveling group. From Ghaziabad but working in Guwahati, he went on, “Apparently she was drunk and was flirting with some men in the pub. Shouldn’t she be probed for loose character?” Some heads had already begun to nod in agreement when another passenger, by now red with rage, said, “Next time someone grabs your sister’s bottom, the police should first investigate whether she’s morally sound.” No one spoke to each other the rest of the journey as the sullen group waited impatiently to disembark at New Delhi.

These types of victim-blaming response are far from rare in India. I have already written on Chief Minister Banerjee’s recent remarks of a similar nature regarding the rise of rapes (and media coverage of the rapes) in West Bengal in October 2012.  The essence of this narrative is clear. Women who behave properly (do not smoke or drink or go out at night) and who dress properly (modest Indian clothing rather than ‘Western’ clothing) will not be harassed or raped. If a women is raped, it is because either she violated one or more of those moral codes or (in the absence of such evidence) or is asserted the victim had a “relationship” with the attacker or one of the attackers and is therefore at fault. In April 2012 Lakshmi Chaudhry wrote this article summarizing a series of interviews of Delhi police regarding their views and responses to rape. It is interesting to note that the exposé upon which this article was based, which was publically available online as recent as October 18, 2012 has since been removed and did not seem to be available in the news archives.  These victim-blaming narratives are certainly not limited to India. June 28, 2010 this anti-victim-blaming TV advert was aired in Scotland in response to a government study conducted in February 2010 reported a surprising percentage of Scottish people attribute at least partial blame to a female victims of rape if she was either drinking, wearing revealing clothing, flirting or  “known to have had many sexual partners.”

The past few weeks have witnessed a colossal upheaval  among the Indian people over the horrifically violent rape of a 23-year old female physiotherapy student in Delhi. The two competing narratives have now come to the forefront of media attention in India.  The general outline of the crime is as follows. The 23-year old girl and her male friend had gone to see a movie which let out 8:30pm. By 9 or so they were waiting for a public bus to head home. A group of six boys including one minor had been drinking and decided to go “joyriding.” They rented out a private bus, and drove around South Delhi, posing as a Delhi public bus. The minor posed as a fare collector and invited the couple on the bus. Thinking it to be a public bus, the couple boarded the bus and within five minutes the couple was harassed, the women subsequently taken to the back of the bus  to be raped repeatedly and viciously beaten. Her male companion who had tried to defend her was also severely beaten. The two were stripped naked and dumped outside and found not too long later and rushed to the emergency room. Based on statements from the male friend, the bus was identified and the majority of the attackers were rounded up and arrested within the same night. The victim recovered temporarily a few days later, but remained in intensive care and underwent several surgeries. Her health has wavered between stable and critical since. As of late night December 26, she was rushed on a plane to Singapore for emergency surgery for internal bleeding. 

This crime, known in Indian newspapers the “Delhi gang rape” has stirred a nation to response. Within three days of the rape, protests began at India gate (New Delhi) demanding “justice” in the form of hangings for the rapists. The protests turned violent as scuffles between angry protestors and police began. Policemen fired water cannons at the protesters and several protestors were injured. One police died during the protests, apparently due to a heart attack, although investigations are still underway. Two days ago a new “women’s helpline” emergency number (“181”) has been created in Delhi in response to the gang rape and recent protests. Police have cleared protestors away from India Gate at least twice and closed several metro stations nearby to prevent others from joining the protests. Protests have spanned India from various states in the south up through Himachal Pradesh. The demands of protestors does not appear to be unified, but what is clear is that the protestors are dissatisfied with the way the Indian government has handled issues of women’s safety and treated previous cases of rape and are demanding “justice.” Safety of women in  Delhi, which even prior to this case (as of June 2012 according to a Times of India article) was known as India’s “rape capital” has been of great concern over the past few years. The creation of women-only subway and train cars has been argued to be insufficient. In Delhi, the protests center around issue of safety for women and the The public is clamoring for change. Many protestors carry signs arguing that the rapists should be given the death sentence (such as “Rapists should be hanged”). Other protestors sport signs indicating their concern for social change (“Real Men Don’t Rape”).  The argument made in support of the death sentence is that if the attackers are sentenced to death, this will serve as a deterrent for future rapists.   In response to reports that the victim “fearlessly” remained “fearless”  and “composed” while reporting the event to police and officials when she first regained consciousness, The TOI (The Times of India) gave the victim the pseudonym ‘Nirbhaya’ (Hindi for ‘fearless’) and has continued to use that name as a place-holder for the victim in all news reporting, evidencing an obvious bias in favor of the victim. In this article the TOI describes the victim as follows,

But Nirbhaya, as TOI has named the 23-year-old, survived. Ten days on since the gang rape on December 16, she remains alive, even if precariously, but not as a vegetable on a hospital bed. The assault wrecked her body but has left her spirit tightly coiled. Her survival so far has depended on emergency operations, blood transfusions and ventilator support, but in her wakeful moments — even when dosed with morphine — Nirbhaya has never lacked clarity of mind, or a sense of purpose.

In her statement before an SDM last Friday, Nirbhaya reportedly gave a precise and detailed account of the assault which DCP (south) Chhaya Sharma described as "fearless and bold". Although police wanted her to respond with signs to a questionnaire, so as to not stress her out, she insisted on giving the details. 

Doctors attending to her say she is fired by a resolve to bring the six men to book. Early last week, when she was not allowed to speak, Nirbhaya scribbled a note for her family: "Mujhe bacha lo, mein jeena chahti hoon (save me, I want to live)". The same evening her entire intestine was removed as it had turned gangrenous. 

When she regained consciousness next morning, Thursday, Nirbhaya worried about her lost ATM cards and alerted her family to block them. "We have never seen such injuries, especially in a sexual assault case, (yet) she has immense fighting spirit," remarked Dr BD Athani, medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, where she is admitted.

The tone of this newspaper article, which reads more like a travelogue, clearly evidences the sympathetic response predominantly conveyed in media. However, does sympathy towards the victim and desire for “justice” indicate a changing attitude towards rape victims and a reversal of previous victim-blaming narratives? It seems rather to be the case that public narratives addressing the issue of blame continue to be bifurcated. 
In an article discussing a group of schoolchildren’s responses to the Delhi gang rape case, a TOI correspondent writes,

A group of youngsters gathered to discuss sexual violence against women think hanging is too good for rapists. "Tarpana chahiye (they should suffer)," says a teenage girl. They may be children but their experiences are 'adult' ones - they've been harassed aboard public transport, molested in markets, been whistled at and felt up. They blame "mentality" for all of it…. 

...One teenaged boy made himself very unpopular by suggesting Sunday's incident wasn't entirely the men's fault. "She had also gone out to watch a movie and didn't tell her parents," he'd said and was instantly shouted down by the others. Most of the other boys felt girls should be allowed the freedom to go where they please. "Would it have changed anything if she had informed her parents? Or if she had taken the bus on the way back from work and not from a movie?" asked the rest.

This article seems to indicate that among this group of children addressed, victim-blaming responses are far from the norm. However, more critical responses include those of Andhra Pradesh Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana who is reported to have argued December 24th,

"Just because India achieved freedom at midnight does not mean that women can venture out after dark. They should ensure that they do not board buses with few passengers," Botsa said to the shock of reporters at a press conference at Congress headquarters here.

Botsa's comment came in context of growing protests against the gang-rape and violence against women in general. He then tried to cover up for his remark by praising Sonia. "Although it (Delhi gang-rape) was a minor incident, Soniaji made it a point to meet the protesters when they called on her," Botsa said. 

There was no stopping Botsa as he continued, "The woman should have thought twice before boarding the suspicious private bus that night. Though the incident was condemnable, she should also have behaved keeping in mind the situation."

What is clear so far that there has been a raising of public consciousness regarding issues of rape and harassment in India. Competing narratives for who ultimately is to blame continue to persist openly, however the predominant narrative of victim-blaming is being debated openly, perhaps for the first time in India. Since news regarding ‘Nirbhaya’ continues to dominate the front pages of Indian newspapers and lagre-scale protests continue as of today, it is likely that the coming weeks will see further changes in the narratives surrounding victims of rape. I will do my best to update with a new post when that time comes.