It's All About Me

Be a Strong Female, You Will Not Need the Permission

This article is not aimed at any section of men or women in general. There is no intention to offend anyone or hurt anyone at large. If you do feel offended or hurt, then you should be of the same school of thoughts about which I am addressing here.

I have wanted to talk about this issue for a long time. The voices of my friends in this article, I see as the voice of the majority in the society. It is high time I talk about this.

Very recently, I was given an assignment.

It was to take up an issue that affects our lives and to come up with a solution for the problem based on the research we conducted.

My team mates and I worked on the problem of Women's safety in the area where we lived in.

We came up with an idea to start a helpline which primarily would consist of men who would be ready to provide us with their numbers so that when women were sexually harassed and saw no way to escape, they would be able to dial our helpline so we would be able to connect them to the guys who would be able help these women at the earliest.

For this, we distributed questionnaires and I also had it circulated to my male friends. I thought men these days really respect women and they don't blame our "type of dressing" for the increasing rate of rapes. But, guess what I was welcomed with as a response from one of male friends (assume his name was Rahul).

He said, "You women already have a lot of rights! Why do you want all this?"

The guy whom I thought was someone who believed in equality told me this, and I was petrified.

Like yeah, not every man who has a beard and owns a d*** is a man.

We had a little argument about this in a public place and I told him about an incident when I was groped by an old man in public. I clearly explained everything to him; that only because of the existence of such 'people', we are finding a necessity to form helplines like these.

And yet again his reply made my blood run cold "you should have moved aside. Don't blame him. It could have been an accident"

Excuse me; a girl knows when she is being groped accidently and when she is being groped intentionally. Do not tell us what to do when you cannot even sway your finger for us!

I retorted to what he told "grow some boobs and be a female, you'll know our struggles and at least then you'll stop saying that we should move away."

And guess what, he got offended just because I asked him to grow some boobs and be a female, because we are obviously considered to be the weaker sex in the society and how insulted a guy would feel when he was being called a female. How demeaning? How shameful! I just called you a female! You should probably go fuck yourself!

Note-I did not call him a female, men like him; they don't deserve to be even compared to us. It would demean the entire female population if we ever called a man, a woman. Remember girls, no man can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Two of my girl friends were a part of this argument. One of my friends(assume her name was Tina) got embarrassed because I was using words like "Boobs" "Groping" in a public place, and she felt ashamed and walked out of the argument.

Girls! When men do not find it shameful to grope your boobs in public, why the fuck should you be ashamed to address the same.

Stop taboo-ing these!

What we call our BOOBS(I am using uppercase for obvious reasons) is made of the same flesh that our legs and hands are made of.

Do you find it scandalizing when I talk about legs and hands?

NO!

So men do not derive pleasure in groping our legs and hands because it is not taboo-ed. Only because we are taboo-ing our BOOBS so much, men desire to know the extent of pleasure that they would derive in groping the so called forbidden fruit! This is our mistake! Do not taboo or feel ashamed to talk about your body parts in public! Men will get used to the regularity and they would stop this. Raise your fricking voices, not so that you can shout, so that the ones without voices can also be heard!

Tina and I had a heated argument over this and I felt disgusted after knowing her take on this. Later we resolved it and when we met, this topic popped up again, it had to.

The best is yet to come guys, hold on!

When I am going on and on about protecting women, a woman, my GIRL friend, Tina, whom I thought would definitely take my side in this argument, told this, "Rahul is right, Madhu, even if a girl is getting raped in front of my eyes, I would choose to ignore it rather than getting myself into trouble."

It felt like a ton of bricks just fell over me. I am not asking you to go and fight against the rapist and chop his d*** off; it is going to take decades for even our Indian Penal Code to implement that. But, you can at least call people for help and save the victim! Don't choose to ignore.

How would you feel if you or one of your close friends or relatives were in the shoes of the victim?

Would you choose to ignore even then? You f***ing wouldn't!

You'll realize the value of your voice only when you are silenced.

You have a flexible set of rules for yourself, but a different set of rules for the world! Even the victim is someone's daughter, someone's wife, someone's best friend, someone's life! Help her! Please do not choose to ignore!

To clean the world, I realized that we, at first, have to start from our homes. The root problem lies in the minds of the female population! Girls out there, we have to change the way we think! Don't expect a guy to come and help you when you wouldn't bother helping either.

You would ask me, what did I gain in doing this? Did you change the world? What benefit did you reap!?

First, I did not write to answer all those questions! I cannot change the world alone. I just threw a stone in the river that would create many other ripples. I am not saying men's mind-set towards women is right. But first change your mind-set, and then set your foot forward to change theirs!

I am in no way promoting women empowerment here. I believe in we women empowering ourselves first, and not gain the power by mere implementation of a law. By pleading for a law, you are showing that you are weak. Gain the power yourselves and prove it to the world that you are in no way lesser than men. There are no limits to what we can accomplish!