Delhi: South Ex Market 1
Delhi Team- Shruti of Jagori, Monica Mody, Raj Shekhar, Amit Kendurkar, Sharad Kapor, Sumati, Geetha Bhardwaj, Nikita Doval, Svetha, Param Singh, Shruti ( 2)...Sakthy
Ive been told that there were more...incase youve been missed out in this list please mail me or hemangini at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
here's what delhi blank noise did:
maintained eye contact with passersby. stood stiff in their locations and gave a letter bearing a testimonial of eve teasing to anyone who reacted to their fixed gaze. it could be anyone in the public- eve teaser, mute spectator, 'victim'. The testimonials were taken from the Blank Noise Blogathon, where bloggers shared incidents of 'eve teasing'/ street sexual harassment, online.
Our male participants distributed Blank Noise and Jagori's safe Delhi campaign material in the meantime.
The results were open ended....hear it from Svetha and others as they write in....
At first i was very apprehensive about staring back at the starer. i guess i am just conditioned to NOT making any eye contact with men on streets. but i think the fact that i was with a group who would all be staring as well was good because it allowed me to shake off my own apprehension.
Being able to stare back at the person and give him a letter was a very empowering feeling. This was a fantastic idea! There was even a point when I felt it would be very useful for me if I could hand out these letters just generally when I am walking on the streets by myself to every single man who letches/whistle/passes remarks at me. But I think I abandoned that idea this idea because I am not sure I would be able to stare back and hand out testimonies when I am alone.
I handed out a lot of testimonies to many men. There was one point when there was a cop who was letching but I did not give him a letter because I was scared that I might get arrested or something.
Overall I think the intervention helped to change my opinion about south ex. I would never have thought about just standing around and just…well… being over there at all before. But now I realize that it is possible to do so and that I can :-) so that is great :--) -Svetha
5 comments:
@Svetha
i agree with what you have mentioned. more than half the problems are solved when the girl luks @ the guy straight at his eyes...
thankyou sathish. eyes can invite, can attack, can ward off, can speak everything....
we need to get into the ways of looking
http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com/
a similar project that uses the internet as a weapon
thanks...will look it up
i was at the delhi intervention.. mentioned as shruti(2).
my frenz eshaani and shinjini were with me too..
it was a very surreal experience.in so many yrs of living in delhi, i got the habit of lookin down and walkin.the sight of so many men leching, was too disturbing..but that day, i looked at every guy in his eye.it gave me a sense of power,the eye contact...eyes can say a lot...
my eyes accused him of robbing my comfort, my right to just be there...
many men were embarrased ,looked down and walked away.
but there were a large no of guys who just got worse for the attention i gave them.it was sick....
the idea of the intervention was very well conceived. we felt safe and empowered, a feeling i havent had often on delhi streets...we need a lot many more interventions to bring abt any attitudanal changes in ppl...
thanx for introducing me to a world, where ppl recognise eve teasing as a crime and r willing to talk abt it and tackle it...
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