While at Khoj on a public art residency programme Blank Noise T shirts " Kya Dekh Rahe Ho" were designed for women who take auto rickshaw rides.
NO-Blank Noise is not anti auto rickshaw drivers. Not all auto drivers adjust their rear view mirros to women's breast level either! However this t shirt works for those 'awkward' situations, where it's a little obvious why the rear view mirror is focussing on parts of the female passenger's anatomy.
This t shirt is a Blank Noise Action Hero strategy to deal with sexual violation. Wear it. Give it to your friends. You could buy 3 for Rs 200 and gift it to your friends or 1 for Rs 125!
We are also accepting donation towards the production of these t shirts. You can also hand cut your own v neck and sleeves!
Bring a twist! Enjoy the t shirt!
To receive the t shirts email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
T shirts are avaliable in Hindi too. Will be made avaliable in tamil, bengali, telegu.
21 comments:
Hi. I cam across this blog while i was searching for verbal abuse against woman. I just have a doubt. M e and my 3 friends (girls) are staying in a girls pg. From the day we moved in they are adding on the list of things that they never informed us before (like no food on second Sundays, service charges, etc.)over that they have a problem with us coming in late. (we are working in advertising field and hr). over that they have been passing remarks about one of us to other girls in a bad way, which those girls came and told us. when we went to ask them about this the land lady and her husband became very angery. they used bad language (like what the fuck do you think and all) when we were maximum trying to tell them we are being polite they are even more angry. they even demanded us to move out at the very moment. when we demanded some time, they again got defensive (they said they don't want diseases staying in their PG). even at one moment the land lady used her hand to shut the mouth of one girl while talking with her hand in a bad way. we have recored the whole conversation in mobile. i just wanted to know. is there any way if they are not giving back the advance money while we move out (the dead end is this month end they have given for us justing asking them certain things)to complain. awaiting your reply.
my email address is leeaquarian@gmail.com. thanks for creating such a wonderful blog.
pure shit
hi leena - pls pls pls
a) find a place u can move
b) dont move yet - file a case with the police
all the best! we are all here to help u
This somehow looks to me like something that is suggestive rather than being a weapon against sexual violation!!
My response here:
http://wrongnoiseproject.blogspot.com/2008/01/noisy-t-shirts.html
No wonder, no sensible person responded to this post!
hey thats awesome! i just saw the article on the front page of bangalore mirror about this! good job guys. :)
happy new year jasmine!
"Others say they are trying to put what's happened behind them, and plead that their reputations be considered. "Many of us are at work or studying. Our future will be affected," says another accused, Derek Jadhav."
http://in.news.yahoo.com/indiabroadcast/20080109/r_t_ibn_nl_general/tnl-we-re-onlookers-did-no-wrong-molesta-3a4f8c1_2.html
Will they let these guys off the hook???
It is extremely heartening to see that you all at Blank Noise are concentrating on selling T-shirts to execute a change in society, while the rest of us unimaginative realists are still reeling under the aftershocks of the Marriot incident. And before you reach out to delete this comment, let me say that art and all is fine but hey get real! Those out there who just want to put women in their place won't even be able to read what your stylish T-shirts stay, much less understand your message.
Why are you preaching to the choir? You want to communicate something to someone do it in the language they understand. Unless, you just want to sit in your bubble and pat yourself on the back about your arty messages.
People who come to your blog know what eve teasing is all about. We don't need to be educated on that. Those who do need to understand, needless to say, won't be reading your blog.
How about doing something concrete? You have representatives in most cities. Why haven't you even organised a protest at the very least? Ok, so that is so pedestrian. But, the way I see it, you are doing stuff only for yourself, in the form that you want to see. Not the form your TG will understand because that is sooo boring, right? Go ahead, bury your head in the sand some more, ignore this comment, sit in your bubble and pontificate on the next aesthetic thing you want to do.
I'm a RNI, resident non Indian.
I was not born or raised in India but I have lived most of my adult there, and continue to live there 6 months out of the year on average.
I kind of agree with the above comment in the sense that uneducated and more importantly, UNAWARE (of issues, especially women's issues) people in India may not "get" the message of the t-shirt. Dare I assume that some may even find it an invitation to view what's behind the words on the t-shirt. (choli ke peeche sort of thing).
Same with the Amul butter ad. I'm sure there are some men who will read it as the opposite of what it is trying to say.
I've had many experiences, even when talking to university educated Indians that they just did not "get" what I was trying to convey when speaking on issues such as women's issues or environmental issues or mental health issues or whatever. There is a big rift in consciousness between your average Indian and what I call your "issues oriented, internationally aware Indian".
Your t-shirt is great for people who will "get" the message and thus feel shamed. But for all those others??????
Still, I applaud your efforts 100%.
"... people in India may not "get" the message of the t-shirt. Dare I assume that some may even find it an invitation to view what's behind the words on the t-shirt. (choli ke peeche sort of thing).
Same with the Amul butter ad. I'm sure there are some men who will read it as the opposite of what it is trying to say.
I've had many experiences, even when talking to university educated Indians that they just did not "get" what I was trying to convey when speaking on issues ..."
I fear the same too. The messages need to be less "smart" and more to the point. Maybe something like "Keep your eyes to yourself".
"How about doing something concrete? You have representatives in most cities. Why haven't you even organised a protest at the very least? ..."
Blank Noise does run on-the-street activities to raise awareness.
it actually reads "yenu noddtha idiya". idira is more polite, the aap version to the idiya tum.
sohan- thanks for your suggestion- we are planning something- stay tuned- you will hear from us shorty!
Where are you based? do get in touch, we would love to have you involved as well. thanks..
I fail to understand what difference this T-shirt is going to make. Can someone please enlighten me? Thanks.
I agree with JIVITHA and anony... Also, you need the perpetrators to fear a backslash and fear the consequences of their actions. The way to do that is by setting examples.
I am in the UAE at present.
What stupid speech! A woman can shown herself and I cannot look at her?
You can freely show off (for vanity, caprice, fashion, self-esteem, increase of economic and sentimental value, or free erotic display of pre-eminence) the beauties of your body, as you want and for as long as you and I cannot look in the same free way what you displayed (according to nature)? You can "keep your legs out" passing on the public way and I cannot, in the same place, turn to them the eyes and the desire (which you has provoked before by the fact itself to show in public your beauties which, as a consequence not of my will, but of the differences in desideres soucht by nature, have sexual value)? And why your showing is "refined" and my looking should be "pervert"? Both of them are desires of nature! If you want to condemn, you have to condemn both. If I am a pig you are a bitch!
If looking a breast is lack of respect for women, then showing the breast is a lack of respect for men, reduced to cold mirror on which test the effect of beauty or dressing!
If you deny this, you are against the logic, not only against the ethic.
If I have to refrain my instinct of expressing desire with words, eyes or hands, why you haven't the same obligation of "refrain" your correspondent instinct of appearing beautiful and desirable (with dressing and behaviour)?
We have to be free at the same level. I do not like burqua, but nether the obligation of consider as a guilty or a defect my desire who is the same of the poets of every age!
You feel scared for my looking and desiring? So I am scared by your showing and provoking (consciously or not) desire!
Certain behaviors arouse discomfort? What arouses discomfort is subjective.
I feel uncomfortable even when she appears in my field of vision before asking me (without I asking her) through her body, because she evokes a desire that can not be (at least in that situation) satisfied ando so creates frustration.
And that remains my feeling both if by nature will continue to watch (because the situation makes me feel pure nothing in front of her that everything is as it is desired by all) or if, forcing me against the nature, look the other way (however, since the desire has already been aroused and even the mere awareness of being close to what you can not get leaves in the state of frustration).
And if the woman, for caprice, faschion, vanity, sentimental-duty, free showing of erotic pre-eminence over man or sadistic pleasure, exploits the situation to cause me physical and psycological pain provoking desire only for enjoying its denial, to intentionally provoke emotional distress, to ridicule the desire, to inflict deep frustration, humiliation public or private, physical and mental ungratified till the obsession, to make myself ridiculous in front of myself or others people that try any approach, to cause physical or psychological pain attracting and repealling, to treat me like "one of the other", a minor nuisance, after having chosen me among so many, just to make me suffer hell after the hope of paradise, to attract me artfully (or even make me come to her) only to can treat me as "harrassment-maker", if in fact use the weapon of sentimental-erotic rage on who is psychologically at a disadvantage in the first moments of meeting (occasional and short as well as sentimental and long) with the opposite sex, then the discomfort rise from sexual to existential.
[...]
And if you can define "male harrassment" what cause the minimum and the alleged damage at your female subjective shere, I HAVE THE SAME RIGHT to define "female harrassment" what hurt my different but not negligible male subjectivity.
It is just frustrating to be provoked in a desire who rarely can be satisfied,
it is just mentally hard to have the "obligation" to make the first move without knowing if the other part wil like it or not,
it is just psycologically difficult to be in the situation of an exam (make the best to be accepted) in front of who is just appreciated for her beuty and can always choose if enjoying WITH us or OVER us.
You add the certainty to be depreciated a priori for our simple desire of nature (natural as a spring, as the reflection of the moon over the nigth see, as the bird's song)!
You add the risk of be considered a pervert or be kicked as a violent only for looking and talking you don't like!
You do not deserve to be loved and respected.
You deserve to be treated as the animal you are (to appear beautiful and desirable is your female istinct not less "animal" than my male istinct of looking and desiring the beauty), since you consider me an animal only for my natural desires!
You wrote a guide-line to man?
Why you can teach us how behave with you and we cannot teach you how behave with us?
How can you think to be a goddess that deserve to receive the courtship from the desiring men, but have also the right of considering "harrassment" all the behaviour you don't like?
How can a man be considered a "sex-offender" for the simple fact of not knowing what every single woman (and not "all the women", because it is possible that the same behaviour is "daring courtship" for a woman and "eve-teasing" for another) like in the approach?
P.S.
Contrary of what said by a "phylosopher" in your blog, not the repression of "animal instinct" is human, but to strengthen, elevate and follow them till the high level of the intellectual sphere and to satisfied them easily, in a way that make us happy and don't offend anyone. The repression of out vital instict make us ill-animal, not humam.
All the animal have to satisfy their natural needs (eating, drinking, sleeping and doing sex). I man is not a boar if he needs to eat 3 times a week, he is not a dormouse if he needs to sleep every night. So why is he a pig if he sometimes shows the need of satisfying his naturale needs of beauty in the female bodies as soon they appear? It makes no sense.
Only stupid feminism can call "good" the female natural instict (monogamy, showing the beauties of the female bodies, consciusly or unconsciusly attracting, selecting the partner before having sex ecc.) and "bad" the symmetrical male insticts (poligamy, remiring and desiring the beauties in female bodies, trying to obtein them, being attracted by every pretty woman at the first sight and dreaming about "nasty" ecc.).
One instinct cannot exist without the other and to condemn only one of them is immoral!
For this men-hating philosophy, for this false thinking against male nature, and not for your dressing, women as you DESERVE a real violence!
P.P.S.
Nor I have asked to have in front of me a woman dressing as she wants and behaviouring as she wants!
T shirts are still available?
Yes they are!
Post a Comment