BLANK NOISE

OVER IT- EVE ENSLER

2011-11-12T04:26:00.002+05:30

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don't have a sense of humor, and women don't have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don't think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called "comrades."

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I'm over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime -- the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters -- film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes -- while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It's been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine -- once and for all -- what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.

Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it.

huffington post link

http://twitter.com/eveensler

REUBEN AND KEENAN

2011-11-09T18:42:00.002+05:30

Salute to Reuben and Keenan

links:

We The Indifferent• NDTV

twitter #JusticeForKeenanandReuben

Facebook group:

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MONTH

2011-10-29T17:47:00.004+05:30

Violence Against Women Awareness Month 2011 Team invited us for a live twitter chat about street sexual violence. To follow up and continue the conversations look out for #VAWAM on twitter.

http://twitter.com/VAWMonth

3 DECADES OF LIRIL SOAP ON TV

2011-10-09T16:04:00.008+05:30

The Liril soap adverts have changed in the most subtle of ways over the decades.

The first Liril soap advert on indian television in late 1970s early 80s until 2000.

What caused the minor shifts? morality? censorship?

Liril advert early 80s

Liril advert late 80s

Liril advert early 90s

Liril advert late 90s

Liril advert early 2000

Action Hero Playlist:

2011-05-24T12:42:00.025+05:30

Is there a song that puts you in the Action Hero mood? Let's build an action hero playlist > May 25- June 10 It could be a song that uplifts you....inspires...builds courage...reinforces a belief...calms you...angers you....lights a spark... Your Action Hero song

(could be about cities. walking. about saying 'I never ask for it'. about strangers. who knows! send it and we'll add it. could be one song or more)

If it's on youtube-send us the link.We'll add your name to the list here and link you to your song. If your action hero song isn't online, do write down the lyrics OR better still sing it yourself/upload it and email the link. Any language of course (but do send in the English translation please) Don't forget to ask those around you (mum.grandma.friends.relatives.domestic-help.neighbourhood-vendors?)

blurtblanknoise@gmail.com subject title Action Hero Song

Send it! Let's SING! Action Heroes building playlist:

Jennifer Hughes Jail Weddings Tough Love
Prineet Kaur Sohal - Nina Simone Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter
Shohini Sen - Nancy Sinatra These Boots Are Made For Walking

Satoko Yamaguchi -Yoko Ono Woman Power

Monica Mody - ost DOR Yeh Hausla

Rhea Daniel - Fiona Apple A Mistake

Pooja Ghosh - theme song Power Puff Girls

Nainy Sahni- ost Lakshya Kandho se hain milte kandhe

Annie Zaidi- ost Ek Thi Ladki (There was a girl) Lara Lappa

Must Bol - Frou Frou Holding Out For a Hero

Amruta Mehta - LES Artistes Santo Gold

Jasmeen Patheja - Petula Clark Downtown
Satya - Raat

Inderjit Kaur

Rebecca Winslow - Helen Reddy I am woman

Micropixie

Aurina Chatterji - Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine

Mandy Van Deven - Le Tigre's On Guard

Trishima Mitra Kahn - Ani Di Franco 32 Flavors

Deepshika Arora - Shubha Mudgal Mann Kee Manjeere

Cole Walks - Mutya Buena Real Girl + Chantal Kreviazuk Weight of The World

you?

Email from Anon-

2011-04-29T22:40:00.011+05:30

Hi Blank Noise,
Have you addressed the issue of unsolicited mobile phone and internet harassment? It's quite a rampant form of harassment, the cons of advancements in technology. Just three weeks ago my friend had an unpleasant encounter with such a prankster. I have been at the receiving end too, for the past two weeks now I have had someone following me on Facebook, my email & my cell phone, info that I am generally careful about giving out. All my personal info is set to be private to be shared with people who I add as friends alone.
The options to counteract such incidents seem limited and ineffective.
An FIR against this offender with his mobile phone number as his only
info guarantees no action against him. The most the police will do is
maybe call & warn him, which is futile. It actually happened to this
friend of mine three weeks ago. This stalker has gathered a lot of
details on me, I have no assurances for my safety if this person also
happens to know where I live.

I thought you may have some suggestions/ideas on how to tackle such
offences & offenders & bring them to book.

Truly,

Anonymous

Thank you!

Have you experienced harassment on the web?

Have you b
ee
n harassed by phone calls and text messages from unknown people?
How do you define web based harassment/ intimidation or phone based harassment? list- stalking, sexting (sending unwanted sexual messages on mobile

phone) How did you respond to it? (did you find yourself changing your mobile phone number . email id etc or did you confront it?)How was this experience different from the threat of being sexually assaulted / harassed on the street?

Send in your thoughts. suggestions. strategies aka Action Hero stunts to blurtblanknoise@gmail dot com

Your responses will be shared on the Action Heroes blog by May 21

Delhi teenager skips school to avoid stalker (Jan 2011 report)

2011-04-29T00:52:00.003+05:30

New Delhi: Six months back, 15-year-old Maya's (name changed) life was full of fun and frolic just like any other school-going girl. Then one day, while on the way to school, she was stalked by a group of guys who started hurling comments and abuses at her.

As this harassment continued for several days, Maya's scared parents stopped her from going to school and did not even allow her to venture out of her home. Today, she is virtually under 'house arrest' for no fault of hers.

Her parents are a worried lot as repeated complaints to the police have not yielded any result so far. As such Maya, who was a student of class 8 of Rajakiya Sarvodaya Vidyalay in Khanpur area, was forced to drop out from the school.

"The problem started in August 2010 when a local goon Sripal started following my daughter. He often passed vulgar comments at my daughter while she used to be on her way to school. Fearing that any harm might come to her, we stopped her from attending the school. We lodged a complaint with the police but they didn't take any action. The situation worsened and the stalkers continued to harass her even after she dropped out from the school. Whenever she used to go out of the house, they troubled her repeatedly," said Ram Kumar (name changed) father of the victim.

Kumar again lodged a complaint against his daughter's stalkers in October but police still remained inactive. "The inaction of cops has encouraged the stalkers further. Right from the day my father lodged a complaint against them, they became more abusive towards me. Whenever they see me out of the house, they start chasing me and pass vulgar comments. At times they even tried to molest me. The whole colony watched their act but nobody came to my rescue," said the victim.

Besides Kumar's complaint, there is another complaint lodged against these accused for eve-teasing and use of vulgar language. Still the police seem to prefer inaction on the issue. When contacted by MiD DAY, the police officials said that they will be able to comment after they investigate the case.

Residents of the area say the accused operate as a gang and often indulge in such unlawful activities in the Lal Kuan area of Pul Prahladpur area.

>>>>

1. do you know someone who missed school for avoiding 'eve-teasing'?

alternatively- do you plan your daily route/ activities to avoid sexual harassment on the streets?

2. have you ever filed a police complaint? if yes- what followed?

if no- why not

3. do you experience sexual harassment from the same person everyday- if yes what are your strategies? how do you respond to it (neighbourhood/ bus/ college/ workplace)

4. Have you been a 'spectator who changed the scene'- i.e instead of watching the 'tamasha'- you got involved and supported the survivor of violence?

5. Are there any follow ups of this report?

ACTION HEROES RE-EXAMINE SWEAR WORDS- LESSON 1

2011-04-25T17:25:00.003+05:30

listen to stories on and about swear words:

story # 1 -

2011-04-24T15:23:00.002+05:30

This is the last week of the CSA Awareness Month:

If you would like to add to the discussion or know somebody else who would, please note that entries (personal accounts, resources, feedback etc) can be

a. mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR
b. posted as FB notes and linked to the FB page OR
c. posted on your own blog with the badge and "CSAAM April 2011" in the heading and linked to the main blog OR
d. linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR
e. sent via some/all of the above methods

Some topics are suggested here.

You can also show your support by displaying our logo on your website. Here is the code:

Please do remember to send in a mail with all necessary links (or just your input) to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com .

(Thanks, Blank Noise, for the support -- from the CSA team.)

ACTION HEROES BELIEVE IT'S IMPORTANT TO RE- EXAMINE SWEAR WORDS:

2011-03-29T13:21:00.020+05:30

Action Heroes contribute:

Maesy Angelina, Indri , Trishima Mitra Kahn, Hemangini Gupta , Annie Zaidi, Bedatri Chowdhury, Farya Lokhandwala , Katheeja Talha, Parmeet Soni, Ghisak, Eddie Avila, Mohnish Moorjani, Sharmila Joshi,Dianne Sharma Winter,Vivek Rao, Noopur Raval, Nilofar Ansh, Megha Sharma Bhagat ,Amit Kendurkar, Tamanna Sharma, Anubhav Pradhan, Sidharth Verma, Satoko Yamaguchi ,Rustam Mody,Ampat Varghese Varghese, Kuber Sharma, Jaipal Hellmich, Rani Kamal, Trisham Dey, Nilofar Ansher, Keyser Sozie( Sepia Verse), Desdemona14, Jose Carlos Teixeira, Irmasanthi Danadharta,Pushpa Moorjani, Aman Zaidi, Anwesha Dutta, Anjali Rawat, Sharmila Joshi, Aruna Shekhar, Sowmiya Manickam, Orlaith Delaney, Ashish Asgekar, Soumya Chandrashekhar, Naksha Erappa, Simrin Mehra Agarwal, Bhooma Padmanabhan

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120542711356175&index=1

Beyond the Digital-Reflecting from the Beyond

2011-03-26T09:58:00.002+05:30

First posted here

By Maesy Angelina in the Digital Natives

After going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital natives.

What signals are we sending when we are talking about youth's digital activism?

Throughout the series, I have argued the following points. Firstly, the 21^st century society is changing into a network society and that youth movements are changing accordingly. I have outlined the gaps in the current perspectives used in understanding the current form and proposed to approach the topic by going beyond the digital: from a youth standpoint, exploring all the elements of social movement, and based on a case study in the Global South – the uber cool Blank Noise community who have embraced the research with open arms. The methodology has allowed me to identify the newness in youth’s approach to social change and ways of organizing. Although I do not mean to generalize, there are some points where the case study resonates with the broader youth movement of today. In this concluding post, I will reflect on how the research journey has led me to rethink several points about youth, social change, and activism.

While social movements are commonly imagined to aim for concrete structural change, many youth movements today aim for social and cultural change at the intangible attitudinal level. Consequently, they articulate the issue with an intangible opponent (the mindset) and less-measurable goals. Their objective is to raise public awareness, but their approach to social change is through creating personal change at the individual level through engagement with the movement. Hence, ‘success’ is materialized in having as many people as possible involved in the movement. This is enabled by several factors.

The first is the Internet and new media/social technologies, which is used as a site for community building, support group, campaigns, and a basis to allow people spread all over the globe to remain involved in the collective in the absence of a physical office. However, the cyber is not just a tool; it is also a public space that is equally important with the physical space. Despite acknowledging the diversity of the public engaged in these spaces, youth today do not completely regard them as two separate spheres. Engaging in virtual community has a real impact on everyday lives; the virtual is a part of real life for many youth (Shirky, 2010). However, it is not a smooth ‘space of flows’ (Castells, 2009) either. Youth actors in the Global South do recognize that their ease in navigating both spheres is the ability of the elite in their societies, where the digital divide is paramount. The disconnect stems from their acknowledgementthat social change must be multi-class and an expression of their reflexivity in facing the challenge.

The second enabling factor is its highly individualized approach. The movement enables people to personalize their involvement, both in terms of frequency and ways of engagement as well as in meaning-making. It is an echo of the age of individualism that youth are growing up in, shaped by the liberal economic and political ideologies in the 1990s India and elsewhere (France, 2007). Individualism has become a new social structure, in which personal decisions and meaning-making is deemed as the key to solve structural issues in late modernity (Ibid).

In this era, young people’s lives consist of a combination of a range of activities rather than being focused only in one particular activity (Ibid). This is also the case in their social and political engagement. Very few young people worldwide are full-time activists or completely apathetic, the mainstream are actually involved in ‘everyday activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people who are personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very involved in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to other activities. The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by the dwindling authority of the state in the emergence of major corporations as political powers (Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal political structures which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist, hierarchical social movements in favour of a more individualized form of activism made easier with Web 2.0 (Harris et al, 2010).

A collective of everyday activists means that there are many forms of participation that one can fluidly navigate in, but it requires a committed leadership core recognized through presence and engagement. As Clay Shirky (2010: 90) said, the main cultural and ethical norm in these groups is to ‘give credit where credit is due’. Since these youth are used to producing and sharing content rather than only consuming, the aforementioned success of the movement lies on the leaders’ ability to facilitate this process. The power to direct the movement is not centralized in the leaders; it is dispersed to members who want to use the opportunity.

This form of movement defies the way social movements have been theorized before, where individuals commit to a tangible goal and the group engagement directed under a defined leadership. The contemporary youth movement could only exist by staying with the intangible articulation and goal to accommodate the variety of personalized meaning-making and allow both personal satisfaction and still create a wider impact; it will be severely challenged by a concrete goal like advocating for a specific regulation. Not all youth there are ‘activist’ in the common full-time sense, for most everyday activists their engagement might not be a form of activism at all but a productive and pleasurable way to use their free time - or, in Clay Shirky’s term, cognitive surplus (2010).

Revisiting my initial intent to put the term activism under scrutiny, I acknowledge this as a call for scholars to re-examine the concepts of activism and social movements through a process of de-framing and re-framing to deal with how youth today are shaping the form of movements. Although the limitations of this paper do not allow me to directly address the challenge, I offer my own learning from this process for the quest of future researchers.

The way young people today are reimagining social change and movements reiterate that political and social engagement should be conceived in the plural. Instead of “Activism” there should be “activisms” in various forms; there is not a new form replacing the older, but all co-existing and having the potential to complement each other. Allowing people to cope with street sexual harassment and create a buzz around the issue should complement, not replace, efforts made by established movements to propose a legislation or service provision from the state. This is also a response I offer to the proponents of the aforementioned “doubt” narrative.

I share the more optimistic viewpoint about how these new forms are presenting more avenues to engage the usually apathetic youth into taking action for a social cause. However, I also acknowledge that the tools that have facilitated the emergence of this new form of movement have existed for less than a decade; thus, we still have to see how it evolves through the years.

Hence, I also find the following questions to be relevant for proponents of the “hope” narrative. Social change needs to cater to the most marginalized in the society, but as elaborated before, the methods of engagement both on the physical and virtual spaces are still contextual to the middle class. Therefore, how can the emerging youth movements evolve to reach other groups in the society? Since most of these movements are divorced from existing movements, how can they synergize with existing movements to propel concrete change? These are open questions that perhaps will be answered with time, but my experience with Blank Noise has shown that these actors have the reflexivity required to start exploring solutions to the challenges.

The research started from a long-term personal interest and curiosity. In this journey, I have found some answers but ended up with more questions that will also stay with me in the long term. As a parting note before, I would like to share a quote that will accompany my ongoing reflection on these questions.

My advice to other young activists of the world: study and respect history... but ultimately break the mould. There have never been social media tools like this before. We are the first generation to test them out: to make the mistakes but also the breakthrough.

(Tammy Tibbetts, 2010)

This is the tenth and final post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond the Digital-Unraveling the Term

2011-03-23T20:39:00.004+05:30

first posted here

By Maesy Angelina in the Digital Natives

After discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about how they relate with the very term of activism.

Youth's Popular Imagination of Activism

As a start, I need to clarify that ‘activism’ is not a concept that the participants are generally concerned with. For a majority of them, the conversation we had was the first time they thought of what the term means and reflect whether their engagement with Blank Noise is activism. Regardless of whether one identifies Blank Noise as a form of activism or not, all participants share a popular idea of what activism is.

Generally speaking, at an abstract level all participants saw activism as passionately caring about an injustice and taking action to create social change. At a more tangible level, all participants mentioned three elements as popular ideas about doing activism. The first is the existence of a concrete demands as a solution to the identified problem, such as asking for service provision or state regulations. Since these demands are structural, activism is also seen dealing with formal authority figures in the traditional sense of politics, the state. The second is the intensity and commitment required to be an activist, for many participants being an activist means having prolonged engagement, taking risks, and making the struggle a priority in one’s life. In other words, being an activist means “... being neck-deep, spending most if not all of your time, energy, and resources for the cause” (Dev Sukumar, male, 34). The third element relates to the methods, called by some as ‘old school’: shouting slogans, holding placards, and doing marches on the streets – all enacted in the physical public space. This popular imagination of activism becomes the orientation for participants in deciding whether Blank Noise is a form of activism and whether they are activists for being involved in it.

Activism as the Intention and Action

“I have an idea of what activism is but not what it exactly looks like.”

(Apurva Mathad, male, 28).

For those who think that Blank Noise is a form of activism, there was a differentiation between the idea at the abstract level and how it is manifested at a more tangible level. The definition of activism is the abstract one, while the popular ideas of doing activism do not define the concept but present the most common out many possible courses of actions. Blank Noise is fulfils all the elements in the abstract definition: a passion about an injustice, having an aim for social change, and acting to achieve the aim. Hence, Blank Noise is activism, but the way it manifests itself does not adhere to the popular imagination of doing activism. The distinction between Blank Noise’s methods with popular ones was emphasized, along with the difference in articulating goals.

Interestingly, not all participants who share this line of thinking called themselves as activists for being involved in an activism. Again, it must be reiterated that no participants ever really thought of giving a name to their engagement prior to the interview. Instead of saying ‘I am an activist’, they said ‘I guess I could be called an activist’ for the fact that they are sharing the passion and being actively involved in a form of activism, albeit in an unconventional manner.

Those who would categorize Blank Noise as activism but not call themselves activists related with a particular element on the popular idea of doing activism, which is getting “neck-deep”. They were helpers, volunteers, idea spreaders, but not an activist because their lives are not dedicated for the cause or their involvements were based on availability. On the other hand, these participants all said that Jasmeen is an activist for being completely dedicated to Blank Noise from its inception until today.

Activism as Particular Ways of Doing and Being

“What are the repercussions if activism is so fluidly defined? It can mean not questioning

privilege... not seeing the class divisions and still call yourself activist.”

(Hemangini Gupta, female, 29).

Most participants did not consider Blank Noise as an activism. Generally, this can be explained by the discrepancies between Blank Noise and the popular imagination on the tangible ways of doing activism. Blank Noise does not propose a concrete solution or make concrete demands to an established formal structure nor did it march on the streets and make slogans. However, the underlying attitude to this point of view is not of a younger generation finding the ‘old’ ways of doing activism obsolete. Rather, there was an acknowledgement that the issue itself causes the different ways of reading an issue and taking actions to address it.

Furthermore, there is an appreciation to the achievements and dedication of activists that deterred them from calling themselves activists. These people referred to their occasional participation and the fact that Blank Noise is not the main priority in their lives as a student or young professional despite being a cause they are passionate about. As reflected in the opening quote, being an activist for some participants also means deeply reflecting on their self position in terms of class, acknowledging their privileges, and putting themselves in a position that will enable them to imagine the experience of people who are also affected by the issue but has a different position in the society. In other words, being an activist is not just about doing but also about critically reflecting on one’s position in relation to the issue and how it influences the way an issue is being pushed forward. Thinking that they are not up to these standards, these youth choose to call themselves ‘volunteers’, ‘helpers’, or ‘supporters’.

Youth: The Activist, the Apathetic, and the Everyday

“Blank Noise is a public and community street arts collective that is volunteer-led and attempts to create public dialogue on the issue of street sexual violence and eve teasing.”

(Jasmeen Patheja)

“... a group of people against street sexual harassment and eve teasing.”

(Kunal Ashok, men, 29)

“... an idea that really works.”

(Neha Bhat, 19)

As clarified before, the participants did not use the words ‘movement’ and very few used ‘activism’ during our conversations. Instead, the terms they used to describe Blank Noise are represented in the quotes above: collective, community, group, project, and even as an idea. These phrases do not carry the same political baggage that ‘movement’ or ‘activism’ would; they also do not conjure a particular imagination that the other two terms would. These phrases are de-politicized and informal; they imply fluidity, lack of hierarchy, and room for manoeuvre.

The implied meanings in the terms reflect the debates on the average youth and political engagement. For the past decade, various youth scholars criticized the dichotomy of youth as either activists or apathetic in explaining the global trend of decreased youth participation in formal politics. The activists are either politically active Digital Natives engaged in new forms of social movements influenced heavily by new media or sub-cultural resistances, which only account for a fraction of the youth population that are mostly completely apathetic. This dichotomy ignored the ‘broad “mainstream” young people who are neither deeply apathetic about politics on unconventionally engaged’ (Harris et al, 2010).

These mainstream young people actually are socially and politically engaged in ‘everyday activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people who are personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very involved in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to other activities. The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by the dwindling authority of the state in the emergence of major corporations as political powers (Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal political structures which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist, hierarchical social movements in favour of a more individualized form of activism (Harris et al, 2010). Internet and new media technologies are credited as an enabling factor, being a space and a medium for young people to express their everyday activism.

All of the research participants, perhaps with the exception of Jasmeen as the only one who has constantly been the driver Blank Noise its entire seven years, are these everyday makers, people who were involved with the Blank Noise either on a daily basis as a commentator, one-time project initiator and leader, or people who were active when they are available but remain dormant at other times. Blank Noise is a space where these individual forms of engagement could be exercised while remaining as a collective. The facilitation is not only by the flexibility of coming and going, but also the lack of rigid group rules and the approach of allowing Blank Noise to be interpreted differently by individuals. Considering that the mainstream urban youth are everyday makers who would not find ‘old’ or ‘new’ social movements appealing, this can be the reason why Blank Noise became so popular among youth; however, I would also argue that the fact that Blank Noise is the first to systematically address eve teasing is a determining cause.

The implications of this finding, together with other concluding thoughts, will be shared in the next and final post in the Beyond the Digital series.

This is the ninth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond the Digital-The Many Faces Within

2011-03-22T20:25:00.004+05:30

first posted here

By Maesy Angelina in Digital Natives

Blank Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective organize itself.

One day, during an afternoon stroll to the M.C. Escher museum in The Hague, I stumbled upon a painting called ‘Fish and Scales’. On the first glance, I saw two big black-and-white fishes and some smaller ones, but on a closer look I found hundreds of fishes, heading to different directions and merging seamlessly into the bigger fishes as their scales. Upon this discovery, I exclaimed out loud, “This is just like Blank Noise!”

No, I do not mean to imply in any way that the Blank Noise Project is like a fish, although it is definitely as fascinating as the painting. Rather, I found that this painting from the master of optical illusion is a great analogy to the structures of Blank Noise.

In the words of Kunal Ashok, one of the male volunteers, the collective consists not only of “people who volunteer or come to meetings, but anyone that have contributed in any way they can and identified with the issue.” In this sense, Blank Noise today consists of over 2,000 people who signed up to their e-group as volunteers.

How does a collective with that many people work? Firstly, although these people are called ‘volunteers’ for registering in the e-group, I would argue that a majority of them are actually what I call casual participants – those who comment on Blank Noise interventions, re-Tweet their call for action, promote Blank Noise to their friends through word of mouth, or simply lurk and follow their activities online. In the offline sense, they are the passers-by who participate in their street interventions or become intrigued to think about the issue afterwards. These people, including those who do the same activities without formally signing up as volunteers, are acknowledged to be a part of Blank Noise as much as those who really do volunteer.

Blank Noise is open to all who shares its concern and values, but its volunteers must go beyond articulating an opinion and commit to collective action. However, Blank Noise applies very little requirement for people to identify themselves with the collective. The main bond that unites them is their shared concern with street sexual harassment. Blank Noise’s analysis of the issue is sharp, but it also accommodates diverse perspectives by exploring the fine lines of street sexual harassment and not prescribing any concrete solution, while the latter is rarely found in existing social movements. The absence of indoctrination or concrete agenda reiterated through the public dialogue approach gives room for people to share different opinions and still respect others in the collective.

Other than these requirements, they are able to decide exactly how and when they want to be involved. They can join existing activities or initiate new ones; they can continuously participate or have on-and-off periods. This is reflected in the variety of volunteers’ motivations, activities, and the meaning they give to their involvement. For some people, helping Blank Noise’s street interventions is exciting because they like street art and engaging with other young people. Many are involved in online campaigns because they are not physically based in any of the cities where Blank Noise is present. Some others prefer to do one-off volunteering by proposing a project to a coordinator and then implementing it. There are people who started volunteering by initiating Blank Noise chapters in other cities and the gradually have a more prominent role. Some stay for the long term, some are active only for several times before going back to become supporters that spread Blank Noise through words of mouth. The ability to personalize volunteerism is also what makes Blank Noise appealing, compared to the stricter templates for volunteering in other social movements.

Any kind of movement requires a committed group of individuals among the many members to manage it. The same applies to Blank Noise, who relies on a group of people who dedicate time and resources to facilitate volunteers and think of the collective’s future: the Core Team. Members of the Core Team, about ten people, are credited in Blank Noise’s Frequently Asked Question page and are part of a separate e-group than the volunteers. In its seven years, the Core Team only went for a retreat once and mostly connected through the e-group. In this space, they raise questions, ideas, and debates around Blank Noise’s interventions, posters, and blog posts. Consequently, for them the issue is not only street sexual harassment but also related to masculinities, citizenship, class, stereotyping, gender, and public space. However, there are also layers in the intensity of the Team members’ engagement.

The most intense is Jasmeen, the founder and the only one who has been with Blank Noise since its inception until today. Jasmeen is an artist and considers Blank Noise to be a part of her practice; she has received funds to work for Blank Noise as an artist. Thus, she is the only one who dedicates herself to BN full time and becomes the most visible among the volunteers and the public eye. According to Jasmeen, she is not alone in managing the whole process within Blank Noise. Since Hemangini Gupta came on board in 2006, she has slowly become the other main facilitator. “It is a fact that every discussion goes through her. I may be the face of it, but I see Hemangini and me working together. We rely on each other for Blank Noise work,” Jasmeen said.

Hemangini, a former journalist who is now pursuing a PhD in the U.S., explains her lack of visibility. “Blank Noise could never be my number one priority because it doesn’t pay my bills, so I can only do it when I have free time and my other work is done.” The same is true for others in the Core Team: students, journalists, writers, artists. Unlike Hemangini who still managed to be intensively involved, they have dormant and active periods like the volunteers.

The Core Team’s functions as coordinators that facilitate the volunteers’ involvement in Blank Noise and ensure that the interventions stay with the values Blank Noise upholds: confronting the issue but not aggravating the people, creating public dialogue instead of one-way preaching. This role emerged in 2006 when the volunteer applications mounted as the result of the aforementioned blogathon. They have also initiated or made Blank Noise chapters in other cities grew. Although some of them have also moved to another city due to work, they remain active touch through online means. Together, the Core Team forms the de-facto leadership in Blank Noise.

I am tempted to describe Blank Noise as having a de-facto hierarchy in its internal organization. The form would be a pyramid, with Jasmeen on top, followed by the coordinators, long-term project-based volunteers, one-off-project-initiator volunteers, and then the casual participants. After all, it was clear from my conversations with the many types of volunteers within Blank Noise that they acknowledge that some people are involved more intensely and carry more responsibilities than others in the collective, that there is an implicit leadership roles. This is also shown by the reluctance of many volunteers to call themselves as an ‘activist’, claiming that the title is only suitable for people within those leadership roles and preferring to call themselves ‘supporters’, ‘part of the group’, or ‘volunteers’ instead.

However, doing this will be a mistake in interpreting the internal dynamics within Blank Noise. Firstly, the line between the types of participation is not as clear-cut as it appears to be. With the exception of Jasmeen, everyone from the coordinators to the one-off volunteers has active and dormant periods depending on what happens in their personal lives; they can shift roles quite easily. Some of Blank Noise coordinators, for instance, are now pursuing higher education abroad and could only be very active when the return to India during the holidays or when the school schedule is not as demanding. During momentary dormant periods, they turn into casual participants because those are the only roles they are able to take. Secondly, a hierarchy implies that casual participants are not important for the collective, whereas they turn out to be the main “target group” and the reason why Blank Noise has grown internally and in the public eye.

This is again a reason why I was so taken by Escher’s painting. There are definitely “big fish” leadership figures, but their scales are actually smaller fishes in different forms, symbolizing how the roles of a person in the collective could shift from “big” to “small” and vice versa depending on your perspective. The many fishes are not depicted horizontally, but also not in a clear hierarchy. Instead, they are interconnected with each other. The type of connection is not very clear and the fishes seem to be swimming in different directions, but they make a cohesive unity. This is the beauty of both Escher’s creation and Blank Noise.

This is the eighth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

The photo of M.C. Escher’s painting ‘Fish and Scales’ is borrowed from:

http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/big.asp?IMAGE=fish_and_scales

Beyond the Digital-The Class Question

2011-03-22T20:22:00.004+05:30

First posted here

By Maesy Angelina in Digital Natives

Blank Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street interventions?

My first click to Blank Noise’s main blog was a surprise. Having read so many media coverage about them, I expected to see a professional, minimalist looking website like other women’s organizations[1] where the menu is immediately visible. Instead, I have arrived at the most common and basic form of blogging: the personal blog.

I was greeted by entries on their latest thoughts and activities with photos and text with red font against a black background. I scrolled down a long list of permanent links on the right side of the site and arrived only at its Frequently Asked Questions link on the 28^th item while it would be one of the easiest to spot in other websites. For me, this discovery said, “we would like to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are an established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted to it.

Reflecting on my own position, my familiarity with the space is due to my background as a young, urban, educated, English-speaking woman for whom the Internet is a key part of life. My ‘peers’ who are also attracted to this place apparently share the same background with me. The main demography of Blank Noise’s volunteers, almost equally men and women, are those between 16-35 years, urban, and English speaking (Patheja, 2010). My interviewees were all at least university educated, some in the U.S. Ivy league, and are proficient users of social media, most of them being bloggers or Twitter and Facebook users.

This dominant base reflects the discourse on the ‘youth of India’, which represents only a fragment of India’s vast population of young people. The two narratives on the youth of India are described by Sinha-Kerkhoff (2005) as ‘the haves’ and ‘have-nots’, a reflection on the broader discourse on the deep social economic inequities in India. ‘The have-nots’ are the majority of Indian youth who are struggling with the basic issues of livelihood, health, and education, while ‘the haves’ are painted as the children of liberalization: the mostly urban, middle class, technologically savvy, and highly educated students and young professionals up who maintain a youthful lifestyle up to their 30s.

Although ‘the haves’ only consist 10% of the total youth population, they are the ones identified as the youth of India by popular discourses. Lukose (2008) explained this by stating that youth as a social category in India is linked to the larger sense of India’s transformation into an emerging global economic powerhouse together with Brazil, Russia, and China (popular as BRIC) after its liberal economic reform in the 1990s. India’s information and technology industry is spearheading this transformation, thus it feeds into the discourse of youth as Digital Natives.

Although there are exceptions to this dominant demography, they are far fewer. Does this then mean that Blank Noise is ‘contextually empowering’ (Gajjala, 2004), given that it reaches only ‘the haves’ due to the digital divide and their sites of participation?

The classed nature of the virtual public space is something Blank Noise fully acknowledges. Some interviewees stated that this is why street interventions are so important; they reach people who may not be Internet users. However, people who have been involved in Blank Noise for more than two years acknowledged that class issues are also present in the physical public space.

Dev Sukumar, one of Blank Noise’s male volunteers, explained to me that the British colonial legacy still shape the way public spaces in Bangalore are organized. The commercial areas in the city centre where Blank Noise interventions were initially organized, such as M.G. Road and Brigade Road, are dominantly inhabited by English speaking people, but in other parts of the city there are many who can only speak the local language, Kannada. After recognizing this, Blank Noise organized street interventions in such places, like the Majestic bus stand, and making flyers and stencils in Kannada. In order to do this, Blank Noise specifically called for volunteers who knew the local language.

The interventions might be in a non-elite space, but the main actors remain those from the middle class. Hemangini articulated the class issue in Blank Noise, saying “Like it or not, a lot of the people in Blank Noise are from the middle class and a lot of the people we have been talking to on the streets are of a certain class. What is the ethics in a middle class woman asking ‘why are you looking at me?’ to lower class men? It is if we already assumed that most perpetrators are lower class men while it is definitely not true.”

The reflexivity Hemangini shows led me to rethink the assumptions around digital activism. It is often dismissed as catering only to the middle class, privileging only one side of the digital divide. But then again, the class issue is also present in the physical sphere. If middle class youth mostly attracts their peers in their digital activism, is it problematic by default or is it only problematic when there is no accompanying reflection on the political implications of such engagement? How is it more problematic than the ethical dilemma of middle class people addressing their ‘Others’ in street interventions? Is the problem related to the sphere of activism (virtual versus physical), or is it more about the methods of engagement and the reflexivity required for it?

Hemangini told me that her dilemma is being shared and discussed with other members in Blank Noise’s core group, consisting of those who dedicate some time to reflect on the growth and development of the collective. They have no answer just yet, but they intend to continue reflecting on it. I have no idea what their future reflection looks like, but I do know that the class implications of the cyber sphere will be resolved with more than simply taking interventions to the streets. Considering that the actors of youth digital activism are, like it or not, urban, middle class, educated digital natives, Blank Noise’s reflection will indeed be relevant for all who is interested in this issue. And if you have your own thoughts on the strategies to resolve this dilemma, why don’t you drop a comment and reflect together with us?

This is the seventh post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond the Digital-Diving Into the Digital

2011-03-22T20:17:00.004+05:30

First posted here

by Maesy Angelina in the Digital Natives

Previous posts in the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series have discussed the non-virtual aspects and presence of Blank Noise. However, to understand the activism of digital natives also require a look into their online presence and activities. This post explores how Blank Noise’s engagement with the public in their digital realm.

Action Heroes!

Through interviews and web-observations, I identified three ways in which Blank Noise and the virtual public engage with each other.

The first is by responding to the content provided by Blank Noise, such as commenting in posts or participating in polls or Facebook campaigns. There are cases where the comments turned the post into a space for intense discussion that raises interesting issues around street sexual harassment that are as significant for BN as it is for the viewers, such as Jasmeen’s aforementioned post of a harasser’s picture.

Yet, in other cases the comments ended up as a one-way communication that ignores thepossibility of turning into a public conversation. An example for this is Blank Noise’s ‘What does it take to be an Action Hero?’ event that I participated in. The event was hosted on Facebook from 25 June to 31 July 2010 and asked people to contribute a definition or a characteristic of an Action Hero, a woman who faces threat and experiences fear on thestreets of her city, but can devise unique ways to confront it. Blank Noise raised a potential conversation by asking questions for statements that tread on grey lines. A person who contributed ‘anyone who acts/protests against any form of behaviour which tends to outrage his/her sense of modesty’ was questioned on what modesty is and why it becomes a parameter, but it was not further responded. Furthermore, none of the other contributors attempted to raise or engage in such conversation.

I wondered what kind of meaning one could create from this limited way of participation and received several answers. It is a way to stay in touch and contribute to Blank Noise when one is not able to engage physically, as is the case for Laura Neuhaus after she left to continue her studies in the U.S. For others, it is a way to familiarize herself with the collective before deciding whether she wants to engage further. For the coordinators, it is to keep the momentum alive in between major interventions when they are committed to other priorities.

The second type of engagement is by actively producing content, like Rhea Daniel’s, a Mumbai-based design consultant, feisty poster contribution for theaforementioned online campaign or by sharing testimonials for the community blogs. Nandita Chaudury, a 29 year old researcher, wrote a story on her experience with street sexual harassment for Blank Noise Action Heroes community blog to show her support for BN but, more importantly, also to share experiences she wouldn’t share with anyone in real life.

Nandita said, “No one would want t share their most traumatic stories in public. I wouldn’t do it on my own blog, because I don’t want to come out yet, but I appreciate the space Blank Noise provides. After commenting in the posts and see how the discussion goes, I felt that it is a supportive space. Online contribution allowed me to stay anonymous while sharing my story to a wider public, so I felt confident in doing that.”

She further explained to me that reading others’ stories and receiving comments for hers made her feel less isolated and helped her healing process. Blank Noise’s cyber presence functions as a virtual support group for women affected by street sexual harassment, who relish a space where it is considered as a real issue and found more freedom to share given the anonymity granted by the Internet. Through their public testimonials, women demonstrate their agency in resisting harassments and undergo the transformation from victims into Action Heroes. Kelly Oliver (in Mitra-Kahn, unpublished: 17[1]) argued that writing experiences of a trauma, in this case street sexual harassment, helps the self heal by using speech and text to counter their emotions and exercise their agency;the process of empowerment that occurs hence establishes Blank Noise as a (cyber)feminist praxis. This is also a form of culture jamming: breaking the existing silence on street sexual harassment in the virtual public space.

Being a part of the virtual group helped Nandita to better cope with street sexual harassment in the physical public space, a sign that the virtual and the physical spheres mesh as reality for many of youth today. Nevertheless, this not the case for every youth. “Without real world activism, I would not have been able to deal with street sexual harassment in any real way,” said Annie, who found BN through the blogathon and has since become a coordinator.

Nandita and Annie’s stories are examples of how the virtual and physical spheres mesh in their lives, but also that the link between the two has points of disconnection that they are fully aware of. While Annie was ready to address the issue on the streets, Nandita was uncomfortable with doing so – but they were both went through a personal change enabled by Blank Noise’s cyber presence. Furthermore, the choices they made could be accommodated by Blank Noise through its online and offline interventions. This also shows a linkage or connection between the virtual and physical spheres in Blank Noise’s activities.

The online presence of Blank Noise serves multiple functions. It is a site for organization, mobilization, empowerment, and many possibilities for engagement that can be chosen based on one’s interest and abilities. It has value in itself, but it does not stand alone. It resonates with the street interventions in its potential to facilitate personal change at the individual level and beckons those who encounter Blank Noise to also extend their participation at the physical space – ifthey choose to do so. Blank Noise presents possibilities, but it is up for people to use and give meaning to it.

This is the sixth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

amidst fathers brothers husbands and unclejis

2011-02-13T04:19:00.003+05:30

A big thank you in advance for reflecting, confronting and articulating responses to the questions below. Your responses will be published on the Blank Noise Guy blog in March (date to be announced). Incase you do not wish your name to be published, please provide us with another name. You can also fill this form here. For any questions, clarifications, suggestions- we're at blurtblanknoise at gmail.com . And another thank you in advance for taking these not so comfortable conversations home :)

Yours truly,

BN Team

Anand's response to Locutus83

2011-02-02T13:14:00.005+05:30

Anand Philip continues the conversation started by Locutus83 in our blog post- GOT MAIL through his blog post . Anand describes himself as a 'lapsed Healthcare professional on perpetual vacation who writes in his mind regularly and on http://anandphilip.com occasionally.'

Anand and Locutus83's post are also hosted at our BN GUYS blog

Accidental Eveteasing and Other Mythical Beasts

first posted here

This post is in reply to the letter “Locutus83″ Sent to Blank Noise [Click here to Read it] asking some very honest and fundamental questions. I loved his honesty, openness and willingness to be wrong. This is also, partially, in response to the general riff raff and chit chat I have come across on various sites related to eve-teasing and street sexual harassment. And as Locust asks, have included a “guide to being a gentleman” as I cant think of anyone better suited than I to write such a guide.

Defining Eveteasing: Eveteasing is not a set of pre-defined actions. It is whatever makes women feel unsafe, powerless, predated upon and unwelcome. How you look, where you look, how long you look, what you do etc can serve as guidelines, but are not what marks eveteaing. However, terms are useful and necessary for awareness and education etc because discreet actions can be measured and evaluated.So also sexual thoughts are not eveteasing, nor are they wrong. Sexual thoughts are not disrespectful, they are natural, normal and in my opinion respectful. However, any sexual gratification that happens at the expense of another persons dignity, space and well being is inherently wrong, be it a thought or action.

How do women know? Women know because from childhood they have been preyed upon, its not sixth sense, its conditioning. From very young, girls are instructed by their parents, relatives and teachers to behave modestly, dress sensibly and mind their own business, and in the process hammering into their minds that being eveteased is their fault and it’s their responsibility to evade eveteasing. Men, on the other hand, have a free run, on the rare chance some girl stares back, snaps, or threatens to hit you with a chappal, it is laughed off and considered a small thing. So also, from childhood they are used to stares, looks, comments, whistles and so conditioned to detect and evade such behaviour.

Do they enjoy it? No woman, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever, enjoys being eveteased. This is not a matter of semantics, but a serious and fundamental issue. Eveteasing makes a woman feel helpless, powerless and dehumanized, NO ONE enjoys this. No sane person would expect women to enjoy rape (many insane people think they do), same way, no action, behavior or words that prey upon women can make them feel good.

Do women want us to stop looking? Blank noise and women in general do not want to stop men from looking, or staring, or making compliments, they want to stop harassment. This is not moral policing, not “neutering” of men, but of making them aware that preying on women is disgusting, illegal and will get their bottoms kicked.

Is it person dependant? Refer para. 3 What makes a statement/action eveteasing is essentially the attitude. So it doesn’t matter if a compliment comes from a poor man or rich, if respectful, appropriate, will be taken well. Guys who stand around the corner in groups and say “tamatar kya bhaav hai?” to passing women are not complimenting their breasts, they are being assholes.

Accidental Eveteasing. This seems to be the underlying question Locust and many others seem to have. In case the title of the article was not clear enough, and the first few points didn’t clear this misunderstanding, let me be very clear. You can no more eve tease someone by accident than you can mistakenly end up with your penis inside a cadaver. Comments do-not tumble out of your mouth and eyes dont automatically get glued to breasts.

But, occasionally, very rarely your look might be mistaken for lechery, this is not the norm but the exception. In such a situation, be honest, apologize, and look elsewhere. Women dont consider all men to be sexually deviant predators, they dont walk around looking for an excuse to use their pepper sprays. Mistakes happen, owe up and move on.

Guide for men.

There is no Guidebook
There is no “do this, dont do this” list that you can mug up and follow. Actions matter, but attitude is what causes action. The basic quality is respect for women, not the fake, filmy, “but you are my sister” kind, but respect as will be demonstrated by you not talking to womens breasts, or whistling at them.

Respect is not conditional. Expecting women to fit into the stereotypes that history has handed down before respecting them is fake, futile and will result in your acting like a dick.

Be socially appropriate.
As I said, there is nothing wrong in appreciating beauty, male, female, tree or car. However, it is important to be wise in the way one appreciates. I dont believe in lists, but there are some things that you can outright cross off you list. What works in the movies, like stalking, songs, and displays of macho-ness do not work. Also the street is not really the best way to find someone to start a relationship with. In most circumstances, a smile, nod, quick look-over will have you safe. But you have to learn what is appropriate.
Learn from the best
Just because you respect women does not mean you can do no wrong. You can still do something stupid, tacky and clumsy. This has more to do with social skills than attitude. The cure for that is to have female friends, no one knows what women want better than women. (Not only will women friends help you learn how to behave around women, they will also help you inyour pursuit of becoming a better boyfriend with ample advice and first hand experience in shopping and suchlike.)

Dont be scared, women are not looking for an excuse to call you a pervert.

Above all;

No means No

She is not asking for it. In fact, she never asks for it

To you, Locust, clearly you have no lack of respect for women, so i’d say you need to stop worrying about “accidentally” eveteasing someone, and go have fun.

amongst fathers husbands brothers and uncle-jis

2011-01-25T11:26:00.009+05:30

Ever chatted with dad + uncles + grandfather + brothers + husbands + boyfriend about eveteasing and street sexual harassment? O
r is it just one of those things you 'understood' without having to discuss?
Or would you take a chance and get talking about it with your father or uncles or grandfather or your brother in the next one month?

Send your response/ thoughts/ memories/ conversations in an email or a blog post to blurtblanknoise at gmail com subject titled 'papa said'/ 'abba said'/ 'dad said'/ or brother/ uncle/ grandfather said deadline: feb 21 To confirm your participation in this event do email us immediately and announce this event on your blog/ twitter / fb page to spread the word.

For any questions thoughts suggestions please write to us.

Tweet this:
ever chatted with dad uncles bros abt #eveteasing #streetsexualviolence ?http://bit.ly/efXJ6I

Beyond the Digital-The Digital Tipping Point

2011-01-22T10:10:00.004+05:30

First posted here

by Maesy Angelina in Digital Natives

Is Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial factors behind the success.

What images popped in your head when you hear the term ‘digital activism’? Those that popped in mine are of campaigns that originated in the Internet, perhaps with a blog, a Youtube video, or a Facebook group, mobilizing people to take part in a certain action to advocate for a cause or to respond to a specific event. Whether the request is to sign a petition for a new legislation or to wear a specific colour on a specific day, the campaigns also ask people to spread the message, usually responded by re-tweets, status updates, and link-shares that appear on my timeline. These campaigns, like the famous Wear Red for Burma or the Pink Chaddi, are usually responses to certain events and dwindle after the events have passed.

With its four blogs, two Facebook groups, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account, at first glance Blank Noise certainly resembles the images in my head. However, they popped one by one as I got to know Blank Noise better. For one, as I have shared before, Blank Noise was not a response to a specific event but rather the long term, ongoing, structural problem of street sexual harassment. For another, street interventions started as the main core of Blank Noise and have remained a crucial element despite its prolific online presence. Blank Noise did not start in the Internet nor did it immediately turn to Web 2.0 for its mobilization.

The main blog was created soon after Blank Noise started in 2003 to serve as an archive, information center, and space to announce future street events. The diverse online campaigns, lively discussions in the comment section of blog posts, and abundant blog post contributions by people who have experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual harassment started after two unexpected events that I call ‘the digital tipping point’.

The first was when Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, started uploading pictures of her harasser, taken with her mobile phone, to the blog in March 2005. The first picture was of a man who had stalked and pestered her for coffee despite her rejection to his unwelcomed advances. While some readers applauded her action, many challenged the post. How is the action different from “Can I buy you a drink?” Can it trigger the change wanted, especially since the guy might not even have access to the Internet? Is the action of publicly labeling the man as a perpetrator of street sexual harassment ethical, especially since the man has not been proven guilty?

These challenges then spiraled into a long discussion (72 comments!) about the grey areas of street sexual harassment and the ethics around confronting perpetrators. Although Blank Noise still continue to upload snapshots of harassers (this intervention is called ‘Unwanted’), their pictures have since then been blurred until the face is unrecognizable, including the one in the original post. This event was when Jasmeen realized that the blog also has the potential of being a space for discussions, opinions, and debates – the public conversation that Blank Noise aims for.

The second tipping point was when one of Blank Noise volunteers proposed an idea of a blogathon to commemorate the International Women’s Day in 2006. Blogging had become a major trend in India around 2004 and the blogathon basically asked bloggers around India to write about their experience with street sexual harassment in their private blogs and link the post to the Blank Noise blog. The bloggers invited were both women and men, people who have either experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual harassment. The blogathon was an immense success, perhaps due to the frustration on the silence and downplay of street sexual harassment into eve teasing. Suddenly, eve teasing became a booming topic on the web and Blank Noise received media and (mostly the cyber) public attention.

This is when the idea of online interventions started. In the following year, Blank Noise created the first of its blogs that consist entirely of contributions from the public: the Action Heroes blog, a growing compilation of women’s experiences in dealing with street sexual harassment. It is then followed by Blank Noise Guys and Blank Noise Spectators, which respectively concentrates on the experiences of men and people who have witnessed street sexual harassment. Other than the community blogs, the main blog also introduced collaborative online campaigns in 2008, such as the ‘Museum of Street Weapons’ (a poster project that explores how women uses everyday objects to defend themselves against street sexual harassment) and ‘Blank Noise This Place’ (a photo collection of places where street sexual harassment occurs). These interventions were not only online; they were also collaborative and invited the public to participate.

These tipping points are intriguing not only for being the triggers to Blank Noise’s transformation to one of the most important digital activism in India (Mishra, 2010), but also for the reason why they are successful in doing so: they are able to attract public participation.

The first tipping point was able to attract people to participate by commenting on a post. The said post was very simple; it consists of a picture and a one-paragraph text that depicts a conversation between the harasser and the woman:

“stalker no. 1: " Excuse me, have we met before?" machlee: no Stalker no. 1: Yes we have! On commercial street! I work in a call centre. I am a science graduate." machlee: why are you telling me all this? stalker no. 1: can I have coffee with you? machlee: can i photograph you? stalker no. 1: yes! sure you can! stalker no.1: blah blah blah” (Patheja, 2005)

Having been used to NGO pamphlets and blog posts, I have come to equate discussion on sexual harassment as a very serious discussion with long text and formal language. This post is so different from what I was used to, but it was clear to me that even though the language was casual, the issue and intention were serious. The casual presentation spoke to me “we would like to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are an established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted and comfortable to jump into the conversation.

The second tipping point attracted the more active, substantial participation than commenting; many people actually created texts, photos, or posters for Blank Noise. It was possible because Blank Noise opened itself. Jasmeen opened up to an idea of a volunteer, who opened up to the possibilities offered by the cybersphere. Instead of depending on a core team to conduct an intervention, Blank Noise opened up to a project that entirely depended on the public’s response to be successful. Moreover, Blank Noise opened up to diverse points of views and many types of experiences with street sexual harassment.

It is widely acknowledged that the success of a digital activism lies on its ability to attract public collaboration; however, the digital tipping points of Blank Noise underline several important factors behind the ability. Attracting public engagement is not always a result of a meticulous pre-planned intervention. On the contrary, it might spawn from unintentional events that welcome diverse points of view, adopt a peer-to-peer attitude, invite contributions, and most importantly, touched an issue that is very important for many different people. Web 2.0 is an enabling tool and site for dialogue, but it is certainly not the only reason behind the success of digital activism in galvanizing youth’s engagement.

This is the fifth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

GOT MAIL

2011-01-16T10:45:00.007+05:30

Hello Blank Noise members/ readers/ supporters / spirited BN

Guys and Action Heroes,

We got an email from * locutus83 * and he has

given us the permission to publish it so that anyone who visits the blog can respond to it.

His email is below:

Hi Blank Noise,

I have read about your project recently and have had a look at your website. I must com

mend your group for the extremely high levels of enthusiasm and dedication you bring, in spreading aw

areness about sexual harassment of women and "eve-teasing". Keep it up!

However, being a member of the much maligned (with due cause

, of course) male gender of India, I have a lot of queries and scattered doubts regarding what you term as "eve-teasing" and sexual har

assment. I hope you would take your time to go through the questions and satisfy my doubts!

Before I shoot, let me lay down my ground beliefs:

1. I feel any kind of inappropriate PHYSICAL contact definitely is a very serious and despicable form of eve-teasing and sexual harassment.

2. I also agree that inappropriate VERBAL gestures also make up a large fraction of what you term as sexual harassment.

3. Blatantly lecherous staring (such as ogling at breasts openly) and "self-containted" but openly sexual acts (masturbation) too can be categorized as sexual harassment.

My main conclusion is that the key behind every act of sexual harassment/eve-teasing is that the victim feels violated, uncomfortable, insulted and humiliated.

However, I am a bit puzzled as to why LOOKING or occasional STARING falls in the category of eve-teasing. [Q1] How uncomfortable can a girl/woman feel because of a fleeting glance/look which is not "lecherous/sexual" ?

I understand that women have powerful instincts using which they can immediately classify the intent behind someone's look.. (undressing in the mind stuff)

But, a look/stare could be blank / angry/ absent-minded/ innocent with good intent/ admiring/ lecherous. [Q2] How can a girl/woman figure it out so quickly and classify it as harassment?

If I see a beautiful woman, then instinctively my eyes veer over her for a few seconds. This reaction, I feel, is quite biological and hard-ingrained into us males, and I think I am admiring the beauty of the lady in a nice way; I am not thinking of having sex with her right on the spot. (and even if there is some sexual intent, it's there for a fleeting second.) [Q3] What's wrong with that? Don't women feel good about themselves if they get a few admiring glances from the opposite sex?

It has happened sometimes that I have caught girls/women looking at me and women have caught me looking at them. This kind of fleeting eye-contact situation keeps happening from time to time. [Q4] Can staring into a woman's eyes be constituted as sexual harassment? It has also happened that I have smiled at a woman (stranger) post eye-contact; and vice versa. [Q5] Is staring and smiling at a woman sexual harassment?

[Q6] Isn't all this eve-teasing or sexual harassment if the woman is uncomfortable? [Q7] You surely cannot call it eve-teasing if the lady is ACTUALLY ENJOYING it, can you :-) ?

Next, some men have a belief that women don't mind being admired/teased by someone THEY admire or like; someone who is polished, erudite, refined, clean, sophisticated, educated. They get disgusted mainly because of the level/class of the man involved ( poor, dirty, pot-bellied, uncouth, illiterate, rude, smelly) rather thant the action. (Class bias). [Q8] Is this a misconception or is this somewhat true?

Finally, some people say that if you are to strictly avoid ALL of what constitues sexual harassment, then men would have to go against biology, and would have to:

1. Have some magical powers to get rid of sexual desire completely.

2. Be homosexual.

3. Be blind or extremely absent minded and have tunnel vision so as to look through women/girls as if they did not exist.

4. Avoid women like the plague and stay at a safe distance of more that 10 metres away from a woman/girl.

Surely, this is way too extreme, to be taken as a joke :-). But seriously, you have talked a lot about the NEGATIVEs of behaviour and what constitutes sexual harassment. What about some positive advice to all the men out there? How should men conduct themselves in public and in and around women to be liked and not be hated/feared as a lecher/jerk? Some "top 10 tips to be a nice yet classy man around women" would be welcome.

I hope you can spend some time and resolve some of my doubts.You may throw these questions open to debate to all the women/men in your group and associated with your group.

Best wishes to your team for 2011 and the future.

Warm regards,

Locutus83

Hello

Thanks very much for this email. We promise to answer all the questions and responds to the ideas mentioned. Am sure your questions resonate with many more people who visit us hence would it be okay with you if we shared your email on the blog? We could give you a pseudonym if you prefer?

Please let us know if you're okay with this. If yes, could you also share details such as age and a little bit about you.

Look forward to hearing from you

Thanks!

Blank Noise Team

Locutus83 has introduced himself as "I am 27+ years old. I have a Bachelor's Degree and Master's in Electrical Engineering and am currently working in a semiconductor Chip Design company in Bangalore. I am a science fiction freak and a cricket fanatic, and I love cycling and table tennis. Even though I don't consider myself a "feminist" in the true sense, I love to read a lot about women, relationships, problems faced by women, issues about love, sexuality, marriage, family and society; and the clashes with the puritanical, patriarchal Indian society. I consider myself a bit "westernized" in the sense that I believe in individualism, independence and sexual freedom; and don't hold the Indian social "culture, morals and values" in very high regard :-)

MEET UP 2011

2011-01-13T15:11:00.009+05:30

+listen +chai +100% Action Hero-ism=

Watch this space for meet ups , event announcements, Blank Noise workshops and presentations in your city in 2011. To organize a meet up or to have us present at your workplace, college, city etc email in at blurtblanknoise at gmail

FEBRUARY 2011

Feb 7 PICNIC SUNDAY!

any city , town, place, country as long as it's outside!

>propose location and your wish list for the picnic!

e:blurtblanknoise@gmail.com

Bangalore
Date: Feb 2nd. Wednesday
Are you in college? We're starting an Action Heroes College network.
We are meeting on Wednesday between 4 30- 6 30 pm. Location will be disclosed on confirmation. We will be meeting near Cunningham Road. To apply sign up here and if you have already applied just send in an email to blurtblanknoise@gmail.com subject titled BLANK NOISE ACTION HERO COLLEGE NETWORK

Chandigarh

Date: Feb 6th. Sunday

Time 2 30 pm-5 30 pm

JANUARY 2011

Delhi

Date: Jan 23

Location: Central Park

who: everybody/ anybody

Time 2 30- 5pm

Date: Wednesday 19th

Who: college students only.

Time: 4 pm

Location: to be confirmed. email blurtblanknoise@gmail

(past meet)

Date: Jan 12

who: college students only.

time: 4 - 530 pm

Date: Jan 8th

who: everybody

time: 11 am- 1 pm

Workshop/ presentation

Date: Jan 4

Location: Mount Carmel College via Sichrem, Bangalore.

2011 and some immediate things-

2011-01-06T10:37:00.007+05:30

2011 and the ACTION HERO is on duty.
make your city safe by walking your street fearless.
Happy New Year!

To new news and immediate action:

1. MEET IN BANGALORE/ DELHI AND CHANDIGARH
This year promises to be eventful and energetic. We're starting with a meeting in Bangalore on Jan 8th, Saturday at 10 45 am. Location will be disclosed upon confirmation. if you can make it, please confirm at the soonest + bring a potential action hero along! (your friend/ colleague/ neighbour/ family/ co traveler) please email us most definitely by the 7th of Jan to confirm.

Meet up in Delhi and Chandigarh on Jan 23-. If you'd like to be involved with organizing a meet up in your city do get in touch with us right away.

Upcoming events include an Action Heroes event across cities (Feb) and an all new internet event too (to be announced in a week).

2. ACTION HERO TESTIMONIALS
A big thank you to all Action Heroes for sharing their stories with us on dealing with street sexual violence.Thank you Dianne Padma Nandini If you've got a story or a strategy on how you dealt with 'eve-teasing' you know where to send it .It doesn't have to be your story alone, it could be an urban legend, something you heard. This could also involve you speaking with women around you and gathering stories. (ask the women around you- grandma. cousins. friends. colleagues. domestic help.)

4. CALL FOR INTERNSHIP
call for interns. time- 2 months/ or project specific. apply by Jan 30 internship. phase 1 of 2011 begins feb 10

5. CALL TO VOLUNTEER
apply to volunteer deadline for 2011 phase 1 is Jan 30

5. THIS SPECTATOR CHANGED THE SCENE
We often hear stories about a 3rd person being attacked for helping in an 'eve-teasing'/ street sexual violence situation. These reports perpetuate fear by emphasizing the personal risk in getting involved. We're not here to say it isn't a risk but surely there have been instances where a 3rd person's intervention has changed the scene.
This is a call for personal stories of how 'spectators' involvement made a difference.Have you been that third person who got involved? Have you got a story on how the spectator's involvement helped you? email your story subject titled THIS SPECTATOR CHANGED THE SCENE no later than Jan 30. blurtblanknoise at gmail com
(more details to follow)

Yours in spirit
Blank Noise Team

Beyond the Digital-Taking It to The Streets

2010-12-17T12:14:00.005+05:30

By Maesy Angelina

first posted here and here

The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?

In a previous post, I have shared how Blank Noise is unique in articulating its issue: it does not offer a strict definition of eve teasing nor does it propose a specific solution. In another, I shared that Blank Noise’s main goal may seem to be to raise public’s awareness on eve teasing, but it is actually secondary to its less obvious objective to provide a space where people can become empowered through its personal experiences in the collective. The main strategy employed to achieve these goals is to create a public dialogue through artistic and playful means, both at the physical and virtual spheres. The interventions attracted media attention and volunteers, but the main impacts are internal: people are able to personalize the meaning of their involvement in Blank Noise and undergo individual transformations.

This post will flesh out how these elements are actually translated in Blank Noise’s interventions. It is difficult to pick one example Blank Noise a wide variety of interventions as it evolves through the seven years of its existence. It started in 2003 as Jasmeen Patheja’s final project when she was a student in the Sristhi School of Art and Design in Bangalore. At this first phase, Blank Noise consisted of nine people and dealt with victimhood through a series of workshops that became the basis for small art interventions. As s many other activist groups before them, Blank Noise took the initiatives to the physical public sphere: the streets, bus stands, public transportations, parks – anywhere outside the home. Blank Noise decided to move forward and try to engage the wider public in 2005 and engage more volunteers than the initial group of nine. Despite being more well-known lately for its virtual presence, the collective only started its first online intervention in 2006 and street events remainan integral part of its being. Given this history, and also because this is the one most often brought up in my conversations with the Blank Noise people, I choose to share the ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME’ street intervention experience.

The experience starts with a post in the Blank Noise main blog and e-group, announcing a date and time for the next street intervention. The announcement is accompanied by an invitation for anyone who reads it to participate and come to a designated place (such as the popular café Coffee Day or the famous Cubbon Park in Bangalore) for a preparation meeting and also the actual intervention (sometimes immediately afterwards). When the time comes to for the meeting, the faces that appeared are varied. Some are regular faces in Blank Noise meetings and interventions: perhaps Jasmeen, others who have been coordinating interventions, or regular volunteers. Some faces are new: people who read the announcements online, heard it through word of mouth, or those who were around and curious about the gathering. The number could range from three to more than 100. Most who came were women although there were also men.

After a brief introduction of everyone present, the meeting proceeded with a brief discussion on eve teasing and the intervention that will take place. ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME’ is an intervention where a group of women wears a giant letter made of red reflective tape on their shirts. They then stand idly on the streets or zebra cross, staring at the vehicles and passers-by without a word. Together, the letters on their shirts form the sentence ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME’, demanding attention by asking a silent question. When the traffic light flashed to green, these women will disappear to the sidewalks. A group of male volunteers are already there, distributing pamphlets and engaging passers-by about in a conversation about what they just saw and relate it to eve teasing. The idea behind this intervention is an act a female gaze to reverse the male gaze that often times could be considered as a form of eve teasing. Because it is so unusual, onlookers often look away or feel embarrassed after an encounter with the female gaze. Despite being done without a word, the twist of gender dynamics in this intervention provoked the interest of people in the sidewalk and opened up the space for public dialogue – the aim Blank Noise strives to achieve.

Jasmeen told me that after this point some people started asking “But how will the public get what we’re talking about?” The idea of addressing an issue with such an ambiguous approach was indeed difficult to digest for some people – including me. The intervention did not explicitly mention eve teasing nor did it convey any clear message; there was no such thing as a placard that says “Stop Eve Teasing” or something similar. There was no specific proposal. The playful performance definitely is provocative enough to generate public dialogue, but what change will it create?

Blank Noise coordinators then encouraged people to experience the intervention first before making conclusions. The various roles are introduced and the volunteers were free to choose what they want to do. There are people who opted for the backstage work of preparing the red tapes and printing the pamphlets, some wanted to perform, while others are more contented to talk with the public afterwards. After the intervention took place, Jasmeen found that the feedback from the volunteers showed that the initial doubts disappeared.

Although there were people who did not want to talk to the volunteers, in general they were surprised by how open the public was to the conversations. “Maybe people are tired of the old ways of just meeting on the streets and trying to convince others through protests or petitions,” said Aarthi Ajit, a 25 year old research assistant who helped organize a Blank Noise Bangalore street intervention in 2008. “Maybe we need to look for different ways to get people’s attention and the creative, playful, and non-confrontative approach will work better than aggravation in making people think of the issue and become part of the movement.” She further explained that widening definitions of street sexual harassment and proposing tangible solutions are helpful to create the open attitude, while some people, especially men, could feel alienated by a poster that depicts men being violent to women as all men were labeled as perpetrators. This may be able to explain the public interaction as well as the numerous media coverage Blank Noise received for these street interventions. In this sense, people who doubted that the public would respond no longer questioned whether Blank Noise’s message would get through.

However, the question of whether the intervention made any change is still valid, considering that there is no means for Blank Noise to follow-up with the many people on the streets about whether they change their perception or behavior on street sexual harassment. Instead, the change could be detected within the volunteers.

Hemangini Gupta, one of Blank Noise coordinators, recalled her first experience of performing the intervention. “It felt strange, but fun and empowering in a way. I never realized how disconnected I was from the streets before the intervention - I would never look at people before. It felt very safe knowing that I could just stand and look at people without any repercussions.”

Annie Zaidi, another Blank Noise coordinator, blogged about how her experience with Blank Noise interventions changed the way she deals with street sexual harassment. “Something has changed. This time, my reaction is different from what it would have been two years ago… I was surprised, felt contempt and anger – but I did not feel fear. This, I realize now, is because of Blank Noise, partly. .. It is as much about dealing with women’s fear of public spaces and strangers as it is about dealing with sexually abusive / intimidating strangers.”

Hemangini and Annie’s stories were echoed by many other volunteers. Jasmeen said that it was when Blank Noise started articulating that the change occurs internally first and blurring the line between the audience and the “Action Heroes”. The volunteers are as affected by the process as the viewers; they are mutually dependent on each other for the intervention experience to be meaningful. That is why Blank Noise does not think of “an audience”, everyone is a participant and co-creator in the experience.

Instead of shouting “Stop street sexual harassment!” or performing a street theatre with spoken words, Blank Noise chose to quietly ask “Why are you looking at me?” on the streets. They welcome many people, but the strength of its interventions does not lie in numbers. Blank Noise thinks about their issues differently and consequently, they also do things differently.

This is the fourth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond The Digital -TALKING BACK without "TALKING BACK"

2010-12-13T16:37:00.005+05:30

By Maesy Angelina

first posted here and here

The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism.

Last August, I had the opportunity to participate in the three-day grueling yet highly rewarding ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei. On the very first day, Seema Nair, one of the facilitators and a good friend, asked us to reflect about what ‘talking back’ means in the context of activism. At first glance, activism is almost always interpreted as a confrontational resistance towards an identifiable opponent over a certain issue - a group of activists protesting against a discriminatory legislation passed by a government, for example. Although this is definitely the most popular form, is this the only way activism could be done?

While reflecting on Seema’s question, I thought of my conversations with people in the Blank Noise Project and how they seem to defy this popular imagination through their efforts to address street sexual harassment. From the way it articulates its issue (I have shared it before in here), Blank Noise challenges the idea of an opponent in activism by refusing to identify an entity as the “enemy” or the one responsible for the issue, given the grey areas of street sexual harassment. The opponent is intangible instead: the mindset shared by all members of society that enables the violation to continue.

Consequently, Blank Noise ‘talks back’ differently. While it is common for many movements to set an intangible vision as its goal (for instance: a society where women is treated as equals with men), they also have a tangible intermediary targets to move towards the broader vision (e.g. a new legislation or service provision for women affected by domestic violence). Blank Noise sticks with the intangible. The goal is to form a collective where eve teasing is everybody’s shared concern, spreading awareness that street sexual harassment is happening every day and it is unacceptable because it is a form of violence against women. Pooja Gupta, a 19 year old art student who is one of the initiators of the ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook campaign, underlined this intangible goal by saying that “The goal really is to spread awareness. It is not about pushing any specific agenda or telling people what to do.”

Because of this goal, I initially thought that there is a clear demarcation between people within the Blank Noise and the ‘public’ whose awareness they would like to raise – that there is a clear “us” (the Blank Noise activists) and “them” (the target group). However, I was corrected by Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, when we chatted one day. “I haven’t ever put it that way. Since the beginning, the collective is meant to be inclusive and there is no specific target group. The public is invited to participate and there is no audience, everyone is a participant and co-creator.”

The strategy for this is to open up a public dialogue. When Blank Noise first started in 2003, it started with the street as the public space and uses art as its method of intervention. It takes many forms: performative art, clothes exhibition, street polls, and many others. Although today Blank Noise is much more known for its engagement with the virtual public through its prolific Internet presence (4 blogs, a Twitter account, 2 Facebook groups, many Facebook events, and a YouTube channel), the street interventions remain a significant part of its activities. Regardless of the methods, which I will elaborate more in future blog posts, the principles of creativity, play, and non-confrontation are always maintained.

At this point, some critical questions could be raised. What is Blank Noise actually trying to achieve through the dialogue? Can public dialogue really address the issue? How does Blank Noise know if it is interventions have an impact?

When I asked the last question, many people in the Blank Noise admitted that impact measurement is something that they are still grappling with. Some said that the public recognition of Blank Noise by bloggers and mainstream media is an indicator; others said that the growth of volunteers is also an impact. However, I found that this is not an issue many people were concerned with and was a bit puzzled. After all, if one were to dedicate their time and energy to a cause, wouldn’t s/he want to know what kind of difference made?

The light bulb for this puzzle switched on when Apurva Mathad, one of Blank Noise male volunteers, said, “Eve teasing is an issue that nobody talks about. It seems like a monumental thing to try and change it, so the very act of doing something to address it and reaching as many people as possible right now seems to be enough.”

Apurva basically told me that it is the action of doing something about the issue is what counts – and that it is the personal level change among people who are active within the Blank Noise is the real impact. I recalled that everyone else I talked with mentioned individual transformation after being a part of Blank Noise intervention – something I would elaborate upon in future posts.

This observation was confirmed in a later conversation with Jasmeen, where I discovered that Blank Noise also has another goal that was not as easy to identify as the first: to allow people involved with the collective to undergo a personal transformation into “Action Heroes” - people who actively takes action to challenge the silence and disregard towards street sexual harassment. In this sense, Blank Noise is similar to many women collectives that became organized to empower themselves and hence could be said to also adopt a feminist ideology.

The difference with most women collectives, however, lies on Blank Noise’s aim to allow a personalization of people’s experience with the collective. “The nature of this project is that people are in it for a reason close to them and they give meaning to their involvement as they see fit,” Jasmeen said.

Blank Noise does face challenges in doing this. Some people found it difficult to understand that an issue could be addressed without shouting slogans or advocating for a specific solution and others joined with anger due to their personal experiences. Hence, the non-confrontational dialogue approach becomes even more important. The discussion and debates it raises help the Blank Noise volunteers to also learn more about the issue, reflect on their experiences and opinions, as well as to give meaning to their involvement. This is when I finally understood the point of “no target group”: the Blank Noise people also learn and become affected by the interventions they performed. Influencing ‘others’ is not the main goal although it is a desired effect, the main one is to allow personal empowerment.

Going back to the ‘talking back’ discussion in Taipei, Seema then shared her experiences working with women groups in India and showed how ‘talking back’ could also be ‘talking with’, engaging people in a dialogue. It need not always address the state; it could also be aiming to make a change at the personal level in everyday life. It could also be ‘talking within’, keeping the discussion and debates alive within a movement to avoid a homogenized, simplification of the activism and provide a reflective element to the action. ‘Talking back’ could also take form other than “talking”, which usually is done through slogans and placards in a street protest, petition, or statements. It could be done through art, theatre performance, and many, many other possibilities.

Blank Noise is definitely an example of these different forms and its experience shows that the difference is not arbitrary. It is based on a well-thought analysis of the issue that extends to how it formulates its objectives which is then translated into its strategies. Blank Noise is not only an example of how activism is done differently, but also on how the thought behind it is different.

As I looked around the workshop room I was reminded that Blank Noise was not the only one. A few seats away from me sat two people who combined technology and poetry to create everyday resistance towards consumerism in Taiwan and a young woman who held urban camps in India to mobilize young people to volunteer Regardless of the issue and the technology used, many digital natives with a cause across the world remind us that ‘talking back’ could be done in many other ways than “talking back”.

This is the third post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

*The photo is from one of Blank Noise's interventions in Cubbon Park, Bangalore. You can learn more about this intervention here.

Beyond the Digital: First Things First

2010-12-11T11:46:00.006+05:30

By Maesy Angelina

first posted here and here

Studies often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series reverses this trend and explores how Blank Noise articulates the issue it addresses: street sexual harassment.

To try to understand youth digital activism is to first understand what the issue it deals with is all about. This point is made clear by the 13 people involved in Blank Noise, who all started our conversation with a discussion on eve teasing, the issue that Blank Noise deals with and the reason for its existence. Taking the hint from them, I start sharing my research journey by sharing how Blank Noise thinks of the issue it takes. As I recall our conversations, I am still amazed by how everyone, regardless of whether they have been involved as an initiator of a 15-day Facebook campaign or as a coordinator for five years, share the following articulation

‘Eve teasing’ is a euphemism in English that refers to the various forms of sexual harassment experienced by women in public places, be it parks, streets, or buses. It takes different forms, ranging from staring, verbal lampooning, accidental jostling, or outright groping. While public sexual harassments also occur in almost every place in the globe, the term ‘eve teasing’ itself is particular to South Asia, especially India. The term plays on the biblical Eve that is considered as a temptress, playing on the dichotomy of ‘good and bad’ women and placing the blame on women for enticing men to tease them. The word ‘tease’ itself downplays the severity of the action and making it a trivial, funny, non-issue - so much that it is regarded as a rite of passage into womanhood and ignored by the authorities unless it leads to violent deaths. This term is what Blank Noise seeks to address; it aims to denounce the word ‘eve teasing’ and call it by its appropriate name: street sexual harassment.

While in the popular perception street sexual harassment happen only to young women who dress in Western fashion, actually all women irrespective of age, class, or dress have experienced it. In a much lesser degree, men also experienced street sexual harassment. However, the norms of masculinity deny their victimhood and a typical reaction would be ‘yes, I got felt up but I pity the bugger because he’s gay’ (Blank Noise, 2005).

The root of the problem is how eve teasing is internalized by all members of the society, including women. Laura Neuhaus, a 27 year old American woman who became active in Blank Noise when she worked in Bangalore for a few years, was shocked to find that the senior women in her department, who had PhD degrees and were at the top of their career, turned a blind eye to the harassment they experience and advised her to do the same. Tanvee Nabar, a 19 year old student who was one of the initiators of Blank Noise’s ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook campaign, stated that victims may also perpetuate the problem by thinking that accusing themselves of being responsible for the harassment because of the way they dress or behave. She said, “Even by thinking that way I am validating eve teasing, so this needs to stop.”

The problem thrives on the silence of victims, who are further deterred from speaking up by negative reactions ranging from agreeing that it’s a problem but it should be ignored because nothing can be done about it, increased restrictions from protective parents, or even offers to beat up the perpetrator to get even by men relatives or spouses.

However, Blank Noise recognizes that the issue is not as straightforward as it may seem. While some actions like groping are clearly a form of harassment, other forms such as looking or verbal taunting are not as obvious. Therefore, rather than offering a rigid guideline to what is or is not street sexual harassment, Blank Noise attempts to build a definition of ‘eve teasing’ through public polls, both online on its blog and on the streets.

Blank Noise does not advocate for any specific, tangible solution either. It is not proposing for a new legislation or service provision. Many youth experts would say that it is a sign of youth’s decreasing trust to the state, but actually this is an extension of Blank Noise’s acknowledgement of the ambiguity of street sexual harassment. Hemangini Gupta, a 29 years old Blank Noise coordinator, asked, “Should we be allowing the state to legislate an issue like street sexual harassment where there is so much grey even with how it is understood and defined - from ‘looking’ to physical violence?” Instead, Blank Noise aims at creating public dialogue to break the ignorance on street sexual harassment and change the mindset of both men and women, young and old. Blank Noise does not promote a specific course of action for women affected by the harassment either; it promotes the confidence to choose how to react to harassment.

What is unique about Blank Noise from this articulation? Some would argue that Blank Noise is unique for being the first collective that addresses eve teasing, but a closer inquiry into the history of the Indian women movements show that it is widely acknowledged as a form of violence against women. However, perhaps due to the limited resources of the movement, efforts to address eve teasing have been taken up very systematically (Gandhi and Shah, 2002). In this sense, when it was born in 2003, Blank Noise was unique for being the only group whose existence is solely dedicated to address this issue.

Blank Noise is not unique in problematizing the issue of violence against women. The women’s movements in India and elsewhere have been refusing to prescribe any solutions to the victims and identifying patriarchal mindset of both men and women as the root cause either. Yet, it is exceptional in not identifying an opponent or an entity where concrete demands are proposed to push for a tangible progress towards a change of mindset.

Intangible changes are as good as tangible ones. This might be a new characteristic of how digital natives think about their causes, but it could also be more related to their reading of the specific issue they are dealing with. Perhaps, if the issue at hand is climate change, the same people will advocate for specific solutions to the state or promote concrete behavior change. Either way, the message is clear: we need to always take into account what a digital natives activism is about and not just how they do it!

This is the second post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause

2010-12-07T12:08:00.008+05:30

first posted here

Digital natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

The last decade has witnessed an escalating interest among academics, policy makers, and other practitioners on the intersection between youth, activism, and the new media technologies, which resulted in two narratives: one of doubt and the other of hope. The ‘hope’ narrative hinges on the new plethora of avenues for activism at the young people’s disposal and the bulge of the population, stating that the contemporary forms of youth activism represent new ways of conceiving and doing activism in the present and the future (see, for example, UN DESA, 2005). The ‘doubt’ narrative, on the other hand, questions to what extent the digital activism can contribute to broader social change (Collin, 2008) and some proponents of this view even call it ‘slacktivism’, stating that online activism is only effective if accompanied with real life activism (Morozov, 2009).

Before assessing the potentials of youth’s digital activism to contribute to social change, it is imperative to first gain a comprehensive understanding about this emerging form of activism. A brief review of existing literature on the topic found that most of the analyses are centered on three perspectives, each with its own approach, strengths, and weaknesses: the technology centered, the new social movements centered, and the youth centered perspectives.

The technology centered perspective places a great emphasis on the instrumental role of the internet and new media (see, for instance, Kassimir, 2005; Shirkey, 2007; Brooks and Hodkinson, 2008). It discusses how internet savvy young people are able to exercise their activism differently, because the technology can remove obstacles to organizing, provide a new platform for visibility and make transnational networking easier. In this perspective, the Internet and new media technologies are seen as enabling tool sand the web is viewed as a new space to promote activism. However, this perspective mainly stipulates that there is already a formulaic form of activism that can be transferred from the actual, physical sphere to the virtual arena; it does not consider that the changes caused by the way the youth are using technologies in their daily lives may also create new meanings and forms of activism. This perspective is the most dominant in literature on the topic, being the lens used by the pioneering studies on youth, Internet, and activism.

The new social movements centered perspective goes beyond that and looks at how new meanings and forms of politics and activism are created as the result of the way people are using new media technologies and the Internet. This perspective is leading the recently emerging literature on the topic and emphasizes on the trend of being concerned on issues related to everyday democracy and the favour towards self organized, autonomous, horizontal networks (for examples, see Bennett, 2003; Martin, 2004; Collin, 2008). However, this perspective treats young people merely as ‘vessels’ of the new activism and neglect to examine how their lives have been shaped by the use of new media technologies and the Internet.

The youth centered perspective, represented for example by Juris and Pleyers (2009), acknowledges that ICTs have always been part of young people’s lives and that it intersects with other factors in shaping how they conceive politics and activism. Most of the studies in this perspective were done with youth activists in existing transnational social justice movements, such as the global anti-capitalism or environmental movements. Nevertheless, this perspective mainly views youth activists as ‘becomings’ by defining them as the younger layer of actors in a multi-generational group that will be future leaders of the movement. There are very few researches on autonomous youth movements that are created and consist of young people themselves and look at the youth as political actors in its own right. In addition, the majority of studies also focused on the youth as individuals but not as a collective force.

In addition to the shortcomings of each perspective, there are also common gaps in the current broader body of knowledge on the intersection of youth, new media technologies, and activism.

Firstly, existing researches tend to define activism as concrete actions, such as protests and campaigns, and the values represented by such actions. It neglects other elements that constitute activism together with the actions and values, such as the issue taken up by the action, the ideologies underlying the formulation of action, and the actors behind the activism (Sherrod, 2005; Kassimir, 2005). Divorcing these elements from the analysis gave only a partial view of what youth digital activism is.

Secondly, the majority of studies zoomed into the novelty of new media technologies and how they are being used as a point of departure to investigate the topic. This arguably stems from an adult-centric, pre-digital point of view, which overlooks the fact that internet and new media has always been ‘technology’ for most young people just as how the radio and television have always been ‘technology’ for the previous generation (Shah and Abraham, 2009). This way of thinking divorces the ‘digital’ from the ‘activism’ in digital activism; consequently, it ignores all the other factors that are causing and shaping youth activism and fails to capture how youth actors themselves are viewing or giving meaning to this digital activism.

Finally, researches on the issue skew excessively on developed countries. It must be acknowledged that the ‘digital divide’, or the unequal access to and familiarity with technology based on gender, class, caste, education, economic status or geographical location, in developing countries is deeper and that the digitally active youth are a privileged minority. Yet, a neglect to understand their activism also means a failure to understand why and how the elite who are often perceived to be politically apathetic are engaging with their community to create social change.

The weaknesses identified above demonstrate that our understanding on this particular form of contemporary youth activism is currently obscured. Hence, the two narratives of ‘hope’ and ‘doubt’ lose their relevance given that the subject of assessment, the digital youth activism, is not even clearly understood.

Based on the above overview of the limitations, it is imperative to find a new way to approach to understand the phenomenon of digital youth activism. I will explore the possibilities of such an approach with the following arguments as the starting point.

Firstly, I argue that the key limitation lies on the adult-centric perspective in viewing youth’s engagement with new media technologies, thus what is essential is to go beyond the ‘digital’ and focus on the ‘activism’ part of youth digital activism. Secondly, I argue that exploration of the issue from the standpoint of the youth political actors themselves is crucial to counter the adult-centric perspective dominating the literature on this topic. Thirdly, since so many researches divorce the youth from the context of their activism, it is crucial to focus on a particular case study to a tease out the nuances of youth digital activism.

I have the opportunity to explore the approach through a study with Blank Noise, an initiative to address the problem of street sexual harassment in public spaces that originated in 2003 in Bangalore. It has since expanded into nine cities in India with over 2,000 volunteers, all young people between 17-30 years of age. Known for their unique public art street interventions as well as their savvy online presence, Blank Noise was also chosen because its growth and sustainability over the past seven years are a testament to its legitimacy and relevance for youth in India.

The research does not aim to assess the contribution of Blank Noise to social change nor does it claim to represent all forms of youth digital activism in India. Rather, it aims to offer insights on one of the forms of digital natives joining forces for a cause. The research is interested in the following questions: how do young people involved in the Blank Noise articulate their politics? Who are their audience? What are their strategies? What is their conception of the public sphere? How do they organize themselves? How do they represent themselves to others? How do they see and give meaning to their involvement with the Blank Noise? How can we make sense of their initiative? While ‘activism’ is the popular term that is also used in this research, is their initiative a form of activism or is it something else altogether? More importantly, how do these young people define it by themselves? For the next few months, I will share stories, questions, and reflections that emerge along my journey of exploring those questions with Blank Noise on the CIS blog.

This is the first post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

Beyond the Digital Series- Maesy Angelina

2010-12-05T17:53:00.009+05:30

Maesy Angelina got in touch with the Blank Noise Team earlier this year. She was interning at

the Center for Internet and Society Bangalore as a part of her MA thesis. Her research involved the activism of 'digital natives' ; understanding the involvement of youth in online campaigns in India from the perspective of the youth involved.

Action Heroes who have participated include Aarthi Ajit, Hemangini Gupta, Jasmeen Patheja, Dev Sukumar, Apurva Mathad, Neha Bhat, Tanvee Nabar, Rhea Daniel, Pooja Gupta, Kunal Ashok, Laura Neuhas and Ravindra Gutta.

Maesy's research with Blank Noise is part of the HIVOS-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. We will be sharing a series of posts written by her over the week.

Maesy submitted her MA thesis at the International Institute of Social Studies and graduates in 10 days! Congratulations Maesy!

Beyond the Digital Directory. First posted here

1. Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause

2. First things First

3. TALKING BACK without "TALKING BACK"

4. Taking it to the Streets

5. The Digital Tipping Point

6. Diving into the Digital

7. The Class Question

8. The Many Faces Within

9. Unraveling the Term

10. Reflecting from the Beyond

Stop Street Harassment- Holly Kearl

2010-11-18T23:11:00.006+05:30

Stop Street Harassment-Making Public Space Safe and Welcoming for Women by Holly Kearl

Over a 1000 women contributed to Holly Kearl's book Stop Street Harassment. Women participated through her blog and also through 'informal online surveys'. 16 respondents of the 916 respondents said they were from India.

"In my research, I was struck by how truly global this problem is. People in 23 countries and 45 US states all took the survey and 99% said they experienced street harassment and I read articles about the problem in many additional countries. In my research on activism, India was one of the countries that is doing the most to address this issue and so it can really be a leader for other countries".

Holly will be in India very soon to attend Jagori and Women in Cities International conference on women's safety in Delhi.

Workshop at Tokyo Keizai University

2010-10-19T20:29:00.007+05:30

photos: Prilla Tania

translation from Japanese to English: Emma Ota

event organized via dislocate mediactions

No of participants: 30+

Age of participants: 18-20 years

There were both male and female participants.

Brief outline of the workshop:

Workshop participants mapped places in Tokyo they like to visit.

They also mapped places in Tokyo they didn't like to visit, or felt uncomfortable in, also mentioned what caused discomfort in those places.

We briefly introduced BN and also shared images of 'women only' transport from across the planet. Is women only transport a solution? An easy strategy? (more thoughts on that in the next blog post)

There seems to be no fixed definition of street sexual harassment in Japan. In Japan 'secu hara' is seen as different from 'chikan'. Chikan is loosely identified as groping, touching, rubbing and flashing.

The students were asked to think of as many words and associations with chikan and sexual harassment. Here's what they had to say :

The meaning of sexual harassment is too wide and undefined so I can not write about it

It is the lowest part of people

Being hit on by a stranger

When i was a high school student one morning I was chased by a flasher. Chikan in the train. Exposing sexual desire in public is sexual harassment.

I was walking one night and followed by someone, kept grabbing my skirt and touched my rear.

Disturbing action towards the opposite sex.

I was on my bike and riding through the town and stop at traffic signal then someone touched my thighs.

I had experience of being a victim of chikan. I think this type of person is disgusting.

A criminal act.

Something judged by the girl.

I was accused on the train.

The unwanted touching of the body.

It has a strong image of being something perpartrated by men against women, but the truth is That women can also be perpetrators.

The line of sexual harrassment is different for each person. so it is not a problem.

Being asked where you live.

Being made to feel bad by someone.

To cause suffering. doesnt matter which gender you are.

To cause pain to someone, even just talking and overstepping a certain distance.

Causing pain to another person, a despicable act.

I dont have any expereince so i dont know.

I am not interested./ i have nothing to write.

Sexual harrassment is bad but i dont think excessive reaction by the authorities is the answer.

I dont want to write about it.

Being touched sexually

Biting ear.

I dont really have that expereince so i dont know.

Doing something rude/offensive.

Wave of sexual desire.

I have no idea. sorry.

* we will be sorting the response based on male/ female as soon as the translation is ready.

5 students both male and female analyzed the response with the following statements:

I thought that women generally experience sexual harassment and this activity made it clear to me.

Well personally and amongst my friends I have never been in contact with such a thing, but now I realize that people do suffer from such acts.

We keep saying sexual harassment, sexual harassment but i think there is a problem with the word. I don't think it is quite appropriate. We keep repeating the same word but a word can not define the meaning. I think we should approach the problem differently. Maybe we should use some other words. the term sexual harassment is so vague I don't think it is helpful to discuss the actual term.

Well we just heard about a park especially for women, and obviously at night/in the evening women don't feel safe to go outside and so i thought it could be a good idea to have women only parks, but of course rather than this situation it is much better to attain a safer society without any gender bias. We still live in a society with a very unequal balance between men and women. To have women only carriages on trains and a lot of people really appreciate this service but it does not solve or address the problem. what we really need to do is to attain complete equality between the sexes. we should all work together for a safer society.

Well in our discussions we have really been making a distinction between men and women and firstly i think this kind of thinking is problematic. it is not only women who experience sexual harassment but also men.

* * *

Arigatoh! Thank you!

Coming up>

an introduction to Japan Action Heroes blog + interviews

'Women only' solution?

2010-10-18T04:41:00.004+05:30

'Women Only' trains from 7 am-9 pm in Tokyo.

revisit an old post

Compilation of recent conversations about the women only train service in New Delhi:

Action Hero Ratna: Will hijra's be 'allowed' in the women's coaches? In Bombay trains they do travel in the women only compartment but from what I've seen don't sit down, even if there is place.

One the one hand it may enable mobility for women who previously didn't travel or traveled very little because they felt unsafe,on the other hand of course it doesn't solve anything,

maybe women who don't agree with it shouldn't use it, and instead travel by the general coaches?

Action Hero Annie: that poses its own set of problems. women who choose to not travel by ladies only coaches are seen as fair game sometimes. the 'why are they here if not to be felt up' logic. I once argued with a male cousin about women's seats in buses. I said I would never make a man vacate his seat so i could sit down. he said he would wonder at what kind of woman i was, if i refused to accept the offer of a seat in a crowded bus.

train of difficult choices... where do you get off?

Blank Noise - Tokyo? Street sexual harassment/ Chikan in Japan

2010-10-16T22:25:00.008+05:30

Event: Action Hero Game (crash course)
Location: Akihabara Tokyo, 3331 Arts via Dislocate
Date: 9/10/2010

Participants describe what they felt when they experienced the game.

Game Introduction:
*Blank Noise Action Hero Game
Duration- 2 hours

Task 1: each participant AKA ACTION HERO is asked to select a location unfamiliar to him/ her in Akihabara- Tokyo. The Action Hero goes to that site and gets instructions for 6 tasks. The tasks themselves are a 'secret' - they range from observing/ imagining/ to taking action in the form of having a conversation with a stranger. What choices do the action heroes make? What 'action hero' moment has each of them experienced? more photos on facebook

Action Hero Pila
Action Hero Ryo

We're in Japan!

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE AN ACTION HERO?

2010-06-25T01:47:00.010+05:30

existing definition: An Action Hero is a woman who faces threat and experiences fear on the streets of her city, but can devise unique ways to confront it. Her final response might have been to choose to ignore the violator, but she will have chosen to do so, not failed to notice it. AnAction Hero does not surrender to power on the street.

An Action Hero sets new rules for public behaviour.

An Action Hero can stand idle in public.

An Action Hero can whistle in a park, nap, read a book

An Action Hero can day dream in public.

An Action Hero can make eye contact with strangers.

An Action Hero can walk the streets without apology.

An Action Hero believes that the city is HERS.

An Action Hero does not take the age old blame for experiencing street sexual violence. She believes there's no such thing as 'asking for it'.

An Action Hero can sometimes twist the situation around and laugh at it.

An Action Hero is not a victim. She reacts. responds. fights back .

An Action Hero confronts her fear. analyzes it too.

An Action Hero choses to make her city safe by being out in public. She inspires new Action Heroes

An Action Hero is NOT afraid, shy, in denial nor embarrassed to say she experienced street sexual violence.

An Action Hero includes men in the dialogue about street sexual violence. An Action Hero believes that street sexual violence or 'eve-teasing' is an issue concerning male behaviour and attitudes.

- ?

Who is an Action Hero?

Pitch in by adding a definition, characteristic or trait

*HINT* could be your action hero moment- your strategy-

An Action Hero is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?

Join the action heroes event on facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=130518013647915&index=1

Thank you Paromita Vohra

Pinky

2010-06-16T00:44:00.004+05:30

More about Pinky here

Sexual Assault laws

2010-06-14T15:14:00.007+05:30

There's been much debate over the proposed amendments to how Indian law views/considers 'sexual assault'. Here's a bit from Kalpana Kannabiran:

Broadly, rather than viewing ‘sexual assault' as a mechanical substitute for ‘rape' under Section 375 of the IPC, the effort of rights groups has been to think through the feasibility of formulating a chapter on sexual violence/atrocity that will define a range of such violence in a manner in which the focus shifts from the penetrative logic of definitions hitherto used to the assaultive nature sexual violence.

That article here.

To contextualise what's happening in India within the context of international debates, we've invited our first Guest Post! It's from Megan Hjelle who's been researching this issue for the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore.

Gender-Neutral Sexual Assault Laws - A Brief Summary

Since the 1997 Writ Petition filed by Sakshi regarding amendments to India’s penal code regarding rape, gender neutrality has emerged as a lingering controversy. As currently written, India’s rape laws recognize the male/perpetrator - female/victim as the only framework within which rape can occur and regards penile-vaginal rape as the only “real” form of rape.

When the draft bill for amendments to the rape law was introduced with the intent of updating and expanding the laws into a spectrum of sexual assault offenses, few could have known that the topic would be such a lightning rod, pushing to the forefront fundamental contestations of the nature of gender itself. In an attempt to understand why the issue of gender-neutrality has been so uniquely contentious within the Indian context, the developments of gender-neutral sexual assault laws in other countries may provide some insight.

Rape law reform in countries such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Australia produced, among other legislative developments, gender-neutral sexual assault laws. This note seeks to provide a brief summary of gender-neutral sexual assault laws along the following lines of inquiry:

- When did the shift to gender-neutrality occur?
- Why did the shift occur?
- What, if any, were the feminist stances in opposition and counter-responses?
- What impact, if any, have the application of gender-neutral laws had?

As most of the relevant data on the topic comes from research focused on the U.S., this summary will use the U.S. reform as its point of departure, with relevant comparisons to other nations with gender-neutral sexual assault laws as well.

Under the U.S. Model Penal Code, adopted by most U.S. states, rape was originally a crime that could only be perpetrated by a male on a female. The early Model Penal Code sex offenses were drafted under the influence of Kinsey’s research on sexuality. As well as creating a sexual offense hierarchy of severity, at the top of which was penile-vaginal rape, the drafters also required evidence of force in order to establish a rape. The drafters, fearing unfair prosecutions of defendants during a time when rape could still result in capital punishment, thought the evidence of force requirement would protect against false charges. Instead, it made successful rape convictions rare and re-victimized rape survivors by putting them on trial.

In the 1970’s, however, on the heels of the “Sexual Revolution,” the crime of “rape” was changed to “sexual assault” in an effort to de-emphasize the sexual elements of the crime and re-cast it as a crime of violence. The Michigan 1975 Criminal Sexual Conduct Statute served as a national model for implementing many of the rape law reforms that have now been adopted to some degree by most of the U.S. states. The reforms were largely a result of the feminist movement, which had as one of its fundamental objectives, the goal “to change peoples’ awareness and perceptions of violence against women.”

In comparison, Canadian rape law reform began in the early 1980’s and, in the U.K., sexual assault was not recognized as gender-neutral until 1994.

The development of gender-neutral sex offenses within the U.S. and elsewhere, is marked by a lack of direct discussion. This seems to be due to a confluence of factors relating to the goals of the feminist movement. At least one researcher has posited that “some extension of the coverage of rape laws was implicit in feminist objectives.” Feminists set out to “challenge the stereotyped assumptions about male roles and female sexuality” by “achiev[ing] comparability between the legal treatment of rape and other violent crimes, prohibit[ing] a wider range of coercive sexual conduct and expand[ing] the range of persons protected by law.”

Because feminists hoped to put an end to the phallocentricity of the laws as written and to emphasize the victim’s experience of violation, shifting the focus “from bodily harm to the protection of autonomy,” a gender-neutral law seems implied since, theoretically, it would capture more violative acts and would topple the hierarchy of penile-vaginal rape. Even at the time the Model Penal Code sex offenses were created, the drafters recognized the possibility that a gender-neutral approach “could also help to abrogate certain sex stereotypes that our society is appropriately beginning to address.”

Some researchers also identify as a factor changing social and sexual norms. For instance, one researchers posits that, social acceptance of oral and anal sex contributed to the shift toward gender-neutrality, while another attributes it to increased tolerance of more and difference types of sexual activity.

A researcher of Canada’s rape reform goes even further to identify gender-neutrality as merely a result of more primary reforms, rather than an end in itself.

Because, as suggested above, gender-neutrality may have seemed like a natural step in the feminist agenda rather than a focal point of the reform and as a result of practical reasons, the shift to gender-neutrality seems to have encountered little direct opposition in the U.S.

For instance, as previously mentioned, feminists had several linked objectives behind the reforms. Because of this, the rape law reforms were significant and numerous, with variations between states. So, states like Michigan made changes to remove the resistance requirement, remove immediate reporting requirements, shift the burden of proof, legitimize the victim’s testimony without corroboration, remove the marital exception, enact “Rape Shield” laws, provide an entire continuum of acts to be included under the term “sexual assault,” with gender-neutrality often being just one part of this array of reforms.

The single point of contention against gender-neutral sexual assault laws represented in the feminist literature seems to have developed retrospectively, rather than concurrently with the reform. And, in fact, that argument is best distilled and articulated by a recent argument in opposition of any gender-neutral amendments in Indian legislation:

There seems to be a presumption that if women can be framed as violators, then the trauma of rape for women as victims would be reduced and the stigma attached to the offence would peel off.

The response to this contention pivots between the arguments that gender-neutral terms do not preclude a gendered response to sexual assault, nor does it erase women’s experiences of sexual assault to include men. In also highlighting research indicating the trauma experienced by male victims of sexual assault, one researcher succinctly counters:

A principle of criminal law is, surely, that all persons should be protected equally from harm of like degree.... The case for treating crimes of like heinousness similarly appears to be stronger than that calling for a distinction to be made between penetration of the female body and penetration of the male body, whatever the sex of the actor.

Although some have tried to argue that gender-neutral laws have impeded the progress of rape law reform in combating sexual assault by introducing male victims, this argument does not seem corroborated by significant research. In fact, the majority of research shows that introducing gender-neutral laws and the rape law reform in general, have not had either a significantly positive or a significantly negative impact on sexual assault in the U.S. as of yet.

In conclusion, gender-neutral sexual assault laws were brought about during a period of intense legal reform initiated by feminists during the 1970’s to 1980’s in numerous nations and states as an attempt to trouble gender stereotypes and biases. There is an ongoing debate regarding the benefits and detriments of gender-neutrality to feminist goals, but research shows that the rape law reform has had little significant statistical impact on sexual assaults.

Megan is a second-year law Brooklyn Law student committed to providing advocacy and representation as a public interest lawyer. Her work is rooted in an interest in the ways globalization, migration and gender perpetuate and subvert each other. Megan has worked with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking in Los Angeles, where she helped match trafficking survivors with services and coordinated trainings to promote the identification and referral of trafficked individuals. More recently, Megan has worked at the Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program. There, she developed and implemented a media outreach plan, helped maintain and strengthen international partnerships, coordinated trainings and worked on clients’ T-Visa and Asylum applications. Megan hopes to combine her background and legal education to facilitate a holistic, community-centered approach to advocacy for underserved populations and is currently pursuing these goals in an internship at the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore.

Who is an Action Hero?

2010-06-13T14:11:00.022+05:30

existing definition: An Action Hero is a woman who faces threat and experiences fear on the streets of her city, but can devise unique ways to confront it. Her final response might have been to choose to ignore the violator, but she will have chosen to do so, not failed to notice it. An Action Hero does not surrender to power on the street.

An Action Hero sets new rules for public behaviour.

An Action Hero can stand idle in public.

An Action Hero can whistle in a park, nap, read a book

An Action Hero can day dream in public.

An Action Hero can make eye contact with strangers.

An Action Hero can walk the streets without apology.

An Action Hero believes that the city is HERS.

An Action Hero does not take the age old blame for experiencing street sexual violence. She believes there's no such thing as 'asking for it'.

An Action Hero can sometimes twist the situation around and laugh at it.

An Action Hero is not a victim. She reacts. responds. fights back .

An Action Hero confronts her fear. analyzes it too.

An Action Hero choses to make her city safe by being out in public. She inspires new Action Heroes

Who is an Action Hero?

send in a definition, characteristic or trait

2010-06-06T23:11:00.006+05:30

What is important is that women are made aware of what their rights would be if the law is passed- Kalpana Sharma

The enhancement of the sentence of former Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore, charged with molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Talwar, from just six months to one and a half years, is a very small step in rectifying the glaring anomaly in the law that allowed him to almost get away with a serious crime. In the absence of the popular furore over what happened, and the determined efforts of the young woman's friends and family, it is possible that Rathore would have continued to hold office and escape the jail sentence awarded to him. But even as many will believe that 18 months is hardly adequate punishment for a crime that led to a young woman taking her own life, the sentencing is the beginning of an important process of change in our antiquated laws dealing with sexual assaults of all kinds.

Ruchika's is only one case. There are hundreds of such cases in India that never reach the point of conviction. And many more incidents that are never even reported. But because more such cases are coming out in the open, the demand for a change in the law has built up to the point that the government has finally taken note.

Moments of a Long Pause at GSU, Atlanta!

2010-05-08T11:19:00.002+05:30

Blank Noise presented our short film, Moments of a Long Pause, at the Georgia State University conference titled ‘Better Safe Than Sorry’. Organized by Faces of Feminism, an undergraduate student organization affiliated with the Women's Studies Institute of Georgia State University, "Better Safe Than Sorry: A Query into Notions of Security," addressed issues of public safety, citizen rights, police action, the surveillance state and so on, on April 24th, 2010.

We* presented the film just after the lunch break, and people gathered around with their food in the foyer where the film was shown on two screens, aligned at an angle to one another. In case you haven’t seen the film, it was shot in several Indian cities (Amritsar, Delhi, Kolkata etc.) and features men and women on separate screens, describing their experiences on the streets. The interviewees cut across classes and include school and college students, a rag-picker, shop-keepers; most interviews are conducted on the street, but some are in homes. The film is especially fascinating for me because of the number of themes it touches upon: violence vs. wooing/flirting on the streets and how this is perceived across class; who ‘asks for it’ and the confinement of sexualized behavior to certain bodies and certain spaces (sex districts); and what is sexualized behavior anyway - The male perpetrator’s “cool cheez” is the woman’s refusal to accept that – “this is not the sex district,” she says; ideas of nation and ideas of respect altering between nations; female agency/power vs the resignation that “even a corpse can be sexually harassed”… the range of debates that stem from this film are pretty extraordinary.

I want to write about what it was like screening a film about dynamics on Indian streets to an audience who need not necessarily have experienced them. The audience was very alive, sensitive and involved and their reactions allow an in-point to discussing what kind of context we need to have when discussing street sexual harassment in India to an audience situated outside of it, even maybe within India.

The audience was involved when the film was being screened, and laughed at the “right” places: where women said that they would take off their shoes and beat perpetrators with it, for instance, or when they said vehemently that they would brook no nonsense and fight off men who harassed them.

After the film, I began with an explanation of Blank Noise – how it began, when etc. and followed that up with a link to the conference themes – a bit about police apathy after the violence against women in March- April 2009 in Bangalore and a mention of different relationships with the street, for instance for a queer person, the street might be a site for pleasure-seeking, although simultaneously a site of violence and danger, but it might be significantly different from a heterosexual middle-class woman’s relationship with the street.

I don’t remember all of the questions exactly, but here is the gist of some of them, as well as the gist of my answers:

1. Is there a clear understanding of what constitutes eve-teasing?

I talked a bit about the wide range of activities recognized by different people who we interviewed as constituting “eve teasing”; the opinion poll about harassment that’s on our website and some debates that we have had in the past over, for example, whether ‘staring’ was “eve-teasing”.

2. You talked a bit about the class dynamics in the film which maybe people who weren’t familiar with might not have been able to pick up on. Could you elaborate?

To this I talked about the kinds of people present on Indian streets, in terms of hawkers, shop keepers and so on, and how this led to a classed dimension in cases in which the lower class man is attempting to engage with the middle-class woman shopper. Also that middle-class men might have a more purposeful relationship with the public sphere using it to get from place A to place B rather than flaneuring on the street. This doesn’t take away from instances of harassment by middle class men in airports.

3. What is the significance of “friendship” as discussed on screen?

There are soundbytes in the film which show men saying they wanted “friendship” from women. I talked a bit about the lack of spaces for meeting people of the opposite sex and as this request for “friendship” being a way to initiate contact which is interpreted differently across classes. Also at this request being not entirely benign, for instance, it is likely that even if you say no, the initiator will persist. The idea, from Bollywood films perhaps, that a ‘no’ by a woman is said in coyness: it actually means a ‘yes’.

4. The idea of the split screen was interesting; sometimes when both screens spoke at once it seemed overwhelming but perhaps that it how it was meant to sound, since the experience itself is overwhelming.

I talked a bit about the genesis of the name, Blank Noise- which comes from feeling a mix of noises in your head and still a silence when you have experienced harassment.

5. What is the impact of religion on street sexual harassment?

I talked a bit about some traditional neighborhoods where being an outsider and dressed conspicuously differently from those who lived there could lead to a friction – for instance, what is the difference between wearing shorts in the Jama Masjid area where some interviews were shot and in Defence Colony?
I also mentioned the clothes project – ‘I did not ask for it’ – with the addendum that the challenge lay not in being defiant about you wear because “you never ask for it”, but in recognizing how dressing in particular ways interferes with the circulation of ideas about appropriate/inappropriate clothing in a particular context. Therefore although women get harassed in burkhas as well as in school uniforms, this does not mean that what they wear makes no difference to how they/their bodies are received.

6. Related was a question about state discourses on this issue.

I talked a bit about how the “routine” and everyday nature of street sexual harassment allowed police to absolve themselves of any responsibility for more serious violence against women as in the case where Bangalore Police Commissioner referred to instances of violence against women as being “only eve-teasing” (March 2009). Also a bit about BJP discourses of the virile Indian nation – nuclear power, 21st century modern nation, yet proud possessor of “respectable” women. Finally, a link between discourses of modernity and progress and development linked to discontentment in coastal Karnataka – the Mangalore pub attacks, by the extreme right-wing Sri Rama Sene.
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And then some final thoughts. Through it all, it struck me that there was a way in which the less educated men who were interviewed could be received (to both an urban Indian audience as well as a Western one) as “primitive”, “conservative”, thus naturally aligning the audience with the women who hit them with shoes/slippers – the agential “modern” citizen-subject woman. How does this portrayal set up India (loosely) as a space where men are controlling of women who then need to be liberated? And how does India become the polar opposite of what the West itself is imagined as, or imagines itself as? Looking at this film in the West, how do categories of West and non-West become solidified so that the West is a space of liberal tolerance where women can run on the streets in shorts and wear as they please whereas in India men say things like “if she dresses like that, she asks for it”?

Also how does one contextualize issues like “friendship” and explain, for instance, homosociality, or how men relate to other men, and understand people’s request for friendship as occurring along a longer, historic (thinking of courtly/zenana homosociality) trajectory?

All in all though it was a wonderful wonderful afternoon and I hope Blank Noise has many more such screenings and discussions!

*Thanks to Moyukh Chatterjee for helping to set up the AV.

I NEVER ASK FOR IT

2010-04-16T15:47:00.005+05:30

I NEVER ASK FOR IT
clothes collection drive
bangalore koramangala
bangalore mg road 1, mg road 2
calcutta camac street park street

things to do at home over a hot summer afternoon
reporting to remember

new news:

women in revealing clothes blamed for earthquakes

LOVE AND MORALS IN MANGALORE

2010-04-15T11:48:00.004+05:30

LOVE AND MORALS IN MANGALORE
Tinku Ray for BBC. listen here

The transcript of LOVE AND MORALS IN MANGALORE is available here

WOMEN'S RESERVATION BILL AND YOU

2010-03-24T17:52:00.003+05:30

The women's reservation bill ensuring 33 % reservation to women in Parliament and state legislative bodies was finally passed in the Rajya Sabha almost 2 weeks ago. It took close to 15 years to make this happen. The bill reserves 181 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha and 1,370 of the 4,109 seats in the 28 state assemblies

What does the women's reservation bill being passed mean to you?

Women's Reservation Bill : Mulayam Singh Yadav

2010-03-24T11:46:00.006+05:30

Mulayam Singh Yadav : 'If the women's reservation bill were to be passed in its existing form, it would result in flooding the parliament and state legislatures with wives of government officials and women connected with big industrial houses, thereby provoking young men to indulge in eve-teasing.'

“I don't like to say this, but they would be the women at whom youths would whistle.”

links

sify , toi , hindu hindustan times
kalpana sharma for the hindu ibn live

WE NEED A LOGO: CALLING ACTION HEROES WITH IDEAS

2010-03-02T16:56:00.001+05:30

We need a logo for the campaign I NEVER ASK FOR IT
Got an idea? email it to blurtblanknoise at gmail dot com
All entries will be shared on the blog and the one most voted by YOU
will be eventually used. Last day for submission March 12
If you have any qs - please email them in and we will immediately respond on the blog as our faqs

We are looking forward to receiving your entries!

I NEVER ASK FOR IT : CALCUTTA

2010-02-23T14:58:00.010+05:30

Action Heroes include: Shibani Roy, Shruti Agarwal, Ismail, Debapriya, Aloka Chatterjee, Kavita, Hiyaas,

Location: Camac Street, Park Street. Calcutta

I NEVER ASK FOR IT: CLOTHES COLLECTION DRIVE FEB 20

2010-02-21T16:50:00.005+05:30

FACEBOOK: I NEVER ASK FOR IT FEB 17-27

2010-02-19T18:19:00.006+05:30

Call for facebook action! Action Heroes wanted!

Change your facebook status message to what you were wearing when you experienced any kind of sexual violence and add 'I NEVER ASK FOR IT'. Message to your friends.
change your display photo to an image from here
take a photo of the garment you wore when you experienced any kind of sexual harassment harassment > add it to the Blank Noise facebook group. Email us the photo at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
Message your friends/ family/ colleagues/ male or female> get them involved.
GUYS- WE WANT BN GUYS! change your fb profile pic and add in your fb status- SHE NEVER 'ASKS FOR IT'.

end result: you're a super action hero!