VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MONTH

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

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:

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:

1. Jennifer Hughes Jail Weddings Tough Love
2. Prineet Kaur Sohal - Nina Simone Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter
3. Shohini Sen - Nancy Sinatra These Boots Are Made For Walking
4. Satoko Yamaguchi -Yoko Ono Woman Power
5. Monica Mody - ost DOR Yeh Hausla
6. Rhea Daniel - Fiona Apple A Mistake
7. Pooja Ghosh - theme song Power Puff Girls
8. Nainy Sahni- ost Lakshya Kandho se hain milte kandhe
9. Annie Zaidi- ost Ek Thi Ladki (There was a girl) Lara Lappa
10. Must Bol - Frou Frou Holding Out For a Hero
11. Amruta Mehta - LES Artistes Santo Gold
12. Jasmeen Patheja - Petula Clark Downtown
13. Satya - Raat
14. Inderjit Kaur
15. Rebecca Winslow - Helen Reddy I am woman
16. Micropixie
17. Aurina Chatterji - Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine
18. Mandy Van Deven - Le Tigre's On Guard
19. Trishima Mitra Kahn - Ani Di Franco 32 Flavors
20. Deepshika Arora - Shubha Mudgal Mann Kee Manjeere
21. Cole Walks - Mutya Buena Real Girl + Chantal Kreviazuk Weight of The World
22. Maesy Angelina - Eartha Kitt  I Want To Be Evil
23. Bedatri D Choudhury - Nancy Sinatra These Shoes Are Made For Walking
24. 
    

Email from Anon-

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)

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

listen to stories on and about swear words:

story # 1 -

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:

<a href="<a href="http://csaawarenessmonth.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://<wbr>csaawarenessmonth.wordpress.<wbr>com/</a>" target="blank"><img src="<a href="http://csaawarenessmonth.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/csa-logo.jpg" target="_blank">http://csaawarenessmonth.<wbr>files.wordpress.com/2011/03/<wbr>csa-logo.jpg</a>" alt="" /></a>

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:

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

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

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.