Both images have been sent via
1. Hamsini Ravi from Blank Noise Chennai
2. Atreyee Majumder and Abhishek Baxi from Blank Noise Delhi
Look Out!! While driving, walking, being stuck in traffic...
It could be anywhere and in any city or town. On a bilboard, in a magazine, on the back of an auto or taxi, on your best friend's t shirt, on the tele, in a movie hall...anywhere!
Do these images amuse you or confuse you? Do they make you angry?
In the Blank Noise spirit we invite you to start questioning the politics of public communication in our everyday life and in our cities.
Who is communicating? To which audience? What is the explicit and the implicit message? What does it say to you about YOU?
Look Out NOW, photograph it and email it to us! You can also send in text to start a debate.
blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
Yes it's not always about 'eve teasing', but it is about reinforced attitudes of relationships between men, women, and cities.
Atreyee and members from the Blank Noise Delhi group discussed the Delhi Police advert on the Blank Noise Delhi mailing list a few months ago
Atreyee Majumder:
I was appalled that there was no mention that such behaviour can be criminally punished, and women should take action against these harassers by coming to the police, what is the whole point of the ad then?? Coming as it does from the police!
And of course, underlying the ad is the perception of women as weak and vulnerable, who need to be 'protected', that too in the interest of "shame to the community" that would be caused otherwise, and not so much in the interest of safety of women, right of women as citizens to access these spaces. I smell an over arching sense of women as 'belongings of the community' than as autonomous subjects of a democracy.
Twilight Fairy:"Dont you know how ashamed and embarassed women fell when they are teased? Please protect them and take them away form the scene when this happens"
ashamed?? embarassed? I mean isnt it the eve teasers who should be feeling all this and more? (ok we dont live an ideal world). But even from a female POV.. angry, harassed, provoked, annoyed, frustrated.. these are what women feel... Delhi police guys need to take some lessons from their own female colleagues.. and just what are these female colleagues doing with statements like " take them away from the scene" going through right under their noses into print media!
Abigail Crisman:These are all stereotypes which reinforce the macho mindset which causes most of these problems in the first place.
It shouldn't say, "there are no men in this picture", rather it should be "there are no human beings in this picture" because no one should be able to stand by and watch another person being belittled and harassed for fun--whether male or female.
