In an excursion through the Blogosphere, I came across this place—The Blank Noise Project. The point it makes is that leching at women is an offense. Not just groping and passing vulgarities (which undeniably are)
Even looking at girls, with unclean thoughts, is a crime.
Let me quote:
Men, ruled by libidos, do things like this. As junk_alpha pointed out, demeaning thoughts may not be an offense under the law. But what about the scars left on a woman when it happens? The feeling that your body is dirty and unworthy, that’s a playground only for lust and not tenderness? Is legality the only space for this? What about humane sensitivity?
My regular readers (yes I know that is a very exclusive group) would know that I find the argument ” Provocatively-dressed ladies ask for it” to be morally repugnant. But at the same time I feel that the above hyper-feminist point of view goes too far.
If a girl wears provocative clothes ( and of course the word ‘provocative’ is a very subjective word….in Afghanistan it’s exposing your cheeks….face cheeks that is) then I am of the belief that men have the right to look. And the right to think.
Just as the feminist’s argument for dressing provocatively is “It’s my body and I am free to flaunt it” ( as articulated in this line from a song in a B-grade Bollywood movie called “Vijeta”–
“Ghunghat mein mukhre ko kyon main chupayoon, Rup diya Ram ne to kyon na dikhanoon”) , I can also say, in the same way, “It’s my eyes and I am free to look. It’s my mind and I am free to think.”
A caveat. “It’s my hands and it’s free to touch what it likes” does not cut it cause the activity of ‘touching’ is a reciprocal one—-a touch involves two parties and any touch is “illegal” as long as both parties do not agree beforehand that it is desired. However looking at someone is not “reciprocal” and certainly not thinking.
And just like feminists resist people labeling them because of their choice of dress, (ie loose women dress provocatively), they should accord men the same dignity by not labeling them
according to what they may be thinking and where their eyes are going.
“Look Mamma I am showing some cleavage —-that’s fine, I got em……not harming anyone but that horrible man is looking at them…..my mind is permanently burnt up now.”
If you do not want attention, then your dress should represent that choice.
Of course, dressing conservatively still does not mean that men wont look or think “Dhak dhak karne laga” but it does reduce the chance if it really bothers you that much.
I have had this conversation before with my female friends and the overwhelming majority of them say that they don’t mind getting looked at, even enjoy it if the guy is worth looking at too. Noone enjoys getting groped and my argument is not there—-it’s about why feminists have to make even decent men, who may steal a glance or two, feel like a serial rapist who has “defiled their soul” by virtue of their glances. The contention that looks leave scars on a womans mind is , well, overstating the case.
The second point I wish to make is…in all the posts on sexual harassment raging on in the desi blogosphere there is one group of people who everyone has forgotten. Men. Why is it that whenever a girl says that someone is “looking at her” , people go “Chi chi ghar main ma bahen nahin hain?” while when a man says that a girl is looking at him lasciviously, everyone (girls and boys) start laughing.
We had a guy at Stonybrook who was very meterosexual—-spending hours a day grooming and putting face packs every Friday night. He always used to claim, in all seriousness, that he was sick and tired of girls treating him as a sex object and denuding him with their eyes. Everyone laughed at him and girls ,when told about his accusations against them, would say :
“What does he think of himself?”
“Just another pathetic way to get attention.”
“Does he ever look at himself in the mirror—-does he think he is John Abraham?”
Now why did noone, even stark feminists among the Stonybrook junta, ever believe that his soul was actually being scarred by the x-ray visions of females?
Because he was a man.
Because the assumption is that women are different—they do not ogle or mentally strip men. Because the assumption is that even if they might do it to John Abraham, they will never do it to people like the guy I mentioned. And because the assumption is no man, even if he is ogled, would feel genuinely distressed and cry about it—he would feel thankful.
Now arent these assumptions stereotypes along the lines of “Women should stay in the kitchen”?
Which brings me to the crux of my point—–why the reverse discrimination?
Principal secretary (home) and Bhopal superintendent of police on Thursday apparently bore the brunt of the embarrassment CM Babulal Gaur faced a day before when activists of an NGO demonstrated against him in front of the state BJP headquarters, accompanied by two men whose wives they said had been seduced by the CM into an illicit relationship. Members of Mahila Utpiran Virodhi Morcha alleged that the chief minister was breaking the homes of two men whose wives, Shagufta and Shameena, he had seduced into illicit relationships.
Babuji zara dheere chalo. You have “seduced” two innocent women. Which is a crime against the female species because the Mahila mandal (Mahila Utpiran Virodhi Morcha which translates to Movement against Torture of Women) says so.
Read a bit more.
Incidentally, a month ago, Shagufta Kabir, chief of the state’s Panch Ja Project with a MOS rank, beat up her husband Salim and broke his bones.
Broke his bones? The innocent lady who is being predated upon broke the bones of her husband? A month ago? Where was the “Purush Utpiran Virodhi Morcha” then?
Of course they were not there———because they just don’t exist.
So now the MUVM is taking up the cause of the two husbands—-not because they are being bashed up by their wives, but because someone else is “snatching” their wives away. Again the guilty person is the man doing the seducing and not the women (hence the “utpiran” part).
Concluding…..ok ladies come on now…….looking is not a crime…..imaginative thoughts are also not a crime as long as you do not act on them without mutual consent.
And also please remember the old saying:
” Sticks and stones do hurt our bones.”
Names———–we are used to.
-Action Hero Great Bong
