To All Men

Yet another story of assault on women. Another woman gang raped by some men. Still another raped by some other men. The list is endless. And that too on the third day of the New Year. What an auspicious start!

This is an appeal to all men. We are sorry. We thought we could equal a mighty, cruel and brutal beast. We had thought we could walk shoulder to shoulder with you. But little did we know that we were overestimating ourselves. We did not know it is your rights to molest us.To stare at us every time we walked on the road. To be mentally undressed by some pervert is commonplace. To be groped and touched against our wishes should not offend us. Still we have to continue walking. Not pay attention to what is happening. And suppose we muster up the courage to fight it, we are actually molested and raped. My question to all men is WHY? But of course women are to blamed. They dress provocatively. They titillate the senses. They are promiscuous. They don't cover their faces. What a crime! How dare women be so free? They are supposed to be mere sexual animals. Born to satisfy a male ego and a male body. To be defiled and degraded by their own fathers and uncles and husbands and husbands' friends. How dare they swear at a lecherous mob? Don't they understand, it is the men's right to gawk at them and pass lewd comments. Don't they understand that they are things and not humans? Don't they understand that they have no right to walk on the road unaided? Oh women! Your naivety is not going to be appreciated.

Every single day the newspapers are full of crimes, and rimes against women takes a major chunk of space. Every time I read about a woman being hurt, I feel like I have suffered the injustice. Is it ever going to stop? Whether it is the workplace or a slum or a bus or even a brothel, it is the woman who suffers. Why? Because the man cannot take control of his urges. I am filled with so much fury at this lame fact that I feel all men who dare to even touch a woman without her permission should be castrated. Straight. Deprived of the one thing that they are proud of. Maybe I am taking it too far. But seven years of imprisonment is just not enough for a crime as heinous as rape. Whenever I read about such thing or sometimes see them happening around me, I feel pathetic, cheated. I feel like I have been lured into believing that I can dream too. That it is alright to think that I can roam freely on roads. Bullshit I say.

They say "heaven hath seen no fury, as a woman scorned" Scorned? It has become more than that. But where is the fury? Where is the agitation, the revolution? Where are women's groups? And I don't mean the political ones. Women are known to be emotionally stronger than men. Is it to bear these atrocities that we are stronger? Is it to keep quite and take it all in the stride? Hell no! We have to become physically stronger. Fight it out. It has been proved that continued resistance to a rapist's advances tends to put him down. Why should women be weaklings? Stand up for your rights women. We have been brought on this earth for a specific purpose, not to warm someone's beds. Why do we always need a Mahatma Phule for our own emancipation? Why can't we fight our own battles? Start today. Make your little girls as strong as your boys. Make your boys respect women. Don't put them on a higher pedestal. But on a similar one. Don't worship them but just treat them like fellow human beings.

To all men I plead to please, please stop being so cruel. Please just let us be. Change your outlook towards us. Don't try to look inside our clothes. Rather look inside our hearts. You will find that our heart also beats at 72 beats/minute. We too have blood flowing through our veins. We too have eyes and a nose and hands and feet just like you. We are in essence just like you. Then why should we face these acts of violence alone? Oh! Please, please be kind to us. We are human beings too just like you are. We are neither Freya nor Durga. All we ask for is peace. Oh but isn’t that the costliest thing on earth?