By Kalpana Sharma
January 30, 2000
Fifteen days after the mock millennium mania died down, another mania gripped the media. In the city of Pune, known for its culture and literature, a pageant was staged. The newspaper that sponsored the pageant reported thus: "Amidst the spectacular space age sets, India's hopes for future conquests in the international arena were born". Conquer what? Conquer how? Such precise questions should not be asked. Why carp about details when it is time to celebrate.
On the day that the "born winners" were featured on the front page - three identical smiles under crystal crowns - there was a page one anchor story with the headline: "Meri eyes bhi sexy, mera pout bhi sexy". It was an item about a net poll being held to select the sexist women of the last century. Among the names offered for the choice were three Gandhi women, Indira, Sonia and Priyanka, as well as Jayalalitha! The results, apparently, will be announced on February 14, Valentine's Day. Not surprisingly, the next day the Congress(I) demonstrated in front of the office of the newspaper, objecting to the "denigration" of their respected leaders. I do not know whether the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) did the same in Chennai.
What is extraordinary about this fixation with beauty and sex is that it hides the most pressing reality that rich and poor women face in India today - increasing violence, both within and outside the home. You rarely hear the full story of this violence. It comes in the form of small news items. But when you string these together, you realise how the changes in the economy that are integrating India into the global economy are also exposing women to many more forms of violence and assault.
Thus, for instance, even as women are able to enter professions hitherto closed to them, they have to contend with their vulnerability in a society that considers women out in the public space as fair game. On the day that the front pages of some newspapers carried news of the three beauty queens,a small item inside spoke of how women bus conductors in Andhra Pradesh were being taught karate. Why? Because after the first rush for a job which had earlier been a male domain, women realised that to be a bus conductor and a woman meant facing not just abuse and sexual harassment from male passengers but also molestation and sexual assault. To prepare themselves to fight against this, these women had to learn karate.
And yet again, on the same day as this report appeared, the op-ed (opposite the edit page) page of one newspaper had an article, prominently displayed, lifted from a British newspaper, with the headline "Learn to flirt and turn your life around. "Would the women bus conductors have done better for themselves if they had heeded the totally irrelevant advice in this article?
Violence is not increasing only outside homes, but even inside. According to a study conducted in a fairly prosperous area of Gujarat, Kheda district,by Leela Visaria and some others, out of 346 women interviewed, 66 per cent reported that they had been subjected to verbal or physical violence in their marital homes. Nearly 42 per cent said that the violent assault was by the husband. And 23 per cent said that they were verbally abused. This included threats and taunts.
What is worse, two out of five women, or 40 per cent, endured the violence without telling anyone else about it. Also, around 45 per cent of the women reported that men abused them verbally in front of the children.
The survey threw up some other interesting insights. For instance, although the incidence of reported abuse cut across age, caste and educational status, it was lower in women living in joint families than those in nuclear families. One possible explanation for this could be that women in joint families might have been more inhibited about mentioning such incidences than women in nuclear families. But the difference was substantial enough to be noted - 20 per cent. Although the percentage of verbal abuse was the same in both groups, more women living in nuclear families reported physical abuse than those in joint families. The researchers have concluded from this that contrary to popular belief that women oppress women in joint families, in fact women get some protection from abuse in such social set-ups.
What were the reasons for the violence? The most common explanation in some groups of women was the husband's anger at a meal not being ready in time, or not meeting the husband's tastes. Other provocations were the husband's belief that the women were not looking after the children properly. They were accused of wasting time gossiping instead of looking after the home and the family.
Such surveys blow the lid off the belief that with so-called "modernisation" and the opening up of opportunities for women, life necessarily improves. Unless the attitudes of men change towards women, there is little prospect of such violence inside or outside the home decreasing in the near future. In this respect, the media is failing on two counts. On the one hand, it has bought the glamour and empowerment argument. Just because young Indian women can now strut on the stage and be applauded for their manufactured beauty, we are told that women are becoming more confident and stronger. This is an illusory world being projected as the real one.
Meanwhile the real world, where women bus conductors must learn karate,where women in prosperous rural areas must silently bear verbal and physical abuse, remains hidden. It virtually disappears from view because it is inconvenient. Instead of reporting the full story, the media is now reporting only that which sells, not that which informs. This is not journalism, this is public relations, this is advertising.
You cannot make violence against women disappear by not reporting it, you cannot make poverty vanish by not looking at it.
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