If he intended to give his two paisa worth, the return on the investment was memes. If it was meant to be a joke, it was a bad one. It was a comment, it was offensive. It certainly was a person way past his prime trying to stay relevant. This is maybe what a very late mid-life crisis looks like. This is probably not the discussion that a noted personality’s opinion that ‘men come to protests to leer at women’ needs at all, but I choose to ignore all the parenting advice for attention-seeking behaviour. I want to engage with this comment that has made rounds in this stressful week, and I seek to clarify what happens in what spaces. First, of course, is to take into consideration all the places where women are leered at, which is every imaginable space. To leer, touch, harass, cat-call and to fall in love is easier on public transport than at a once-in-a-while protest, where they are more likely to be pulled up for misbehaving or making people uncomfortable. And to add to it, we are still in the process of creating a world more accepting of loud, opinionated women, many of whom make up protest spaces.
If the point of pouring out to the streets is in fact to leer, and not in support of a cause they believe in, the protest space is not the most conducive. This is not to say that these spaces are devoid of inappropriate behaviour, but that if all a person wanted to do was get some eye-candy, then they can prop themselves in a mall or at a tea stall bench like my favourite meme pointed out, instead of risking arrest, detainment, injury or death. Mind you, in the age of social media, the Internet, porn accessible through simple VPN switch and dating apps, it is hard work to put yourself in physical spaces, to be at a protest that you don’t believe in. If there is anything about the last sentence that one is unable to comprehend, then you have lost the right to comment on our behaviour; if you want another chance, learn from them about what’s going on.
I must confess that I am a serial protestor. I will not tell you that all is rosy and nice at a protest. There is a lot of sweat and a lot of speaking — but there is also sloganeering and solidarity, of meeting strangers and leaving as friends, of turning up alone for something you believe in and realising that there is a large family that exists. Leering may happen at protests, love may occur, but there is so much more that happens there that is to express than impress. Protests offer a possibility for change, and young people see the power they hold, whether they come there to flirt with a person or a cause. Nothing that a lesson on consent — for them on inappropriate behaviour and for others on unsolicited advice-giving — will not fix.
So give students some credit, give ‘speaking up’ the respect it deserves, give those putting their bodies on the line the benefit of doubt, trust them to know what they’re doing or learn by making mistakes. And remember that women also leer at women, we are not that straight a country, homosexual desire is legal now. But we’ll forgive you for not knowing, as long as you promise to do better, and not try so hard to be cool.
archanaa seker
seker.archanaa@gmail.com
The writer is a city-based activist,in-your-face feminist and a media glutton