It sounds almost playful, but “Eve teasing” is a daily torment for many women in South Asia, who are now trying to call time on what they see as a bland euphemism for sustained sexual harassment.
 Women protesting |
Widely used for decades by the media and police in India and Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent in Nepal and Pakistan, “Eve-teasing” is a catch-all term that encompasses anything from lewd comments to assault.
As a reference to the biblical Eve, women activists argue that it carries an additional offensive inferences – that of the woman as ‘temptress’ who was complicit in her own downfall. “It’s a dismissive term,” founder of an Indian community performance art group called “Blank Noise” that combats the abuse of women in public areas Jasmeen Patheja said. “Calling it ‘Eve-teasing’ is actually a denial that it is sexual violence,”she told AFP.
Following a spate of suicides by victims of sexual harassment, activists in Bangladesh successfully petitioned the High Court which ruled in January that the term Eve-teasing belittled the seriousness of the behaviour it described.
Read more »
No comments:
Post a Comment