Halos as Nooses: Women Bodies and the Ever Looming ‘Fear of Rape’
Originally published at https://livewire.thewire.in on March 10, 2021.
I sat under the shower rinsing my body violently. Tears ran down my cheeks and they flowed into the bathroom drain — tears that reeked of unspoken helplessness. I shuddered multiple times while sleeping that night, each time waking up with an invisible hand groping my breast.
It was just another ‘normal’ day and I was tired after a long day at college. My strained body wanted to get back home. When all the auto-rickshaws denied giving me a ride back home, I decided to walk the stretch, which wasn’t a long one. It was 8.30 pm.
I plugged in my earphones and as Pink Floyd soothed my soul, I started walking. Midway, an uneasiness gradually started grasping me as I realised that the stretch was completely desolate. My body, although exhausted, suddenly became alert. My eyes started looking for suspicious strangers lurking in the darkness. I became conscious of being a woman; my heightened senses escalated the feeling of a gendered identity.
It was then that I noticed a distant headlight approaching me. Instinctively, I kept to one side of the road. Within moments, the bike passed me and the stranger groped my breast and rode away to hyper-masculine glory. I stood still for a moment, not knowing what to do. I knew my tongue wanted to utter all the curse words that I had learnt, but they all choked inside me.
The moment froze — the dark alley where my body stood, sweating profusely and exposed to masculine invasion. I somehow contained myself and began pacing my steps along the road which seemed like an endless tunnel.
A few seconds later, I heard another motorcycle approaching. I closed my eyes and twitched my lips in panic. An elderly man slowed down in front of me. Probably noticing the fright that I was engulfed in, he offered me a lift, “Would you like me to drop you somewhere?” he asked, the patronising tone hitting hard in my ears.
After what had just happened, how could I possibly trust any male presence on that road?
I shook my head.
After he rode off, I almost ran till I reached the end of the road, took a public bus for just one stop, and reached home.
At that time, I was pursuing my bachelor’s in sociology from Presidency University in Kolkata and “gender studies” was the module I enjoyed the most. However, I realised that the academic literature on gender politics had completely escaped me as I stood ‘violated’ and ‘unsafe’ in that alley.
When I narrated the incident to my parents and my friends, they asked me the same, inevitable question: “Why would you walk alone in a deserted road at that time of the night?” A lot of them showed sympathy and advised me to be ‘more careful the next time’. It was as if they had taken it for granted that ‘next time’ is a usual occurrence, something that we as ‘women’ must learn to live with.
It is no surprise, though, given that a recent Bombay high court ruling disqualified my experience of sexual harassment (like million other women’s experiences) on the ground that ‘clothes’ provided the necessary barrier.
Millions of female bodies are deemed ‘vulnerable’ each day in different parts of the world. These bodies are taught to be ‘careful’ — to not wear short/revealing clothes, to not walk on deserted roads after sunset, to cross legs while sitting, to not trust strangers and so on and so forth. Because if they let go of their ‘prudence’ even for a second, their bodies are simply naked for males to feast on — either with their piercing gaze, their hands, their mouth or their penises — all of which qualify as sexual harassment.
The “fear of penetration” or the “fear of rape” regulates the female body and lay down diktats for it. It creates innumerable nooses that binds the body; nooses that are taken for granted and appropriated every day. We, as women, carry these nooses as halos over our bodies which command us to be ‘angels’ in our demeanour and at the same time ‘demonises’ male intent.
There is a reason why I couldn’t trust the man, who in all probability wanted to genuinely help me that night. It is because the society has taught me to distrust ‘male intent’. It is because when the society laid out codes for me to be an ‘angel’, it also asked me to treat men as ‘demons’ full of lust.
I have often tried consoling myself with the usual assurances that people provide: “It happens to everybody”, “let it pass” and the all assuring “it’s okay”. But I just want to scream, “NO, IT’S NOT OKAY”.
It’s not okay to normalise that there is always going to be a ‘next time’. It’s not okay to ask a woman to not walk down a certain road at a certain time.
From now onwards, whenever someone raises a question on my decision to walk that stretch on that night now, I retaliate by saying, “As a citizen, the constitution entitles me to walk on any road at any hour of the day or night. Why, then, should I be made to feel guilty for exercising my fundamental right?”
Instead of entangling itself with the escapism that comes with every “It’s okay”, society must stop to think why it is never okay.
As I recall the incident now, I remember how Pink Floyd was latently passing a message that night:
“Don’t help them to bury the light, don’t give in without a fight!”
