Creating a Safe Space

What is a safe space, a safe space is a place where one feels comfortable to share their views and is not worried about being judged or being attacked personally or for thinking in a certain way. A place, where someone will not question your upbringing, your family values or your education because you think a certain way.

A thing I learnt very early in life is to criticize the act but not the actor, maybe the person on the other side just had a bad day. Everyone is allowed one bad day, right! I write the below snippet in the hope that all the posters will treat this post as a safe space, with no personal attacks. Yes, we live in a free world and a free country but with freedom also comes accountability…We can all be mindful and accountable to not only ourselves but also to those that take the time to read what we write and then not only reflect upon it but also take the time to share their thoughts….

I was recently at a gender sensitizing conference for social work students and professionals. Given that everyone in the room was an aspiring social worker or had been working in the field, there was an expectation that judgments would not be passed and we were all in a place that we considered “safe” to share our thoughts and not be judged and that together we would find the answers to our dilemmas.

The session started with all of us holding silence for two minutes for a woman that was raped in Detroit and for the Delhi gang rape incident. A close friend of mine, who was with me, facilitated our group’s discussion and being the only second Indian woman in the room a lot of eyes turned towards me when the discussion of the Delhi incident arose.

My friend asked me that since I had recently visited India what did I have to say about this. I have deliberately stayed out of this discussion till date, for the simple reason that I do not agree with the public opinion that this is largely a law and order failure issue. Yes, law and order does play a role and we need to talk about but I also think that we discuss this a social issue and primarily should be viewed as one. Hence, while I was in India – I stayed far away from any discussions on this topic.

But, now I had to speak….I began by saying that largely people were viewing it as a failure of law and order and wanted the perpetrators to be punished.
While everyone agreed to it, A Saudi Arabian social worker rightly said that her country had very stringent rules against rape and sexual assault yet these things occurred in their country, and the plight of women in their country is not very great. She said that women in her country are fighting for the right to drive and it was only in 2011 after a lot of fight and struggle did they get the right to vote.

She also said a very interesting thing – she said that women in her country, get sexually abused and assaulted both in marriage and outside of it, yet most cases go unreported – hence there is no proof that the violence occurred. Reason, rape and the stigma attached to it is such that more often than not the survivor (I choose to use the word survivor rather than victim) blames themselves. Such is the value judgment that is attached to rape. What makes it more difficult is that it is very difficult to prove that rape ever occurred. A little known fact is that in only 30 per cent cases can rape be medically proved, because, the lacerations that occur are so internal that most times they are difficult to detect even with the use of the best rape kit.

While in India I met a former professor who was surprised to learn that I am working in the US with survivors of sexual assault, because according to this professor there were laws in the US to safeguard the rights of survivors and sexual assault or domestic violence can never occur in the much developed country. I had to break her bubble by telling her about Steubenville, Ohio.

On Aug. 22, 2012, two standout Steubenville football players were arrested and later charged with raping a 16-year-old girl and kidnapping her by taking her to several parties while she was too drunk to resist. Not only was this girl raped but later most friends of the rapists urinated on this girl. This incident did not come to light and was unheard of until the New York Times uncovered it and school authorities and local authorities did everything they could to protect the two football players.

An American friend, rightly said that the west likes to look at issues such as rape and domestic violence as problems that happen in other countries. Meanwhile a probably vice presidential candidate calls Rape as just another form of conception, and yet another politician says that it was not possible for women to get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” I remember a young 17-year-old teenager telling me that when she went to register a sexual harassment complaint against her employer, who was trying to feel her, the cops asked her what she was wearing, and was she sure she was not trying to invite trouble!

Sometime ago I had written about my experience as a bodyguard and how I felt terribly unsafe, while visiting Brooklyn. Given that I was raised in Bombay, and my personal affection for the city aside, I have always felt very safe at any time in Bombay – but New York, has not given me the same feeling. And I wonder, how will I make the women I work with, who have been violated feel safe and empowered when I don’t feel the safe.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that as a society we need to change the way we look at women, men and our own internal biases. There is nothing wrong in being called out on our bias, we are humans and we will be biased about many things. However, acknowledging our bias and trying to work to changing it is what we need to do. Also bad things happen not only in India, but everywhere and every society needs to be accountable for their deeds.

For statistics about Rape in the United States visit this website . Rainn is a great organization and they do a lot of good work Statistics | RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

Yes, we need to push for stringent laws and cops need to be accountable, but as a society and as a culture we all need to be accountable to. When my friends were going crazy over facebook, commenting on how the rapists should be shot dead, I asked them tell me one instance when one of them had not passed a comment on a woman? The argument from them was, I was just complimenting her “Well, sometimes, your compliments are uncomfortable. And not all women like it....When we say NO, it means NO! And not Yes!" Where does one draw the line?

Below is an article that I found challenged my thinking, that I would like to share with everyone. I am sorry if this article causes distress to anybody….
Steubenville Rape Case: Does America Have an Unadmitted Rape Culture Problem?

 

Thank you for the first feedback SeethVerma - thankfully not a lot of people were provoked by it. I guess what I wanted to tell is that having stringent laws is probably not going to have much of an effect. This is a social problem and the answer has to be also one the encompasses both the social and the legal aspects...

 

Racr that is such a pertinent question, Well I have not traveled and lived around much except for in India and in the US. And I don't know for some reason I have felt more safe in India, maybe because I feel I speak the language and I probably know how things work there. In the United States, I have seen the other side of the law - the law that treats people of color differently and where racism permeates every aspect of life - some people here may disagree with that but I have experienced it. I remember myself and a Chinese classmate were distributing flyers to people in the Street in a very upscale neighborhood in NYC and there were a few guys that kept yelling - send the Chinese away, I could not take it anymore and told them 'That is not a nice thing to say - if you don't have anything good to say or don't want the flyer just don't take it. No need to make racist comments."
As far as solutions - our group spoke about how countries like the US will cry hoarse and paint Indian men as flesh eating animals but forget to see what happens in their own backyard. We thought that, yes having more stringent laws is the beginning, but it has to happen along with gender sensitization - both among young girls and young boys. Changing the way we look at gender and sex is very important. Sex education - which is still a stigma is also something that needs to be discussed.
I think any answer to this problem, without involving men or demonizing them is not going to be a complete answer. I know that there are good men out there, who irrespective of the fact that what woman wears, what time she is out at and how drunk she is would not take advantage of her. So our group wanted men to be involved in creating an answer to this situation. Do you have any other thoughts - I think this debate needs to happen without blaming either sex or gender.
Thank you so much for your feedback

 

Dear Viswa

As always your feedback is something I look forward to reading, thank you for taking the time and being so thoughtful and mindful, while writing this response. Yes I agree with you that we need stringent laws but when will the cultural change happen - and how long do we have to wait for. Sometimes when I look at the generation that I grew up with, and I expect them to think differently, I think that the cultural shift is never going to happen. I think that these are the people I went to school and college with and who know better, have had more exposure and yet they think and talk like this about women and about society in general - how can we change then? When will the cultural shift happen? And my fear is that in a country, which has such a corrupt legal system, how much is the law going to help - is it only going to re-traumatize the survivor all the more?

 

Dear Shyamala
Thank you so much for the feedback and for appreciating my writing. Yes understanding why people do things, will explain and offer some solution. Rape is all about power and control and not about sex or attraction - I think we also need to stop normalizing rape and violence against women - the way it is portrayed in our movies. I remember watching a very successful Hindi film - Dil To Pagal Hai - in which SRK tries to pull Madhuri towards her and she keeps saying No and he continues to pull her closer - they then break out into a song. In real life this would be called sexual harassment. When people grow up watching stuff like this, they think it is okay to follow a girl even when she says NO. Where does one draw the boundary