On Photographing Women: Ethics & Aesthetics

For someone who can be such a poser in front of the camera sometimes, getting clicked that day was traumatising.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon when I was travelling back home from college, taking my everyday metro route on the red line. My staple women’s coach was a bit crowded so I stood on its periphery- the border which divides the women’s coach from the general one.

Lost in my phone, I instinctively looked up as I felt someone’s eyes on me.

To my right, two boys were blatantly clicking my photo through the front camera on the pretence of taking a selfie. They slyly stood with their backs towards me, and got out of the way of the camera for a split second so that they could get only me in the shot. These 16 year olds then snickered at their masterplan they’d just devised, which had worked because they now had a girl’s solo photo in their phone.

 Having had noticed two female security guards sitting at the end of the first coach earlier, I swiftly glanced if they were still there. They were. “Beta ab tum dono perverts dekho” I thought as I hurriedly went to the guards who could to teach the boys a lesson.

“Excuse me! Waha ladies coach ke side mein do ladke ladkio ki photo le rahe hai. Aap please jaldi chalke dekhiye” I blurted and expected them to get up swiftly in that very instance.

The two looked at me blankly and finally one asked in a low, confused tone, “Photo le rahe hai?”

Was my story hard to believe? Or they just didn’t understand what I was saying?

“Haaan! Maine pakka dekha” I implored. I repeated myself once again and requested them to come with me once. The gates had opened for a station and I was scared if the boys might de-board and get away. I kept my eye on them constantly while talking to the guards lest they shift positions. They were still continuing with their antics with other oblivious women.

The gates opened for another station. Finally after hearing me say ‘please’ for the fifth time, they slowly stood up and walked behind me in that direction. One of them told me that they’ll observe first for themselves. “Haan theek hai. Aap khud hi dekh lijiye” I said, glad that they finally stood up. I was confident that the boys were still doing it at this point.

I stood near the periphery sideways, and in less than five seconds the boys did the same thing. “Arre haan, yeh toh kar rahe hai.” One guard exclaimed to the other. The other guard nodded and after a pause said “Ae hero!” But it was such a feeble shout that nobody around us took notice.

After three call-outs, the boys finally turned towards us, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Phone dikhao apna”, she finally said sternly. “Kya?” one of the guys said feebly.

“Photo le raha hai? Phone dikha apna” she said again, and finally people around us took notice. One of the boys nodded in agreement and started unlocking his phone. But he tapped the phone a solid 10-12 times.

“Arre who delete kar rahe hai phone kholne ke bahane! Roko unhe” I was shrieking at this point. But the guards didn’t move forward to grab hold of the phone or even going near them. And nobody said anything.

It almost felt like the guard was letting him make amends for his deeds. He finally handed over the phone with a small smile. I grabbed the phone feeling defeated already, just to see nothing in the phone gallery. The two boys then very conveniently scurried off and got down at the next station.

India doesn’t really have well-defined laws to distinguish violation of privacy from creative pursuits. The only photography law our country has pertains to regulations on land-based photography for certain locations. The erstwhile ban on aerial photography using drones has been lifted as of December 1, 2018.

In this case, how can one decide what constitutes professional work of art and what is an act of perversion? It is jarring to realise how the same medium can evoke appreciation and outrage alike.

I have been photographed by professional photographers randomly in various events and shows, and it has not bothered me. In particular spaces, there is a certain expectation that you can be photographed, hence building up an implied consent, unless a visitor explicitly refuses when they’re being clicked. 

But what happens on the street? When a well-dressed, DSLR carrying, usually male photographer captures your face from amongst the crowd? Are we led to believe that due to the nature of the equipment or status of the photographer, the lingering threat of perversion will not be there?

These questions were important to me not only as a woman accessing the public space, but also being the same well-dressed, DSLR carrying, unusually female photographer traversing the streets of Delhi every now and then. And not only for photographers, these are important questions for you too, if you’ve ever happened to occasionally take photos of people on the street.

For example, how is Mayank Austen Soofi, who uses a camera phone to take photos of people on Delhi streets, different from the two boys I encountered in the metro?

One of the things is that of intent. If you made the image, you own it. But what one does with it is a different question; a question that can make or break the right to that ownership.

Ownership is a legal issue and your image may be used by photographers for journalistic and artistic purposes if it was taken in public or an otherwise permitted setting, like Soofi uses for his blog ‘The Delhi Walla’.

But if the image is used for defamation, and perhaps intentional infliction of mental distress, or is a case of persistent or aggressive photography of an individual, one can book a case based on the nature of the photograph. After the Nirbhaya case, the Indian Penal Code was amended to include voyeurism as an offence in 2013. The accused would be liable for conviction under two circumstances:-

·         Any man who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act where the victim’s genitals, posterior, or breasts are exposed or covered only in underwear. “Private act” includes when the victim is using a lavatory or doing a sexual act “that is not of a kind ordinarily done in public”.

·         When the victim consents to the capturing of the images, but not its dissemination

And what about if the image is a full-body shot of the victim wearing clothes? Essentially, if someone takes pictures of parts of your body to masturbate to once they get home, it’s not illegal. Moreover, there have been entire online communities dedicated to such behaviour on Reddit which are difficult to track since a lot of them are private.

One such subreddit came to the fore which went by the name of /r/CreepShots. It was shut down when it gained massive negative attention in the mainstream media. In protest, the redditors came up with another platform called /r/CandidFashionPolice. According to reports, it operates on the same premise of objectifying photographs of unsuspecting women including upskirts, but it is disguised and defended as a portal which critiques women’s fashion. It has survived the backlash and is still active today, although not accessible to everyone since it is quarantined by Reddit.

There might still be other secret or closed groups that a lot of us are unaware of. This is a kind of criminal case where one can become a victim without even knowing.

Meri Khoobsurti ka Raaz: Women and Indian Beauty Advertisements

What’s age got to do with it?

Mira Rajput’s first television advertisement can easily top the list of celebrity endorsements gone wrong. Earlier this year, she came under the scanner and was trolled on social media for promoting an anti-aging cream. But a lot of female celebrities including Madhuri Dixit and Genelia D’Souza have endorsed the brand, so what went wrong? (Apart from the fact that the features on their faces look like CGI in those ads).

Mira Rajput is all of 23 years old.

The ad displays her looking sad in front of a mirror, lamenting the pregnancy glow that vanished after delivery. But after taking the “28-day skin transformation challenge”, a happier Mira Rajput says, “My skin felt young and radiant, it was like being born again.”

Source: Storypick

Then I came across an article on the Quint titled, ‘Chill, Mira Rajput Is Not Endorsing an Anti-Ageing Cream’ which stated that it is only a face cream. Perplexed, I watched the ad again, and realised where the gap lied.

This was a case of an anti-aging cream disguised and rebadged as pro-skin. The vocabulary of “glow”, “transformation” and being “reborn” used in the ad, now dominates the skin-care industry at large, unlike in older advertisements where it was directly referred as “anti-aging” and “signs of aging”. It does the job of sounding pleasantly body-positive while the apparatus of continuing to age-shame women remains intact, like old wine in a new bottle. Or rather a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

While it is understandable that the fear of mortality might scare the wits out of some people, but the never-ending obsession of removing all signs of having seen too much life still looms large, not only on women, but most directly at them.

Age-shaming is doubly problematic as it not only locates a woman’s worth entirely in her appearance, but also rejects the value of experience in them. This essentially means that one is denying their wisdom rather than flaunting it. The irony in this situation being, Rajput ending the advertisement with a feel-good dialogue of- “Being a mom doesn’t mean you stop being yourself, right?” as the bold white text “#REBORN” flashes on the screen.

Whether it is L’Oreal’s tagline “Because you’re worth it” or Dove’s “#LetsBreakTheRulesOfBeauty”, This feel-good terminology extends to a lot of skin-care branding in India today.

Twacha se Meri Umr ka Pata hi Nahi Chalta

Apart from the new plethora of day and night skin creams and moisturisers, the long-standing Wipro’s Santoor Stay Young soap has also been a part of the age game.

As per August 2018 Economic Times report, Santoor has overtaken Lux as India’s No. 2 soap brand. Wipro Consumer Care CEO Anil Chugh said: “Santoor is now the No. 2 brand all-India in terms of volume, securing a clear lead over the brand behind us. We have achieved this through distribution reach, the consistent advertising proposition of younger looking skin, and new variants, which appealed to our target segment.”He adds that Santoor has always been the leading brand across urban and rural markets in South and West India.

Having grown up watching its advertisements in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, there is a steady progression in how it depicts the woman. From just being doll-like in weddings and admired by old ladies, the Santoor woman now plays basketball, is a rockstar, artist, and also Saif Ali Khan’s dance trainer. But the basic premise of the advertisement, a little girl comes up to the youthful main lead shouting “Mummy!” while all the other characters echo “Mummy!?” acting all pleasantly surprised, remains the same, as same as the orange clothes the Santoor lady sports in all ads to match the brand colour. Divided by professions, united by a single aspiration to youthfulness it seems.

Time marches on, but removing all signs of aging on a woman’s face is not ready to stop anytime soon. Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

How did this belief in the cosmetic industry start in Modern-day India, where so many people still buy into the companies’ promises? In the book ‘Nawabs, Nudes, and Noodles’, Ambi Parameswaran who’s an industry insider since forty years, locates it as follows:-

“The opening up of the economy in the ‘90s saw the entry of global beauty brands that set out to redefine beauty. Sensing the opportunity, Pradeep Guha, then Director at Times Group decided to play up the Femina Miss India contest into a national celebration of beauty – and brains, if I may add. Not only participants carefully selected from across the country with several regional rounds, Times also invested heavily in training them to make an impact on the global stage. Pradeep hit pay dirt in 1994 when two of his proteges, Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai, won the two most prestigious beauty crowns, Miss Universe and Miss World. The double whammy did for the beauty pageant industry what Kapil Dev’s World Cup victory did for one-day cricket. Young girls wanted to win beauty contests, beauty parlours started sprouting up across small town India and in came a slew of global cosmetic brands.” (Parameswaran, 2016)

Show me your true colours

Continuing with another reference from the same book, the discussion on Indian beauty advertisements would be incomplete without referencing the fairness industry, when skin lightening products occupy 61% of dermatological market in India (Jose and Ray, 2018)

“I was at a panel discussion in Mumbai in April 2015 where several panellists were discussing the role of a woman in Bollywood. Actress and producer Nandita Das was at her vocal best explaining how dark skin was a big taboo in mainstream Bollywood movies even in the 2010s and she pointed out how actresses turn fair as their career progresses.”(Parameswaran, 2016)

The first actress that comes to my mind is Kajol. She was darker than most other leading actresses in the 90s and had a unibrow. But none of that stopped her from becoming one of the most successful Hindi film actresses of all times.But before-and-after photos show a drastic change in her skin tone, speculating a number of media reports on possible fairness bleaching treatments. Her response was that of a vehement denial.“For 10 years of my life, I was working all the time under the sun, which is why I got tanned. And now I am not working in the sun anymore. So I’ve got untanned. It’s not a skin whitening surgery, it’s a stay at home surgery,” she told entertainment website Pinkvilla.“I’ve already gotten that (success and stardom). Why would I lighten my skin now?”

Source: Pinterest

Being the brand ambassador of Olay, she appeared in the advertisement of Olay Total Effects. In the advertisement, her dialogue reads that upon using the product, “itne saalo aur life mein itne changes ke baad bhi, meri skin dikhti hai young aur nikhri.”

The catch here is the word “nikhri”:-

“While fairness creams advertising was once restricted by Doordarshan into describing gori as nikhri – the dictionary meaning of nikhri is improved or better, but Hindustan Unilever has been using it so consistently to promote its fairness cream that today nikhri almost means fairer to the lay public…” (Parameswaran, 2016)

“Kajol is 41 and looks half her age,” a film critic wrote in Huffington Post, ”aside from having given fairness cream companies further reason to exist.”

In the book ‘The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and the National Body’, Meeta Jha points to the local national history of the fair-skin status:-

“Many transnational feminist scholars (Runkle, 2004; Paramweswaran 2005; Osuri, 2008) have argued that 

Bollywood cinema, television, celebrities, beauty queens, and advertisements have converged in reinforcingBritish colonial hangovers of an Indian idealization of lighter-skin complexion referred to as fair-skin status.In the Indian context, as in many national contexts, skin colour discrimination has a local history. Specifically in India, it is based on class and caste stratification … Skin-colour discrimination in the Indian subcontinent predates the arrival of British colonialism and imperialism and has origins in the Hindu religious caste system… Lighter skin in India is associated with education, upper-class status and success, thus conflating 

progress with whiteness, modernity, and westernization.” (Jha, 2015)

In 2014, the fairness obsession reached new heights when Clean and Dry intimate wash was released, priced at Rs. 100. The voice-over in the advertisement states“gupt ang ki twacha ko rakhe clean, surakshit, aur rangat nikhare.”The advertisement features a young Indian couple inside their home. The woman seems perturbed at her husband’s seeming disconnectedess as he reads the paper. The unsatisfied woman then hits the shower with her Clean and Dry product to please her man. After using the product, she jumps around frolicking with her husband on the furniture with renewed lust. Divorce averted?

Similarly, vaginal tightening creams and breast enhancement capsules etc. all are part of making women younger, bouncier, and virginial.

Source: Facebook

Source: Facebook

With the incoming of products like these in the Indian market, it has boiled down to eliminate darkness from every nook and cranny of a woman’s body. The vagina is naturally darker than the rest of the body and also cleans itself, but such companies easily cash in on the pressure and anxieties of women. Noted Bollywood director Shekhar Kapoor also said, “Cosmetic companies are trying to turn India into a nation of Albinos. No dark area on any part of the body. Except may be our hearts. Got a cream for that?"

Source: DoodleODrama

The Clean and Dry ad director, Alyque Padamsee, thinks the media backlash is an overreaction. He wrote: “It is hard to deny that fairness creams often get social commentators and activists all worked up. What they should do is take a deep breath and think again. Lipstick is used to make your lips redder, fairness cream is used to make you fairer — so what’s the problem? … The only reason I can offer for why people like fairness, is this: if you have two beautiful girls, one of them fair and the other dark, you see the fair girl’s features more clearly. This is because her complexion reflects more light.”

Midas Care, the Creators of Clean and Dry were also reached out to by media outlets for a response:-

"Clean and Dry is a direct result of conversations with women between the ages of 16 to 35 years, across the country. The task was to identify the problems faced by women in their vaginal area in their daily life. Unfortunately, not many of them knew whom to talk to about such a personal problem. They did not even take the problem to their gynecologist, choosing instead to suffer silently. Clean and Dry is among the first few brands to address these problems of daily hygiene, odour and pH imbalance...The ad in no way is meant to offend anyone. The fairness bit is nothing but one of the many offerings of the product.”(Qtd. in Vice)

When I read this, the only thing that didn’t add up for me was that this particular group of women aged 16 to 35 told these marketing consultant teams about their most intimate genital-related problems, one which they hid from their medical professionals? They must be really persuasive and empowering, I guess.

The Cost of Being a Woman

A commercial for Veet hair removal cream came out in April 2018. There were two identical commercials, one starring Shraddha Kapoor for the Indian audience, and the other cast Mahira Khan for Pakistani audiences. Both fair-skinned young women, in pink body hugging dresses to match the brand colour, stride across the basketball court wearing heels.

She dribbles the ball and shoots a basket without breaking so much as of a sweat, as the other players look in awe. A player’s arm brushes against hers, as the former exclaims “So smooth!”

“Not just smooth, but perfect!” comes her response and they both high-five.

Apart from the impractical garb that the leading ladies put on for a basketball game, the advertisement also portrays an unrealistic as well as unnecessary beauty standard. The pressure of smooth arms, fairer skin, and thinner legs should be the last thing sportswomen should have on their minds. When Sana Mir, a cricketer and the former captain of the Pakistani women's cricket team, came across the commercial, she raised these very questions.

In a scathing post on Facebook, the sportsperson wrote addressing "To all young girls out there who aspire to take up sports.”-

“One of the ad campaigns that has finally pushed me to come forward with my concern is the latest campaign by a company promoting a hair removal cream.… Are the talent, passion and skill of a girl not enough for her to play sports?

There are female sports icons around the world who have made their way to the top because of their skill, talent and hard work, not because of the colour or texture of their skin.

Make no mistake: you need strong arms, not smooth arms, on a sports field.

During my 12 years as a sportswoman in Pakistan, I have rejected several offers to endorse beauty products just for this reason: I want young girls with a passion for sports to know that all they need for a practice session are the will to succeed, comfortable shoes and clothes, a water bottle and a cap if it’s hot…”

Source: Sana Mir official Facebook account

Also, believe it or not, hair removal also has to do with the conversation of aging.

Our society wants to live in a peculiar infantile fantasy where women’s hair only grows on their head and eyebrows, and everything else is supposed to look pre-pubescent. It is in fact equivalent to de-sexualising older women to fit into the mould of a younger girl by using the tool of shame to undergo various hair removal procedures.

“Take pubic hair which over the past two decades has likely been discussed more than at any known time in history... Most of the debates stem from an incontrovertible fact: female pubic hair, once considered a desirable marker of adolescence... is now a disappearing phenomenon. Its extinction has been driven variously by the easy availability of porn, the mainstreaming of lingerie marketing, and a 24/7 culture of celebrity surveillance. Though waxing defenders are quick to remind us that pubic hair removal has enjoyed popularity throughout history as far back as the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, the contemporary world has seen an unmistakable uptick in both the practice and available services...” (Zeisler, 2016)

As per a 2017 study done by The Quint, the hair removal industry in India was estimated to be a 21 billion rupees as of 2016, with the sale of depilatories alone reaching 15.1 billion rupees.  And the money to this multi-crore market of femininity is going from your very own pocket. How? Consider an urban middle class woman visiting a mid to high range parlour. It can charge upto Rs. 1,500 for chocolate wax of arms and legs. If we compare this to how much men spend per month on their grooming. A shaving and trimming session can cost around Rs. 150.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a farm in Punjab, it takes only Rs. 500 to mow an entire field.

Textual References (that are not linked above):-

·         Parameswaran, Ambi. Nawabs, Nudes, and Noodles: India through 50 Years of Advertising. Pan Macmillan. 2016

·         Jha, Meeta R. The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and the National Body. , 2016.

·         Jose and Ray. ‘Toxic content of certain commercially available fairness creams in Indian market’. Cogent Medicine, Vol.5, 2018.

·         Zeisler, Andi. We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement. Hachette UK. 2016

A Coach of One’s Own: An Ode to the Ladies Dabba in Delhi Metro

A young girl wearing skinny jeans and a top, with a casual bag and a little junk jewellery gets off the rickshaw and enters the metro station. She gets herself frisked at the ladies security check, uses a prepaid smart card to check-in, and waits at the ‘women only’ side of the platform marked in pink before entering the ladies coach.

On the face of it, this is how I as a middle-class woman have experienced the DMRC almost every day to travel for my education and work since the last four years.

In an attempt to follow my past interest in locating gender in public transport, I took part in undergoing a field trip with my Literary Journalism class. This assignment made me realise that the ladies coach has been more of a personal life coach for me. All the puns intended.

The day was 6/9 and news had just broken out that Section 377 of the Constitution has been repealed. As my class was waiting at Gate No. 7 of Kashmere Gate metro station, I instinctively congratulated our instructor upon the SC’s judgement, only to be met with a pause. After reverting back the congratulatory wish to the entire class, he looked at me and said, “Celebrate yes, but don’t let it deflect your attention away from other things.” Oh, so maybe the world doesn't really change overnight for women and other genders.

As we make our way inside, to go to the last station of Escorts Mujesar on the Violet line, I enter the ladies coach out of habit despite mentally psyching myself earlier that day to enter the general coach on the pretext of the assignment. I find a seat near the periphery of the two coaches, and take out my little spiral notebook to jot down anything and everything I find worthy of thought and reflection.

The DMRC ladies coach accomodates around 361 commuters (43 seating and 318 standing).* However one can generally find more than 43 women sitting, even in a congested way as they do not have to worry about minding the body distance as they do in the presence of men. While we were moving towards progressiveness with 377 being out now, but a woman must still look left and right before taking a seat in the metro.

Soon an old lady appeared clad in a saree with her pallu covering her head. She was accompanied by a little girl no more of 10 years of age. I ask her if she wants to sit, preparing to get up. But she held out her hand and politely refused with a beaming smile. Her face contrasted with that of the entire coach who looked as morose as a child whose parents didn't let them adopt a puppy.

The lady next to me got up as her station had arrived, and the old lady sat next to me, and the girl standing near her lap. The little one saw me noting down the logistics of our trip with the corner of her eye. I bent a bit to reach her height and playfully asked her what she’s looking at. She giggled nervously and shook her head.

Photo Credit: Veni Ethiraj

“Aap school jaate ho?” my inquisitive self had awaken in this field trip. She shook her head in the negative. “Kyu?” I asked softly. I saw her smile fade a bit, and she just looked at me for a while before turning away. After two minutes, when I again saw her stealing glances at my notebook, I promptly opened the last page which was blank and held out the pen in my hand out to her. “Chalo main aaj aapko drawing sikhati hu.” I smiled and offered. Much to my dismay, she instantly gave the same reaction she’d been giving me all this while: giggled, refused, and now buried her face in the lady’s lap who I learnt later was her grandmother. Wondering if I’m scaring her with all these big questions, I decide to give it a rest for a while. I just remarked to the lady that I too was equally shy as the little girl when I was a child. The girl looked up to her grandmother, they locked eyes and smiled warmly at each other.

Photo Credit: Veni Ethiraj

As the train moved over-ground and the bright afternoon sunlight lit up the inside of the coach, I felt the mood of the people in my coach lighten around me. The girl had started acting playful around me, although it was still difficult to get her to talk to me. But I was very quick to realise that even initiating the conversation (whenever the rare time occurred of me doing so) was something I was only capable of doing in the ladies coach with other women. This kind of a community formation is something I cannot really imagine with a random man unless I had a very good and formal reason of doing so, otherwise the fear always lingers that it would be misconstrued in the wrong way. I wonder how and if the same applies when the genders are interchanged.
 

Meanwhile, I noticed a group of college girls that came in front of my seat and happily chatted away with each other- talking about boys while sharing a small packet of Kurkure. The ladies coach is no stranger to this little glimpse of sisterhood away from the male gaze. Of women gathered around each other, sitting on the floor laughing unabashedly, sharing food, and pouting for selfies without any hesitation; even doing their makeup or breastfeeding in peace. The ability to do all these things without being self-conscious lends to a casual atmosphere.

“Aurat hi aurat ki sabse badi dushman hoti hai.”? #NotAllWomen

But some men are definitely guilty of raining on our parade. Just four days after my field trip Hindustan Times published a report of how in 2017, 2081 men were caught travelling in the designated women’s coach despite there being a special security force unit employed at prime interchange stations like Kashmere Gate, Rajiv Chowk, Noida, and Inderlok to manage the crowd.

That is in addition to at least three pink floral signage on the platform. There is also a regular announcement in the coaches where male passengers are "requested" not to board the coach reserved for ladies and that “doing so is a punishable offence”, which amounts to Rs. 250 as specified in the information boards at the station.

I feel dismayed that how amongst all the other numerous coaches practically dominated by men, I often find the coach right beside the women’s coach the most crowded especially on the Red Line. Even if they don’t enter, one can always find men standing on the border of the ladies coach continuously staring at women to pass their time and a crowd of men spilling right into the first car on crowded days.

                              

 Wall Art outside Malviya Nagar Metro Station.

Artist Credit: Unknown

But why this unconditional love for the ladies coach and this protectiveness from these space invaders, you ask? Because this is a rare moment of a private space for women in the public transport, the first in Delhi if I may say so.

I remember how while returning back home, a woman requested me to tie the strings of her backless kurti which had come undone. And how another woman removed her jacket and just stretched her arms out in a noodle-strap crop top after a long tiring day. Yes, there was the occasional aunty who peers at you with moral judgement, and I find it irritating. But it is nowhere near the absolute threat of when a man looks at me. After all, there is a threat and there is the threat.

The first car in the moving direction is reserved for ladies, and I am so glad it is. Maybe it is called 'Reservation' because so many people almost always have their own reservations about it. 

But it is in this very space where I found my capacity to vocally protest as a woman for the very first time in my entire life. Yes, not in a street protest, not in a classroom setting, but in the ladies dabba. The ease and unprecedented authority with which I found myself routinely policing any male sightings for entering the ladies coach felt so extraordinary.

Stronger Together GIF by Laura Salaberry

But how is this different from other transport like a bus for example which also has the affirmative action of reserved seats for women? While travelling by bus, even protesting harassment is difficult. Since the co-passengers are mostly men, the female victim is not lent much support and it becomes more of an embarrassment than an effective means of redressal. Also, the offenders in a bus could easily make a dash for the road and run away out of our catch. In this sense, the metro is relatively a more controlled space with gun-toting guards present at every entry-exit point. The efficiency, well, is up for debate. But the mechanism is nevertheless there.

While it is also not always the case that other women echo the concerns of the victim in the metro, but in the ladies coach, they’re always in the majority. With these male passengers being a minority amongst all these other women, I get to experience what being in a dominant group feels like and the kind of strength it lends you.

This is probably how the men of the world feel all the time, I realise, as they majorly occupy most of the public spaces at any time of the day.

Though it is an artificial space as we have to eventually de-board and participate in real life gender dynamics, but the provision of the ladies coach and the momentary symbolic power it lends has translated into something more tangible: it has made me a little more bold to stand up for myself as a woman even on the road now, and a little less fearless to loiter around the city. 

 

*Shelly Tara, 'Locating Gender in the Delhi Metro' (2011) EPW.