Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Re-Think

By Anouradha Bakshi

Read this on NDTV.com
A hostel in Madurai has been forcing students to maintain a public register of their menstrual cycle.
This is to prevent premarital sex and to ensure that teenage girls do not go astray.
The invasion of privacy has been taking place for years at the government hostel for poor and backward class students in Tamil Nadu's Madurai district.
the article goes on to say
The girls revealed that the policing is done by the cook under the overall supervision of the warden.
But while their records may be strictly monitored, their sanitation is not.
The girls claim their hostel has just one bathroom but that is exclusively for the warden. The girls can enter it but only to clean it and not use it.
Ironically the moral brigade is unconcerned about the fact that the girls have to bathe out in the open after dusk.


I wonder when abuse on women will end.. It just does not make sense, the shoe is on the wrong foot..
maybe it is time one addresses the question in a different manner and deal with men and their animal like reactions..

5 comments:

Kaveetaa Kaul said...

Anou,

this is shocking..It is difficult to believe that even in this day and age while our western counterparts have achieved their ambitions and drives, our women here are still dealing with anomalies of the kind.

Wonder why the Womens organisations and Human rights are not taking up this issue?

Anonymous said...

It is high time women realise that they will be dished out as much as they take and more.. why blame the men if you are ready to tolerate what is not acceptable? don't take shit..refuse

Kaveetaa Kaul said...

Easier said than done Sanjay.. sounds good to the ears and even better for the psyche.

There are so many interdependant intertwined factors at work here ranging from economic constraints, to societal pressures, parental issues.

But on a larger scale yes, women have to take on the mantle to be responsible for their future and decisions.

Thanks for being candid enough to admit that what is dished out is directly proportionate to what can be tolerated and not necessarily because it is the birthright of men to sanction a womens course of life.

Anonymous said...

Kaveetaa, Anouradha

First of all thanks for bringing out information of this kind on your blog.

what is happening is very outdated. The difference between city life and town life is so much. They should all get together and talk against it. Only unity will get results

Kaveetaa Kaul said...

Laks,

The disgust at this news was so strong that it kinda clamped me up.

And then all around you there is talk of womens empowerment.

such hogwash..till equality does not filter down to the lowest strata of our society, there is no way we can condider ourselves even fractionally an enlightened and awakened race.

the dichotomy prevalent in the minds of both the keepers of our so called social morality and the grass root reality is divided by so wide a chasm, that baby steps are all we have taken in that direction so far.

But all the same..eventually I see us being a people where the sexual war will finally have played itself out..fingers n toes crossed