What survivors of sexual attacks can do
As she feels her body stiffen, the girl finds herself unable to move, frozen as if her feet have turned to stone. His bulky arms pull her tighter to his ungainly body, his breath smelling of garlic, his voice an ominous murmur in her ear. "It's okay, beta, it's just me, your uncle. I live in your house, and you see me every day." Her words remain stuck in her throat as his sweaty hands grope her back, from her tiny neck to her bony buttocks. He has done this before. On hearing some sound outside he pushes her away so fast she almost crashes into the table laden with folders, heavy books, and a copy of the Holy Quran. Wordlessly, she runs out of the room, tears forming in her fear-stricken eyes.
She is nine years old.
Rushing for her cousin's mehndi, dressed in a stunning lehnga, twirling, she admires herself in the full-length mirror, her face flushed with the memory of the words a young man she liked told her, breathlessly, on the phone 10 minutes ago. Someone walks into the room, an elderly relative, husband of an aunt, someone who is known for his religious piety and miserly nature, an overweight, sweetly pleasant man like most older relatives are. She turns to him and says, "Do you think this lehnga looks good?" Instead of answering her, he grips her tightly, in a clinch that feels like a vise. Taking advantage of her stunned expression, he keeps holding her in his grip. A few seconds later, she pushes him away, and runs from the room.
She is 20 years old.
"I know you have to look after your mother and siblings, but why do you need to work? You're gorgeous, and sexy as hell, and you shouldn't waste your life in an office. Be with me, and I'll give you everything you want, a house, foreign trips, designer things. Just be my beck-and-call girl, and I'll make sure you never have to work for anything." The 48-year-old tycoon's eyes wander over her red tank top and high-waisted blue jeans, as she sits sipping a diet-coke, clueless how to snub him without annoying him, and leave the room.
She is 25 years old.
As she walks into his office, he is well behaved and shyly charming as he was during her few earlier trips to his clinic accompanied by her four-year-old son. This time she is alone, and is chatting with him about her post-surgery condition, in addition to her chronic pain. He looks at her, and says, "Did you have something done to your mouth?" She smiles, awkwardly, and shakes her head. "Your mouth is so sexy, I want to do things to it." And as he leans closer to her to check her body part recently operated-upon by him, there is not much she can say to him. Once she closes the door, she cancels her next appointment. She is 32 years old.
He slaps her and grabs her so tightly she gasps for breath. He is a man she had one date with, and despite his incessant obnoxiousness to her taking the moral high ground she had tried to become friends with him. Today, she is in her office, thin walls separating her from her two colleagues on both sides of the room. The ex puts his hand on her mouth and forces her to do things. The woman who prides herself on her courage to live life as per her rules watches herself crumble in front of a man who doesn't mean anything to her. Her fear of scandal silences her in that room, and later. Her pain blends into shame in that room.
She is 44 years old.
A series of apparently insignificant incidents, a lifetime of one narrative: it is no big deal to cross a line with a female. It is no big deal to touch in an inappropriate manner, hug too tightly, or grope a child. It is no big deal to focus on a woman's physical attributes rather than on her intellectual capabilities. It is no big deal to turn every conversation with a highly intelligent woman into a frivolous talk laced with innuendos about her bee-stung mouth and her toned body. It is no big deal to introduce one-sided and unwanted flirtation into a scenario where a woman is serious about her pursuit of a job she is overqualified to do any given day. It is no big deal to weaken strong women with patronising words, lecherous looks and tasteless comments.
The subliminal harassment, the compulsion of dominance through sexual subjugation, the brazenness of sexual desire overpowering decency, the audacity of expectation of submissiveness from women in need, the convolution of accepted social behaviour thinking silence is the only option, it has all been there, and is still there.
Women all over the world are speaking up, an act of empowerment for all victims and survivors of sexual harassment, abuse, violence. The perpetrator is no longer a sleazy, ugly, nondescript, gawky social pariah. He is anyone and everyone: a gorgeous Hollywood hunk, an iconic multiple-times Oscar-nominated superstar, a legendary sports doctor, a billionaire filmmaker, the president of the most important country in the world. He does not lurk in dark corners. He operates in the open. He is no longer someone who is used to rejection from females, didn't have a single girlfriend when he was a teenager, was unloved and mistreated by his parents as a child. He is popular, good looking, successful and relevant. And he works on the simple principle: male entitlement.
Heartening are the tales of females breaking the unwritten law of silence. Praiseworthy are all those who have opened up about the harassment they faced, the abuse they swallowed, the sexual humiliation they endured for preservation of their survival. While untold stories remain hidden, many have surfaced propping hope for the dignity of courage of survivors. What happened and when it happened have been overwhelmed by the sheer act of revealing that it did happen. And the most important outcome of this resurgent movement of "Me Too" and "Time's Up" is the reawakened sense of women empowerment that encapsulates the power of standing up, speaking up and pushing back. Silence is not a virtue when harassed, abused, brutalised or raped. Silence has been exploited as the biggest weapon to weaken females. Silence is what must be replaced with the one word that should matter more than anything else: No.
It is easier done than said. This world is still mostly masculine, controlled by male narratives of power and dominance, familial ties are dictated by patriarchal norms, dynamics of relationships are mostly covered in colours of their consequences on females, workplaces still operate under male authority, and the onus of good behaviour is still on women. What is possible: standing up for that one female voice that takes a hammer to that gigantic wall of male entitlement. What matters is one female shouting the word No so loud it is heard beyond apathy, beyond the comfort of it's-no-big-deal, beyond the armour of men-will-be-men. Empower the girl child to push the bad uncle away, run out of the room, and tell her parents. Teach the parents to listen, to comfort, to react, to act, without taking solace in let's-be-silent-to-save-our-honour.
Your honour is not contained in a child's body, it is in protection of her heart, her mind, her soul, her very being. And when her unformed body, against her will, is touched by a male, against the very idea of the innocence of her childhood, she finds herself retreating into a shell of silence, compounded by feelings of incomprehensible fear and shame, and it is you, the parents, who have failed her. Her reticence, her sealing of her "shame" - that was never hers to begin with - as a teenager, as a mature female, as a middle-aged woman, her inability to confront the men who harassed or abused or raped her all stem from the conditioning of silence that was imparted to her by the very people she trusted the most: her parents.
Love your children unconditionally. Talk to your children, both male and female. Teach them to talk. Guide them to trust you. Encourage them to talk about the bad without making any of it their fault. Learn to read your child's silence. Give words to your child's hesitance. Read the fear in your child's eyes. Decipher the un-verbalised nightmares. Pay attention to your child trying to clutch your hand to gain your attention.
Be attentive to your children. Listen. Respect their words. React. Act.
There will come a day when children speak up right after an incident of abuse, not years later, or never. When that nine-year-old girl after running from that room do not retreat into a corner, and have arms to run into, that day she will speak up. That day before it digs roots into her mind she will defeat the one word that could haunt her for life: victim. That day she will cease to be alone.