EvE tEaSiNg........P

The structure of Indian society has always been male dominated. But in the modern era, women tried to break the centuries of shackles by venturing into male dominated areas. Last century witnessed number of initiatives and path breaking steps taken by the females. Today, Indian women stand head to head with Indian males when it comes to performance and equality. However, with wave of women empowerment came new set of problems. When the women started to venture on their own without male escorts, they made themselves vulnerable to public glares. The concept of eve teasing emerged during the 60s and 70s. It’s basically an Indian term and you will not find it in dictionary.

Eve teasing is a menace that has grown to alarming proportions. Not many cities in India are considered safe for women. Though, we are one of the fastest growing countries in world but we have yet to ensure the safety of working women and students. Eve teasing is a huge issue in many metropolitan cities of India. It depicts incidents of public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men. Eve teasing also involves sexually suggestive remarks, groping, making lewd gestures and perverted teasing. These disturbing incidents usually take place in public transport, streets, offices and public places.

There has been contrasting school of thoughts about incidents of eve teasing. Some traditionalists blame it on females saying they provoke the culprits by wearing suggestive dresses. They recommend old-fashioned dresses for women. However, going by the records; it is hard to prove that conservatively dressed women have not gone through eve teasing. School girls, college going students, working women etc regularly go through humiliating comments by the unruly men. Eve teasing can leave a permanent psychological scar on women.

One study shows that 35 percent of the eve teasers are anti-socials, 32 percent are students and 33 percent of eve teasers belong to middle age. Large numbers of females in metropolitan cities are carrying deterrents to protect themselves. Many others are taking self-defence classes. Though the judiciary and government are taking stringent actions against eve teasers but statistics do not show any real improvement.