Gender Equality and Respect

Changing your attitude is the first step -- taking positive action is another.

A group of like-minded women in India are creating positive change in Bangalore -- talking, demonstrating, and compiling condemnation of public harassment. Tomorrow for International Women's Day, women will be out on the sidewalks, blogs, newspapers calling for an end to discriminatory and hurtful sexual harassment.

The catalyst for these actions is "Blank Noise" and its celebration of action heroes who share stories of power reversals. Through sharing these stories in which a previously threatening situation was diffused and overcome, we can encourage others to take similar action...

My most recent encounter? Three days ago. I had just gotten into an auto-rickshaw to catch a ride to get my haircut. It was a quiet, sunny sunday afternoon, and I was chatting away with a another girl friend in the back seat of the auto. About 5 minutes into the ride, while we're at a stoplight, the auto driver starts to adjust all three of his rear view mirrors. I casually notice his fiddling out of the corner of my eye, until I realize with a shock of digust where he had carefully focused them on: my chest.

I knew his secret objective, as I had witnessed it several times before. Get a good view of the "uncovered" girl's chest (read: no scarf, dupatta, or billowing layer of fabric to swathe and diguse the shape of my body), then accelerate over every speed bump and pot hole while staring googly-eyed into the mirrors to get a perverse demonstration on how the laws of momentum and gravity work.

Since I had experienced enough of this type of treatment, I calmly reached over him to readjust all his mirrors (now facing downwards toward his smelly feet - the view he deserves), and shouted that he was a horrible person who is disgracing not only himself and the women in his family, but tarnishing the reputation of India to foreigners. He seemed to get the point... He didn't look at me again or touch those rearview mirrors.

So, in the spirit of taking positive action to affirm gender equality and respect, Blank Noise sends this message to all potential "action heroes" :

share. talk. inspire. understand. tell. speak. hear. be heard. narrate. voice. throw open.

Last march 8 (Women'sDay), we had a blog-a-thon that asked you to blog stories of street sexual harassment. It began with an announcement on this blog that was picked up by bloggers across India, and soon in different parts of the world. We shared stories we had never shared before, sometimes stories we thought we had long forgotten, stories that we had often wanted to bury. We read each other, we linked to each other and we linked back to the Blank Noise Project blog. We were touched by each other's stories, moved by them, and, we like to imagine, drew strength and sustenance from the the long, cross-cultural chain of shared experiences.

It's this strength that we're asking you to share experiences of, on March 8th, 2007. The baton is handed over right here, right now! Announce this on your blog and on the morning of March 8th, 2007, share with us a story (or two, or five or...) of fighting back?!

When did you flip a situation so you could resist, when did you give back as hard as you got? When and how did you choose to confront? When did you become an Action Hero?

Action heroes have formed the theme of the last few Blank Noise interventions and it's this spirit we ask you to share and celebrate on March 8 , 2007!

So announce the blog-a-thon, and on March 8, share your action story!

This is an attempt to understand how different women ( across age groups/ cultures/ communities) have dealt with street sexual harassment in their everyday lives.

Male bloggers are encouraged to share stories of women in their lives and how they have dealt with street sexual harassment. Non bloggers are also invited to participate- email us your story. You could also be an agent- the one that collects stories of confrontation/ of heroism from your mother, grandmother, cousins, domestic workers, people in your office, the vegetable vendor, the woman bus conductor...anyone!

To participate:

1. announce the event.
2. blog your story
3. email us about it and we will link you right away!

Please email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com with subject Action Heroes Online.