Should I feel guilty?

One day my boss told me if there is a deadline then it’s my duty to stay at office till 11 in the night to finish it. When I told him, there were logistical problems because I lived in Gurgaon which is an hour from my work place and very unsafe to boot for anyone traveling at night, his answer was ‘but we provide a cab for you!’ Mind you, the cab is just hired from a local taxi stand (not a company owned or employed cab or driver). But apparently, for the boss, it’s totally safe for a woman to go in such a cab at 11 pm from Delhi to Gurgaon! When I objected, he looked suitably startled and said, ‘but you can’t expect me to drop you home.’ I was so taken aback by his attitude that I started wondering if I was over-reacting.

The next day, walking down the road on my way to lunch at a nearby place, I had to pass a group of men sitting around a table at a roadside food stall. Nothing happened. In other words, no one whistled, tried to grope or even sing an obscene song. They just leched by undressing me with their eyes. But that’s business as usual on Indian streets. You learn to ignore such looks with a feeling of relief even while your skin crawls….at least they didn’t try to grope me or pass an obscene comment or try to follow me.

That same day, I was sitting after office hours reading a book and waiting for my father to pick me up. Other colleagues had left for the day. The place was in darkness except for the floor I was sitting. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was alone in the building with a couple of office boys (night guard and one or two other workers). The first thought that came to my mind was ‘what if they see me alone and try something funny?’ Yes….even in my mind I used the word ‘funny’ as a euphemism for rape. I immediately got up, switched off my computer and went downstairs to wait for my father on the road….and felt relieved that I had the presence of mind to avoid a potentially unsafe situation.

Again, the question came to my mind. Am I over-reacting? But then, I started thinking about it from a different angle. What if I had remained in the room and had got molested or God forbid raped? Would I then be told that I was stupid to have not realized the danger of sitting alone in an almost empty office? That I should have taken reasonable precautions for my safety with the implication that as I had not done so, I somehow deserved the molestation or rape.

I realized that in our society one half of the population has no idea what the other half has to endure. Or even if they do, they choose to ignore it. To my boss, it was unreasonable of me to refuse to work late at night even when he was providing me with transport. But, if I did use the transport and something ‘bad’ (another euphemism for rape!) happened, society (by that I mean family, friends, police, court, general public….) would automatically blame me for being stupid enough to have taken a cab alone at night.

It is a dilemma that, I believe, all women face, especially in a society like India where modernity has yet to lose its reputation as a corrupter of morals. If women want to be taken seriously at the work place, making “excuses” about safety or family emergency is akin to committing hara-kiri of their career. On the other hand, if in their quest for professional glory (or just to keep themselves from being fired), they do ignore personal safety or a family emergency, they are seen to epitomize modernity in all its ugliness. Of course, that happens only if the woman is unfortunate enough to get molested, raped or killed. Instead of blaming the perpetrator of the act, the blame is heaped on the woman. What was she doing so late at night at that part of the town? Why was she taking the bus/auto/cab so late at night? These are the questions that are asked furtively and not so furtively.

I don’t know if changes will happen in ten or twenty years time or even in my lifetime. But change it must for a society to be called truly modern and egalitarian, where both men and women have equal right to safety and equal right not to be blamed as a victim for “encouraging” the perpetrator.