First posted for the 2006 Blogathon
It was a month or two ago. I was returning home, from downtown Los Angeles. Tall, shiny buildings, traffic clogging every junction and people waiting to go home. I stepped into the last Dash F - it runs past 23rd St at Figueroa before going around school. As I sat between two women, all of us gathering every thought we'd tucked away throughout the day, to think about in these few minutes... the man sitting opposite me said hi.
Hello I said and looked away. I remembered him as lascivious from a bus ride before. He had said something about how Asian women are all dark and pretty. Not really, I remember having said to myself about the dark bit. But this time, he proceeded to keep his shirt unbuttoned and kept staring at me as he touched himself now and then. He got off a stop before me after a cheerful "see you again!"
He could have groped me and I would have still felt as violated as I did that night.
Add to that a bus driver who introduces me to everyone as his wife-to-be. He also tells me loudly (whenever I happen to be in his bus) about how my boyfriend should have wild sex with me. "If only you'd be my woman, I'd show you good times," he said once as his eyes tried to reach behind my shirt. Only my boring black bra and a pair of breasts, nothing unusual I wanted to say.
Sometimes I think these stories are worthless to tell. But at others like these, maybe not
To recognize Women's Day, and as part of an effort to build a core constituency that is aware of the Blank Noise Project, we're organizing a blogathon for Tuesday, the 7th of March. Blank Noise is asking other bloggers to post about their experiences of sexual harassment - as a victim, perpetrator or bystander - at work, at home or in the public sphere. On International Women's Day, which is March 8th, it would be exciting to see the theme of harassment become audible on the Indian blogosphere.
If you will participate, email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com to let us know - then on March 7th, we'll link to all the participating bloggers from the Blank Noise homepage, and hopefully it will be an archive that will help us understand and stay angry about harassment. For the time being, it would be great if participants posted on their blogs in anticipation, to spread the word. Spread the word in other ways, too.
BNP's target audience isn't really only the blogging community, but this will be a good step, whether effective or symbolic, towards interventions closer to the street.
Thanking you,
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