Voice Of An Unheard Nightingale
this post is about a girl harassed by a man but left hopeless by an organization. an agonizing incident.
i came across this article from a Tweet in my Twitter account...@logesh_harris. so i thought i must share this article to be a part of the protest against Harassment...
source: http://littleblackpillows.tumblr.com/post/51996825321/a-battle-for-womankind
such a ruthless activity by men in power, CONTINUES in India...
Does the word "male" means "domination", always...??!
so it goes like this...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He (and I shall refer to him in variants of that word) is in his 50s. I won’t describe him. I can. But I won’t. Because he knows who he is. He is a rapist. Not the kind of rapist you hear about on the news- kidnapping, molesting, raping, murdering- not those ones. He belongs to the kind of rapists who silently undress you with their eyes, while you talk about the weather. Their eyes tell the stories.
I trusted him once. A fatherly figure kind of trust. The trust, and the generation that I belong to, led me to believe that his “hugs” were fatherly, his “touches” were friendly and his eyes that wandered whenever we spoke were but how most men are anyway. Led me to think he was a half-decent man, a respectable person. He talked with authority, bossing me around, sometimes saying things about others that weren’t appropriate. I accepted him the way he was, for years. I didn’t want to pick up on these signs because I spent a lot of time volunteering at the Blue Cross of India (I have volunteered with them since 2006), where he works, and thought I was overreacting.
Slowly it became more obvious. But I tolerated it. I don’t know why, but I did. I’d snub him every now and then keep him in his place, but he’d tell the world how much he adored me- “like a daughter”. His eyes weren’t the only things wandering these days. His hands were, too. And not just with me, with other girls too. These girls came in regularly to volunteer, at the Blue Cross of India, and he was- with his inappropriate hugs and shoulder and arm grabs and touches- scaring them away.He was very careful. Careful not to cross the line. Careful to get his thrills from these small, frivolous things he would not get framed for. It still made the women uncomfortable.I noticed. So uncomfortable, that some of the men had begun to notice.
Then one day, more than a month ago, he reached the end of the immensely long rope I had given him over the years. It was a matter of a second, when I felt his palm rub over my rear as he walked past me. S saw it. Our eyes made contact, and for a moment they widened in shock, at his boldness.S I
would have expected me to turn around in reflex and slap him. But I
didn’t. I knew it would be branded as an “accident”, like the men in
overcrowded buses who take advantage of and blame the bad driving when
then fall on you and touch you inappropriately.
I did the right thing. I went to the authorities.
What happened next, happened so fast, that I didn’t have time to plan my moves properly. I called on the highest authorities of the organisation in their residence, a Sunday evening. I spent close to an hour, baring my concerns to them. They looked shocked and devastated, and promised me that action would be taken. They never said against whom. I should have known then, that I was no longer a victim, but a threat, who might defame the organisation
Within the next couple of days, they conducted an “enquiry”, which involved a board member calling up a few volunteers to find out if they had experienced/witnessed any such incidents (Note that S, the sole witness to my incident remains unquestioned, till date). No one knows what anyone said, but a few days later I received a call from the authorities saying that according to their enquiry, NO ONE else had a problem with him. But still they were going to talk to him because I made a complaint and they needed my permission to use my name to make an accusation in a board meeting they were going to have with him. If I did not give permission to use my name, I was to write an email stating no such incident happened. I thought about it, and gave them permission.
The next day, I received another call from the same authority saying they had conducted the meeting with him, and he denied the accusations completely(well, obviously, no one is going to admit to such a thing), and that he has been warned to stay away from me.
I thanked the authority, glad that things had moved in my favour. Then it came, like a 4 move checkmate.
”In view of the incident and all these problems, I would request you not to come back to the organisation for a while, until we have a system in place for the volunteers. When we are ready, I will call you myself, and let you know that you can come back”
Which, in case you haven’t understood, is bullshit for “Get the hell out of our organisation, trouble maker”
Now why, is such a large and prominent organisation, defending one man; a sexual harasser? /i have my theories, but your guess is as good as mine.
Yes, this is a case of harassment. Sure, not as serious as all the others out there, but as a victim, not only have my problems been not dealt with, but the whole deal has been hushed up with powerful people armed with money and contacts, and the whole case has been turned against me.
Now, it’s pretty simple for me to walk away from all of this. To say, “Screw this. I can’t deal with this shit!” . But what’s the guarantee it won’t happen again to someone else? It will. Which is why I won’t back down.
I will fight.
I’m asking for it now.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help it spread across the world and send the message of "DON'T KEEP CALM AND FIGHT HARASSMENT" to everyone...
MYSELF, BEING ONE OF THE MEN IN INDIA, IT HURTS...!!!
With Hurts in my Heart,
-logu
i came across this article from a Tweet in my Twitter account...@logesh_harris. so i thought i must share this article to be a part of the protest against Harassment...
source: http://littleblackpillows.tumblr.com/post/51996825321/a-battle-for-womankind
such a ruthless activity by men in power, CONTINUES in India...
Does the word "male" means "domination", always...??!
so it goes like this...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BATTLE FOR WOMANKIND
I didn’t ask for it.He (and I shall refer to him in variants of that word) is in his 50s. I won’t describe him. I can. But I won’t. Because he knows who he is. He is a rapist. Not the kind of rapist you hear about on the news- kidnapping, molesting, raping, murdering- not those ones. He belongs to the kind of rapists who silently undress you with their eyes, while you talk about the weather. Their eyes tell the stories.
I trusted him once. A fatherly figure kind of trust. The trust, and the generation that I belong to, led me to believe that his “hugs” were fatherly, his “touches” were friendly and his eyes that wandered whenever we spoke were but how most men are anyway. Led me to think he was a half-decent man, a respectable person. He talked with authority, bossing me around, sometimes saying things about others that weren’t appropriate. I accepted him the way he was, for years. I didn’t want to pick up on these signs because I spent a lot of time volunteering at the Blue Cross of India (I have volunteered with them since 2006), where he works, and thought I was overreacting.
Slowly it became more obvious. But I tolerated it. I don’t know why, but I did. I’d snub him every now and then keep him in his place, but he’d tell the world how much he adored me- “like a daughter”. His eyes weren’t the only things wandering these days. His hands were, too. And not just with me, with other girls too. These girls came in regularly to volunteer, at the Blue Cross of India, and he was- with his inappropriate hugs and shoulder and arm grabs and touches- scaring them away.He was very careful. Careful not to cross the line. Careful to get his thrills from these small, frivolous things he would not get framed for. It still made the women uncomfortable.I noticed. So uncomfortable, that some of the men had begun to notice.
Then one day, more than a month ago, he reached the end of the immensely long rope I had given him over the years. It was a matter of a second, when I felt his palm rub over my rear as he walked past me. S saw it. Our eyes made contact, and for a moment they widened in shock, at his boldness.
I did the right thing. I went to the authorities.
What happened next, happened so fast, that I didn’t have time to plan my moves properly. I called on the highest authorities of the organisation in their residence, a Sunday evening. I spent close to an hour, baring my concerns to them. They looked shocked and devastated, and promised me that action would be taken. They never said against whom. I should have known then, that I was no longer a victim, but a threat, who might defame the organisation
Within the next couple of days, they conducted an “enquiry”, which involved a board member calling up a few volunteers to find out if they had experienced/witnessed any such incidents (Note that S, the sole witness to my incident remains unquestioned, till date). No one knows what anyone said, but a few days later I received a call from the authorities saying that according to their enquiry, NO ONE else had a problem with him. But still they were going to talk to him because I made a complaint and they needed my permission to use my name to make an accusation in a board meeting they were going to have with him. If I did not give permission to use my name, I was to write an email stating no such incident happened. I thought about it, and gave them permission.
The next day, I received another call from the same authority saying they had conducted the meeting with him, and he denied the accusations completely(well, obviously, no one is going to admit to such a thing), and that he has been warned to stay away from me.
I thanked the authority, glad that things had moved in my favour. Then it came, like a 4 move checkmate.
”In view of the incident and all these problems, I would request you not to come back to the organisation for a while, until we have a system in place for the volunteers. When we are ready, I will call you myself, and let you know that you can come back”
Which, in case you haven’t understood, is bullshit for “Get the hell out of our organisation, trouble maker”
Now why, is such a large and prominent organisation, defending one man; a sexual harasser? /i have my theories, but your guess is as good as mine.
Yes, this is a case of harassment. Sure, not as serious as all the others out there, but as a victim, not only have my problems been not dealt with, but the whole deal has been hushed up with powerful people armed with money and contacts, and the whole case has been turned against me.
Now, it’s pretty simple for me to walk away from all of this. To say, “Screw this. I can’t deal with this shit!” . But what’s the guarantee it won’t happen again to someone else? It will. Which is why I won’t back down.
I will fight.
I’m asking for it now.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help it spread across the world and send the message of "DON'T KEEP CALM AND FIGHT HARASSMENT" to everyone...
MYSELF, BEING ONE OF THE MEN IN INDIA, IT HURTS...!!!
With Hurts in my Heart,
-logu
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