Uniform Does Not Guarantee Safety

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to the hospital at around three in the night because a health supplement that I took after dinner did not suit my body. I went to a good private nearby hospital. Contrary to my imagination, the hospital was not at all crowded. I met two nurses in the casualty and they asked me to sit, saying that the doctor will arrive soon. The doctor came and after listening to me said that he will give me an injection and after that, I can go home. I am not scared of injections but the moment he said that my mind was filled with horrifying thoughts. What if this injection makes me unconscious and the man standing in front of me in the white coat violates me? I created a whole scene and inquired about the injection as much as I could. I googled everything before I let him give me the injection. The doctor and the nurses obviously got irritated but, fortunately, I reached back home (hostel) safe.

Often the white coat or a uniform is not enough assurance for a woman to feel safe because what she sees is not a doctor or a policeman but just a man who could be a potential predator. My previous roommate once told me that she checks the door of her balcony multiple times before going to sleep at night. My classmate says that she becomes restless if she is the only woman in a lift filled with men.  These are not the stories of just one or two women but of all of us who are independently living away from home. According to WHO, the high prevalence of sexual violence to which women are exposed and the correspondingly high rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following such violence, renders women the largest single group of people affected by this disorder. It’s disheartening that when women meet, today, for a dinner or a sleepover, they end up sharing and discussing the trauma that the everyday banal violence causes.  

What is sad, though, is that all of this is not enough talked about in the mainstream media.  It takes a rape or a murder to happen to bring the attention of the society towards half of its population. It’s not just about the man who abuses but also about the society that acts as a constant enabler. The harder questions are still being brushed under the carpet. It’s easier to blame the night or the darkness or the empty street but what about the harassment that happens in the broad daylight at home by someone who is not even a stranger.  Young girls are raised to be tolerant and empathetic while our boys are raised with such inflated egos that it’s hard for them to understand and accept a ‘no’.  If our answer, as a society, to every question is still “boys will be boys”, if hundreds of people are still clapping on a rape scene in cinema halls and if we are still okay with making and telling rape jokes then I am sorry but our outrage towards this heinous crime really means nothing.