Eve Teasing
Category : Secondary School Level
Outline: Structure of society since ages and today. Reason for the emergence of the concept. Men’s thinking behind eve teasing and things included in it. Cause and survey of eve teasing. Judiciary actions. Conservative thinking.
Since ages, the structure of Indian society has always been male dominant. In the modern time, the situation has changed. Today, Indian women stand head to head with males when it comes to equality and performance. However, with the wave of women empowerment some new problems have arisen. When the women started to develop on their own without male protection, they made themselves exposed to public glares.
The concept of eve teasing emerged during the 1960s. Men tease women, they harass and trouble them as they feel that they are weaker. Eve teasing is a threat that has grown at an alarming rate. It includes incidents of sexual harassment in public, or molestation of women by men in street. Eve teasing is common in urban areas as well as in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Although we are one of the fastest growing nations we need to safeguard the security of working women and students. These disturbing incidents usually take place on streets, offices, public places and public transport.
The most important cause of eve teasing involves a strong desire of eve teaser to attract the attention of opposite sex. Men perform eve teasing with the women of his age. Certain research has shown that 35% of the eve teasers are anti-socials, 32% are school or college boys and 33% belong to Middle Ages. However, large number of females in metropolitan cities are taking self- defence to combat eve teasers.
The judiciary is taking rigorous actions against eve teasers. If a man is found guilty of making a girl or woman the target of explicit gestures or remarks he suffers a sentence of three months. Section 292 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) clearly states that if a person is caught showing pornographic pictures or books to a woman or girl then he has to pay a fine of ?2000 with two years of imprisonment. In case of repeated offence, the offender may have a fine of? 5000 with five years of imprisonment. Under Section 509 of the IPC, obscene gestures, indecent body language and bitter comments directed at any woman or girl carries a penalty of imprisonment for one year or a fine or both. Government has included life time punishment range of deciding facts being in March 2013 which made the act more tough imprisonment and even capital in some cases with wide the activities of teasing.
Some conservatives blame women saying they provoke the offenders by wearing expressive dresses. However, from records it is hard to prove that conservatively dressed women have not gone through eve teasing. School or college going girls, working women, etc. frequently go through embarrassing comments by the rowdy men. Eve teasing can leave a permanent psychological wound on a woman's heart and soul.
