Sorry TOI, Women-Only Metro Cars Are Not a ‘Perk’ of Sexism

Rest assured, we’d all prefer a world in which we didn’t get groped to a world where we need women-only compartments.

Women don’t have their own compartment because they want it, they have it because they need it. (Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Chris Brown)

Let me tell you about the first time I was groped on public transport.

It was 3 am on a sleeper train between Jailsalmer and Delhi – a 21-hour journey. I was woken up when someone grazed past me, touching my ass. Initially I shrugged it off and went back to sleep. Trains move, maybe this person accidentally stumbled in the aisle on the way to the loo. Until it happened again.

Then the person – who by this time I had identified as a man (it was dark) –strategically sat in the empty seat next to me. Before I knew it, there was a hand in my face. What he was trying to grab, I don’t know, but I was scared. And angry. Angry that this stranger had violated my space and suddenly made me feel unsafe.

After yelling at him, I switched places with my travel partner, whose seat was in a position that made groping difficult. It was hard to go back to sleep.

Sleeper train. (Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Owen Lin)

I know there is nothing unusual about my experience. Women go through this every day. So when writer Priyali Prakash wrote a blog in Times of India saying a womens’ only compartment in the metro is a ‘perk’ of sexism, I was more than a little irritated.

The blog – a response to AIB founder Tanmay Bhat’s criticism of people who say they believe in equality but don’t want to call themselves feminists – got so much about feminism and the everyday experience of being a woman wrong.

I want to start with Prakash’s rather ignorant statement that she is sexist because she goes to the women’s compartment in the metro and enjoys the extra breathing room.

If I call myself a feminist, I wouldn’t know how to justify the perks I enjoy out of the ease they bring or the sheer fear of being groped, molested or worse, raped.

Priyali Prakash in Times of India

News flash: You can be a feminist and sit in the ‘women only’ car.

To call this a perk of being a woman grossly undervalues the fear and anxiety that comes from being groped and sexually harassed on public transportation. But Prakash seems to think the convenience is worth it.

I call myself ‘conveniently sexist’. It may not be the best thing to do, but I don’t see myself stopping from using these perks either.

Priyali Prakash in Times of India

The Delhi metro can be a pretty crowded place. (Photo: iStock)

Is it convenient to have to message friends licence plate numbers and phone numbers of Uber drivers when getting in a cab late at night? Is it convenient to have to call your female friends to make sure they got home safely?

I would rather live in a world with no public groping than in a world that gives me extra legroom.

Nobody likes their personal space getting violated by perfect strangers. (Photo: iStock)

Sadly, this was just the start of Prakash’s piece. She goes on to completely misunderstand Bhat’s sarcasm, and righteously ends up agreeing with the point he was trying to make in the first place.

Then there is this gem: she says there may be women in this world who have never faced sexism.

Tanmay Bhat also says he doesn’t get women who say I haven’t faced sexism. Well, growing up in a patriarchal society like India, that does come as a surprise but why rule out the fact that there are billions of people who don’t belong to this social set-up and might have been lucky enough to never have faced sexism? There is always a possibility!

Priyali Prakash in Times of India

Sexual harassment disproportionally happens to women. (Photo: iStock)

As much as I would love for that to be true, it’s just not. Especially not in the context Bhat is referring to: women he knows who say they’ve never experienced sexism. I know some women like this, and I also know they have definitely faced sexism, even if they didn’t realise it.

Statistics pretty clearly show that women experience sexual harassment more than men. In fact, it happens to every woman at some point in her life. To speculate about an imagined “billions” of women who have never faced sexism is both irrelevant, and a stretch.

There is a difference between not experiencing sexism, and not recognising it when it walks up to you in a bar.

And that’s not even mentioning the other challenges women face, like the pay gap, the glass ceiling, and social expectation to be baby-making machines. These issues are complex and permeate everyday life.

Sorry Prakash, you need to do better next time.