Come autumn and it is the festive season every where in
India. Daily soaps are regularly
interrupted by new advertisements about every usable stuff and the fashion
magazines get flooded by what a teenager
should wear, how a woman should carry her saree or in what attire a man should
look most ‘desirable’ to women. Nonetheless, each of the States in India have
their own dressing style, but when it comes to metro style and casuals,
especially for festivals, girls and boys, men and women never disappoint style
makers of Bollywood and the Mumbai serials. This Durga puja was a special one
for me as I got to see Kolkata in Durga Puja after a long time. The city has
not changed its traditions, but digital habits of people have. Visitors to puja
pandals , especially young adults visit the pandals not for seeing the
different themes or idols, but for taking selfies with “Durga and her
children”. Too many flashes, ‘click’
sounds of camera phones do make a
disturbance for those who want to enjoy the Puja in its real meaning. With the
changing of the time, these were bound to happen. But what worries me is the
gross violation of privacy while clicking selfies, doulfies (couple-selfie) or
even clicking of the general Puja
pandals. In earlier days,
capturing images in the Puja pandals was treated as ‘eve teasing’ if someone
intentionally clicked images of girls and women by continuously disturbing them, making them to look at the
photographer without getting their
permission and against their will (to be photographed). Even though this had
proved to be dangerous for many girls and women, their harassment would not
have been as ‘large scale’ as it may be now. It is because not only the girls
and women can be clicked anywhere, in any position, their images can travel to
many persons, many unwanted sites and to many unwanted persons within minutes.
The hard truth is, even the selfie taker girls and women may also be victimised
if their selfies land in unwanted places on internet.
In
this connection, I must mention about the conference on Porn, Panic, Ban held
at Delhi on 28th and 29th October, organised jointly by
Point of View and Internet Democracy project. I was invited as a resource
person and speaker to speak on indecent representation of women on internet. My
lecture was largely based on my article titled “Examining the scope of IndecentRepresentation of Women (prevention) Act in the light of cyber victimization inIndia”. In this conference, I and other speakers raised our concern regarding
voyeurism. Precisely, in any public festival, women and girls may be the chosen
targets for such voyeurs who have mania for clicking women and girls from odd
angels. These images are either uploaded in the social networking sites for
personal sexual gratification, creation of ‘sex-groups’, or even revenge porn. We do know how a couple of months back, the images of children
clicked and uploaded on Facebook had created a vicious network of people who
turned these young children into ‘sex-items’ for them on Facebook . The
photographs of these children were also clicked in public places. Saying this I
want to emphasise on the fact that everyone, especially women and girls in the
present age must be cautious about their safety not only in the physical world,
but also on internet. In my previous
article titled “Online Victimization of Andaman Jarawa Tribal Women: AnAnalysis of the ‘Human Safari’ YouTube Videos (2012) and its Effects.” Which
was published in British Journal of Criminology in 2014, I had shown how
absence of proper laws prohibiting photography in public places enhance the
possibilities of online victimisation of women more. Same opinion goes for
young girls and boys as well.
The festival dressing styles for women and
girls not only encourage the fashion makers to decide for the next style
statements, but also encourage the perpetrators to get armed with cell phone
cameras to ‘capture’ their prey for their own corrupted minds. It may be impossible to think about
curtailing private rights to capture images at Puja pandals or any festival
gatherings, but this becomes a necessary need for saving women from being
indecently represented on internet. Along with that, I agree with some
concerned police officers who are of the view that neither men nor women or
children should opt for those attire, which not only make themselves feel
uncomfortable, but also may make them victims of unwanted harassment. Plainly
speaking, public places ( except where it is designated to be a bathing place),
should not be considered as platforms to experiment attires or style statements
which may attract unwanted harassment. It needs to be understood that while one
may dress according to one’s own choice, one can not expect everyone to have
same views about him/her in his/her chosen attire. While its true that perpetrators and perverts may target women and girls and even men in any attire, but still then, in my own experience I have seen that perverts do target specific people, who in their view is the 'sexiest'. True, its their problem and not ours.
Let me explain this with an example from my own childhood. At a wedding we got to see a famous movie star who came in attire which was the latest fashion statement at the early 90’s. He wore a see-through shirt. While he ( note that this particular person is a man and not a woman) managed to attract the attention of every young people who loved watching him on screen, there were people who were not exposed to such see through garments in real life. The popular actor did also managed to hear one such person shouting at others ‘look the man is wearing plastic sheet to show off his hairy chest and plump midriff’ . It was truly a hilarious moment for many of us youngsters who were ‘forced’ to look at the actor once again and scrutinise his body structure. But remember, the late 80’s and early 90’s did not have cell phone cameras and smart phones and hence his picture in his latest style did not become viral in the other way with the odd comment ‘pasted’ to his picture. But this can happen now. Nonetheless, if this happens to anyone now, only the true victims would know what the pain would be like. Social media would not take down such fake avatar with nasty comments if the victim is an adult, because such posts would obviously carry the question of First Amendment rights versus right against being victimised by indecent representation; clouds may take such images and the comments to numerous unwanted sites and it would become literally impossible for the victim to remove image of hers in her own favourite attire which may have become ‘hot favourite’ for others for sexual gratification. For this women and girls need to be more aware. No, my concern is not for making women and girls feel that they should not opt for uncomfortable dresses in the name of fashion only; my concern is for women team among the organisers. Stand up for protesting any violation of rights of women and girls and this could be done when women members in the Puja organising committees or volunteers from civil society members take active steps for spreading the awareness against voyeuristic activities.
With Kali Puja and Diwali approaching, the government, the police and also the puja organisers and civil society at large must decide to take such steps which may create awareness among people to prevent such sorts of victimisation of people.
Let me explain this with an example from my own childhood. At a wedding we got to see a famous movie star who came in attire which was the latest fashion statement at the early 90’s. He wore a see-through shirt. While he ( note that this particular person is a man and not a woman) managed to attract the attention of every young people who loved watching him on screen, there were people who were not exposed to such see through garments in real life. The popular actor did also managed to hear one such person shouting at others ‘look the man is wearing plastic sheet to show off his hairy chest and plump midriff’ . It was truly a hilarious moment for many of us youngsters who were ‘forced’ to look at the actor once again and scrutinise his body structure. But remember, the late 80’s and early 90’s did not have cell phone cameras and smart phones and hence his picture in his latest style did not become viral in the other way with the odd comment ‘pasted’ to his picture. But this can happen now. Nonetheless, if this happens to anyone now, only the true victims would know what the pain would be like. Social media would not take down such fake avatar with nasty comments if the victim is an adult, because such posts would obviously carry the question of First Amendment rights versus right against being victimised by indecent representation; clouds may take such images and the comments to numerous unwanted sites and it would become literally impossible for the victim to remove image of hers in her own favourite attire which may have become ‘hot favourite’ for others for sexual gratification. For this women and girls need to be more aware. No, my concern is not for making women and girls feel that they should not opt for uncomfortable dresses in the name of fashion only; my concern is for women team among the organisers. Stand up for protesting any violation of rights of women and girls and this could be done when women members in the Puja organising committees or volunteers from civil society members take active steps for spreading the awareness against voyeuristic activities.
With Kali Puja and Diwali approaching, the government, the police and also the puja organisers and civil society at large must decide to take such steps which may create awareness among people to prevent such sorts of victimisation of people.
- Children, do not click unwanted photos of others, because this may violate other’s privacy.
- Young adults, restrain from using your cellphone cameras as ‘spy-cam’, because if you are capturing somebody secretly, remember, you are not only violating other’s rights, but some one may also do the same to you and you may have to face legal actions and harassments as well.
- Especially to girls and women: beware while taking selfies and storing it in the clouds or sharing it with others. You may never know how your favourite selfie can become an item for adult sites and an indecent representation of yourself.
Wish you all a very happy and safe Diwali.
Please Note:
Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations
provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article,
please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), “Porn panic: how festive- dressin styles become
responsible”, 06-11-2015, published in
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
