Why Women Do Not Feel Safe in Cities?

A few days back, driving slowly on a pot-holed road of Ahmedabad, a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, driving a car purchased for him by his parents, most probably his father, was honking impatiently to overtake me on a curve. The honk said: “Get out of my way, the royal prince is coming”. Partly out of my pride and partly due to prudence in driving in the situation that I have described, I did not make way for the modern day prince to pass. This angered him. At the first opportunity that he could overtake me, as I was driving at the normal speed of 30 kms an hour, a speed that you can drive on Ahmedabad roads, he slowed the car, looked behind to see who the woman was, a fleeting thought passing his mind that now I will harass her by driving at about 10 km per hour so as not to allow her to drive at my speed or pass him. This resolve of his lasted half a minute; probably he may have realized that I was not of the age when he would get fun harassing me. He went away. But, I was cautious; I slowed my speed further to allow him to disappear so that he does not get the idea to follow me for further revenge.

After all, ‘revenge’ so to say, is a fun game for some now. Or women are a fun game for some now, as we now understand from Jyoti Singh’s experience in Delhi – drunk men wanted fun. The two taxi drivers picked up a girl on footpath in Kolkata recently to have fun through the night, fun ending they killed her. And many more as such incidents are being regularly reported in dailies. While moving in a car, being cautious through the day and not generally venturing out on the streets late at night, women of our class are protected from such fun-seeking prowlers. But, the experiences such as the one narrated in the first para are common for many. These desires to have revenge on people, women particularly, who have nothing to do with the revenger, is new, of last decade or so. Economic reforms, ensuing consumerism and commodification of women’s bodies, have lot of answering to do for the state of affairs.

In some of our recent researches on women’s safety in public spaces in Ahmedabad, 52 per cent women using the Sabarmati Riverfront space and 57 per cent women using Lal Darwaaja bus terminus and areas around for shopping, reported sexual harassment. In the first public space, a single woman was not found using it; women users always came in groups or accompanied or with kids, but never alone to even take a morning walk. The second public space had to be navigated alone for taking public bus, but, women avoided dark lanes, footpaths that had parked vehicles or abandoned vehicles and cars, and parts that had men’s urinals.

To think of the reasons for such harassment, there are many. First one is, inspite of 67 years of independence and Indian Constitution that give Right to Equality before law (Article 14), traditional value systems continue to dominate family and gender relations in public life due to prevalence of patriarchy, which is male domination in power. Hence, how can a woman not give me a way? But, inspite of it, and reforms on account of Indian Constitution and some decades of nation building, women have progressed. Families have supported women to progress; government programmes too have supported women to progress. Women have indeed come out in the public sphere and hence episodes of harassment in public spaces being experienced and reported. This does not mean that women are safe in private space as 70 per cent women have experienced domestic violence in India say statistics. In fact, to escape the domestic violence, women have begun to come out of their homes to seek independence from this tyranny. Violence on women in the public space is a public concern, while domestic violence, some may argue is not a public concern. I disagree that domestic violence is not a public concern; it is as women should report to law for such violence.

Male supremacy being challenged in the public spaces has invited a backlash, something we see now. While women’s coming out and challenge to patriarchy has invited another dubious backlash, of assertion of religious fundamentalism, a practice that is now visible across two major religions in India and across many parts of the world. The increase in religiosity, more as a ritual than the spirit of religion, is pushing for reassertion of patriarchy. While these cultural expressions of patriarchy have become aggressive, there is also massive failure of mobility of large masses of young men entering the labour force due to economic model practiced and lack of improvement in quality of human resources. For example, quality of education is very poor and one sees little possibilities of improvement in them. There is lack of decent work (at adequate wages, decent working conditions and with social protection) opportunities, creating frustration among the youth, particularly of the lower income classes. Some of that is getting directed into criminal activities and violence. Women, become objects of their such‘games’.

Lack of development and mobility opportunities, and being thrown in the harsh ‘survival of the fittest’ game, never experiencing human treatment at home or in the society, a segment of population has indeed become ‘cannibal’, a metaphor used by Lu Xun, a well-known Chinese litterateur of late 19^th to early 20^th century, who in his story Madman’s diary, the “madman” sees “cannibalism” both in his family and the village around him, and he then finds cannibalism in the Confucian classics which had long been credited with a humanistic concern for the mutual obligations of society, and thus for the superiority of Confucian civilization. The story was read as an ironic attack on traditional Chinese culture and a call for a New Culture. In another story titled ‘Ah Q’, he portrays the character as one who is a bully to the less fortunate but fearful of those who are above him in rank, strength, or power. We see this cannibalism in play today. This is not just among a segment of the have-nots who have preyed on women, but, also men in power, who think women as objects of their desire.

But, such behavior of private spaces has now become public due to three major state failures. One is failure of criminal justice system and of police system. I am not knowledgeable on these issues but basing these statements on what I have read. Incidents of police themselves preying on vulnerable is now known and women generally tend to fear policemen and refrain from going alone to the police-station, particularly women of low-income classes as they are not expected to have any political or financial backing.

Lastly, there is much desired in the design of public spaces which have to appear safe through safe infrastructure and sensible and human-centric design. Our enquiry in the safety of public spaces for women’s safety begun from this concern, which have been described at length in one upcoming paper of the Centre for Urban Equity at CEPT University. There are others as well on the website that discuss the safety concerns of women in resettlement sites and informal peri-urban housing area in Ahmedabad and in all types of residential localities in the city of Guwahati.

The broad findings of these studies related to infrastructure planning and design are:

i)             Lack of walkable and wide footpaths forces women to walk on road-sides, navigating the parked vehicles and hence squeezed to walk on narrow stretches and become vulnerable to robbery and physical harassment such as pawing. Hence, there is a requirement of wide footpaths to walk safely. Is that possible? There has to be a holistic approach to street design so as to cater to the largest proportion of street users and not just the private motorized vehicles.

ii)           Lack of well-lit road-sides and public places do create a sense of insecurity among the women users of these two spaces. The public spaces and roads have to be well-lit. There is a need to set up a governance mechanism so that it is possible to maintain public spaces well-lit at all times.

iii)        While activities and people on the road make women feel safe, over-crowding increases the possibilities of their harassment, particularly physical harassment such as pawing.

iv)        Over-crowded spaces where women feel more harassment could have vigilance / surveillance mechanisms including policing during peak seasons.

v)          There is a need of street activities that go on till late night. In Indian situation, and in eating out cultures such as Ahmedabad, street food markets could create a sense of security on the streets and other public spaces. There can also be thought of houses opening up on the street fronts, shops opening on the street fronts and so on, to have diversity of activities.

vi)        Derelict areas, spaces where there are waste dumps, wreckage, parked cars and carts, and public toilets frequented by men, are all found to create a sense of unease among women as they fear assault in such locations. This is an issue of city management and there is a need to improve maintenance of city’s assets.

vii)      Predominant use of any space by men also creates a sense of unease. Men tend to hang around pan parlours/ cigarette shops, tea stalls, eateries, sitting on their vehicles or standing around. Such places need to have more surveillance. But, additional activities to such places could be attracted so that the spaces are also visited by families and groups of women. Culturally, women do not loiter around. But, if the perception of public spaces changes to being safe, there is likelihood of increased use of these spaces.