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Do not call it 'Eve Teasing1

C. Rashaad Shabab
WE have all seen it. If you are a female who has spent any time walking around the streets of this part of the world, you have experienced it first hand. Depending on the circumstances under which you were sexually harassed in public, you may have felt slightly miffed, somewhat embarrassed, deeply ashamed, angry but powerless, or absolutely terrified. The implications of this culture of verbally accosting women in public may range from petty street fights, to women's labour market participation, all the way to the highest adolescent female suicide rate in the world. And what is the term we use to describe this always filthy and often terrifying act that is endemic to our part of the world? 'Eve-teasing.'
Words have power. The words we use to describe an action shape our emotional, intellectual and physical reactions to that action. The use of words like 'rape' and 'vomit' trigger pupil dilation, measureable increases in heart rates and almost instantaneous changes in the electrical conductivity of our skin. 'Rape' and 'vomit' are powerful words. ‘Eve teasing' falls short of eliciting the same visceral response. Why might that be? I will start with the 'teasing' part.
Teasing' is something I used to do to my sister when she was eight and I was twelve. It is something my wife does to me when I mistakenly wear my t-shirt inside out. A sense of playfulness and a lack of harm hang carelessly about the word. Granted, when children 'tease' each other they can inflict emotional damage. But even when used in this way, the word maintains a connotation of innocence or at least blamelessness, because the culprits in the end are children. In the context of 'Eve teasing' though, such a sanitary label contrasts starkly with the lewdness of the act it is meant to describe.
What we refer to by 'Eve teasing' is inherently sexual and obviously harmful. It often involves verbal references to private parts of a woman's body, and it is common for men to grope or pinch such parts of a woman in a public place. In any conceivable form the act is a violation, not a 'tease.'
The act of 'Eve teasing' is a statement of power and ownership. It asserts ownership over a public space as a man's space, and it establishes dominance over the woman who dares venture into that space. It forces
her to turn the other cheek and submit to her own powerlessness. Teasing' falls hopelessly short of describing such an act of domination.
What about 'Eve', then? What bearing might a reference to the Garden of Eden have on shaping our reaction to a public act of sexual dominance? When I try to picture Eve, my mind conjures up images of serendipitously placed fig leaves. Unlike the women going to work and living their lives on the streets throughout the subcontinent, Eve is nude, and for millennia her defining role has been that of the temptress who seduced Adam to sin. A reference to religion's original nude temptress in the very label we use to describe a vile, public act of male sexual dominance serves only to implicitly blame the victim. By shifting part of the blame to the woman, for no other reason than being of the same gender as the nude temptress, the 'Eve' in 'Eve teasing' blunts our shock and outrage to the actions it describes. It almost glorifies the male perpetrator for punishing the gender that instigated the original sin.
The words we use are powerful. They shape the way we think about the things they describe. Referring to public acts of male dominance, which violate women in plain sight of society on a day-to-day basis, as mere 'teasing' makes light of a vile and hateful crime. It belittles the suffering of women, who due to the strain of this every day stressor fall prey to anxiety, depression and the highest adolescent female suicide rate in the world. Evoking the image of religion's original nude temptress in the very term we use to describe this crime against women is a deplorable example of 'blaming the victim' and comes dangerously close to glorifying the perpetrator.
Together, these aspects of the phrase 'Eve teasing' serve to dull our intellectual and emotional responses to something that by another name might warrant our instinctive outrage and disgust. Every government, organisation or individual that believes in the right of women to move freely throughout our public spaces should therefore distance themselves from the term. Call it 'gang sexual harassment.' Call it 'public violation of women.' Call it 'the sub-continental grab and grope' lust don’t call it 'Eve teasing.' It is far worse than that.
The writer Is a teacher and PhD. student at the University of Sussex. He Is also an Emily Louise Wells Fellow of Vassar College.