This Rose Cafe was led by graduate student, Seema, who is currently a GRF living in the Rose main house. I decided to go to this Rose House because one, I have always been interested in transportation systems in third world countries as infrastructure is necessary for a strong economy (I am an AEM major), and two, because I desperately needed one more event to complete the scholars requirement!!
The talk taught me that transport systems are born and developed to suit the needs of the public. For instance, roads are extremely congested in India and travel is difficult in cars and vehicles. So, the auto, a small three-wheel, which is in no way safe or sound, was built as a mode of transportation. Based on the level of development of a country and the socio economic/cultural differences between genders, male and female transportation needs are extremely different. For instance, in India (especially 50 years ago when there were fewer women in the workforce), men have a transport routine of going from home to work, usually in the city, regularly; whereas, women have a transportation routine of traveling from home to the market and to school to pick up students, and this pattern usually resides within the area of their residence.
Sexual harassment in public transportation is a pressing issue that women in India face on a day to day basis. Some initiatives to combat these instances have been the introduction of the pink auto and special carts on trains. The pink auto is basically an auto for women driven by women. This minimizes the risk of abuse and sexual harassment that auto drivers engage in with female passengers. Being the passenger in the backseat puts the victim in a helpless position as they are robbed of any power to fight the auto driver who has control of the wheel, and thus, the destination. Governments are also allocating the first cart on at train to be an all-female cart which further prevents abusers from violating women. I personally believe that pink autos and carts on a train are a great way to address the problem temporarily. Women are safe in the cart they are safe in the specific auto, but once they get out of that space, they are in danger of the culture of harassment that exists in India. The topic of reverse motivation came up–having the first cart being all-female will send the message that women who are not in the first cart OK harassers. While this may be true to some extent, I think the fact that a separate cart exists itself is a message to the public about the realities of sexual harassment and that it’s not ok.
Definitely, there needs to be more involvement in educating the public about the wrongs of harassment in India.
This sounds like a really interesting Rose Cafe topic. Before you brought it up, I hadn’t considered the possible reverse motivation that a space not specifically designated as safe for females is an invitation for harassment or assault. What about women travelling with their families? If they want to be with their partner or son, are they then stuck with having to be in an “unsafe” space, implying they can be harassed?
While I do think it’s nice to have safe spaces for women, I don’t see it significantly changing the culture. Perhaps as time goes on and there’s more attention to treating women as humans there will be larger shifts, but I don’t see a large societal change happening quickly.