Women have protested sexual harassment in public places, especially in public transports by wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘do not stand too close.’
Already creating a social media stir, this T-shirt will warn harassers, feel one section while others think this will alienate women further.
Nusrat Jisha and Zeenat Nisha have launched the T-shirts through their on-line fashion house and they feel that wearing the T-shirts won’t stop sexual harassment at public transports but will raise more awareness.
Nisha says she faced abuse a year ago in a bus but no one protested and the episode traumatized her. Later, she used the line: ‘don’t stand too close’ on hair pins.
In a crowded bus, bodies will touch and most men are sensitive and apologise but the message is for those who want to deliberately touch a woman’s body.
Journalist Sandipan Basu says, ‘It’s true women face a variety of sexual harassment but stereotyping a woman’s body will bring an opposite result.’
We must keep in mind that perpetuating the idea that a woman is supposed to be chaste, she has been made to become the property of men, he added.
Women’s rights activist Farhana Hafiz, says, “From a commercial perspective, this will sell and that’s not bad but the change will come when men begin to discard their primal outlook about women.”