The Illusion of Protection

“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”

But does the shoe fit?

They say, “one thing leads to another” inferring that one seemingly small situation can expose numerous cracks in the system. All you need to do is light the match and you have a raging fire.

Institutions generally have a rulebook, especially for women. It has restrictions that cage women in the name of safety. There is a rulebook for men too, but it is too lenient. We often believe that the fastest and easiest way to protect our women is to restrict them. Institutions do this by keeping an outing time, putting dress codes and in case any rule is broken, give unnecessary punishment. Is caging women protection or avoidance of responsibility and accountability? How does a woman spending time outside or dressing up as she wishes put her safety in danger? And guess what, even after putting immense effort into building this cage, crimes against women are at an all time high, averaging 51 cases hourly and here are a few more facts with respect to India. Crime cases increased to 4,45,256 in 2022, up from 3,71,503 in 2020. The largest shares of crimes included cruelty by husband/relatives (31.45%), followed by kidnapping and abduction (19.16%) and assault with intent to outrage modesty (18.71%). Conviction rates remain low, with only 28.6% of rape trials resulting in a conviction in 2021. It is to be noted that these stats only include the reported cases. In conclusion, simply being a woman puts you at risk.

How have these so called safety rules managed to bring about any change in society? I would argue that these rules have rather encouraged a false idea in the minds of women and men that women are the weaker gender and thus need to be protected. They reinforce confinement of women under the guise of protection.

Women are not liabilities but leaders to be empowered. I totally support any regulation that empowers women in the name of safety. Include self-defence classes for women in school curriculum — I’m in for it. Invest in safety infrastructure, accountability, lighting, transport, enforcement — I am all in. Encourage women into sports — yes! Simply believing in biology to imply that ALL men can overpower ALL women and not accepting the fact that individuals and situations differ, is plain ignorance and overgeneralization. And of course, it will be highly delusional as well as optimistic of me to expect these changes to arrive in a day. Nevertheless, slow progress is better than none. A society that knows its women are capable of fighting for themselves, is a society that is willing to grow its mindset.

A recurrent sight noticed in almost every household is the categorization of work into masculine and feminine followed by supposedly light jokes on women drivers and women in finance. This is a heritage passed down from one generation to another. However, it has roots in systemic oppression of women for ages that has become more passive recently. Women might still have equal opportunities, but equal treatment?

Protection based control or autonomy based empowerment, the choice is ours. The question is not whether safety matters — it does. The real question is who bears the burden of it. When institutions choose restriction over reform, they reveal more about their priorities than their principles. Lest we forget, freedom is not a privilege to be granted but a right to be respected.