Blanknoise

WE WILL BE IN

AGRA (SUNDAY)
AMRITSAR ( MONDAY)
LUDHIANA( MONDAY/TUESDAY)
DELHI( WEDNESDAY)
KOLKATA ( THURSDAY)

If Blank Noise members, supporters, volunteers, participants would like to meet and belong to either of the three places, please get in touch with us at blurtblanknoise at gmail dot com
Would love to hear from you!

Thank you
Blank Noise Team

1. Your - age- background
Age: 29
Software Engg

2. why do you refer to yourself as an ex 'eve teaser'. what did you do?
I have given up on eve teasing. I got introduced to you by narrating my story.

3. what is eve teasing to you- what was the range of things that you did
Mostly caressing the bottom or thighs in crowded places. Rubbing private parts against the butt.

4. when and why did you stop?
Because I was punished in public.

5. how do you approach a woman stranger now? if you find her attractive?
I am married now. So no question of approaching. I have lot of friends who are girls.

6. how did you hear about Blank Noise
When I was browsing regarding eve teasing.

7. did you discuss being an 'eve teaser' , strategies and ways with your male friends?
No I used to operate alone. To my friends I was a decent guy.

8. did anyone except the woman who experienced it, really know that you could violate someone?
No. I had a decent image.

9. do you feel that 'teasing' to an extent is ok? if yes then where do you draw the line?
No it is not acceptable in any form or shape.

The answers are not meant to be seen as absolutes or solutions. It is but 1 person's experience. I thank him for sharing.

Listen and read below
In conversation with some men on the streets of Delhi and Bangalore. These men were from across age groups 19- 65 and mostly from a mid income group or low income group. Some were tourist guides, some shop owners, auto rickshaw drivers, student union campaigner.


According to you, what kind of man sexually harasses or 'eve teases' women on the street?


"It's the impulsive type of guy that teases girls"

"It's the youth that eve teases girls on the street. Another person will treat her as his granddaughter or niece. If he calls for her on the street, he will perceive her as a family member".

"The guys who try to act smart are the ones that tease women. I don't know how to be smart or play cool..I am not like them".

"I am telling you. I am from a decent family. I don't do this kind of stuff. I go out to do my work and I come back home straight after that".

"The kind of guy that teases his sister will tease a woman on the street".

"It's the 3rd class or the middle class guy that harasses women".


What attracts you to a woman? what kind of woman? what about her? what do you do then?


" Her figure. Her body. If she has a good figure I am interested in sex, only sex. I am not interested in marriage".

" ...her hairstyle. her removing her hair from her face.."

" She should look fit. Others should find her attractive. Her body- her chest, hips...she should have a flat stomach, other parts of her figure should protrude. She should have nice hips".

" Clothes? I like women in sexy clothes".

" I remember she was wearing a pink colour suit, I remember her hair, I remember her make up, her eyes....I really wanted to approach her. I wanted my eyes to speak to her...and try to approach her".

" I like the simple and sober girls. The girl who wears a simple salwar suit and braids her hair. she should have long hair".

"...I gave her my mobile number and said that your incoming is free and my outgoing is free".

" ...I could sit down on my knees and let her know that she is the most beautiful girl in the world".

" I like foreigner girls".


" I do have a mother and a sister. I dont have a girlfriend or wife.    Will you be mine?"

For those of you familiar with how it works in India- the most frequently delivered line to an 'eve teaser' is- ghar mein maa behen nahin hai kya? Don't you have a mother or sister at home?


Credits to Ekta and Rajshekhar from Blank Noise who were instrumental to making this happen.

Before we begin the 'Gent's Only' event we will be making publishing a few ideas that will hopefully bring to notice the range of men on the street.
For starters, we found this on youtube. Posted by someone called the 'missing agent'. This video has been called "Eve Teasing at the Party".







FUN?

Over the years we have figured that there are over 1000 ways in which you could build Blank Noise. For now, we propose 2.Every Sunday, 2 projects will be shared at Blank Noise.Blank Noise This Place and Blank Noise Action Heroes.
Both spaces are slowly building up with your participation. Thank you!
For those of you who are new to this:Blank Noise This Place: We ask you to go to the place where you experienced street sexaul harassment'- photograph it and send it to us. Along with the photo send in an account of what exactly occurred and where.

We will upload all photographs at http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace/

All photos will be tagged on a world map. 
Let's Blank Noise This Place!
Blank Noise Action Heroes: is a separate blog, an offshoot of Blank Noise. This place collects and builds stories of resistance. We ask you to share your strategy. How did you deal with street harassment? How did you fight or respond to it?
All Action Hero testimonials sent in by you will be uploaded at
http://blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com
Who takes responsibility for uploads etc?
Every city has a 2 week rotating set of 'lead volunteers' who make this happen. They send emails, put in that 'extra' bit to ensure participation. Last few weeks have had Dana Roy , Sunayana Roy from Kolkata, Suparna Kudesia from Delhi, Amrutha Bhushan from Bangalore, Nabila Zaidi from Lucknow. We encourage Blank Noise members from each city to sign up as lead volunteers towards both online events. Hope to hear from you soon!

I am prepared and I use both my hands to push him away.

extends his hand to grab

I start walking faster

I could no longer hear his steps behind me

I tapped his shoulder firmly

Too bad he tried to mess with the wrong girl

I went to the Ice cream parlor close by to get my cousins a tub of butterscotch.

I would look “ugly”, “unwanted”, and “undesirable”

Watch out for this place every Sunday morning.

To participate revisit the site where you experienced sexual intimidation in public, photograph it and send us the picture with an anecdote. I

f you would like to participate in getting people from your city involved in Blank Noise This Place, do let us know by writing in at blurtblanknoise at gmail.com

Lead volunteers on a rotating basis. Current volunteers include:
Suparan Kudesia- Delhi, Nabila Zaidi- Lucknow, Sunayana Roy- Kolkata, Amruth Bhushan - Bangalore and Varsha Chandwani- Mumbai

This goes out to any one that has been involved with Blank Noise in any way-
be it online support and participation, street interventions, documentation, research, performance / other An all new Blank Noise Volunteers Flickr Album is finally up and running! Here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blanknoise/ Saptarshi Chakrabarty and Purba Sarkar from Blank Noise Kolkata have set it up and are managing the flickr album. Please note that we are in process of setting this up and not even half way through- thousands of people have volunteered so far but the flickr album has only 200 photographs-

• If you do not find your photograph please let us know.
• If you have never physically met with the Blank Noise Team but been an online participant, we would love to receive a photo from you.
• If you don't want a photo- any visual that symbolizes you- a comic, a plant, a logo- send it in!
• There have also been non blogging, non internet participants - such as parents who may have participated in Blank Noise events- please send us their details as well.
• If its NOT OKAY with you to have your picture in the album, we will remove it.

Please inform us at the earliest by mailing in at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com. Or if you would like to send a picture to include in the album, you can do that too.

Please add in details such as blog address, city you are writing in from, what you do/ profession/ occupation, and how you participated in Blank Noise. Mail in at blurtblanknoise at gmail.com subject titled 'your name + photo' We hope that you will write in as soon as you can. From the rest of us at the Blank Noise Team

http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace


"My daughter ( 46 years) and grand daughter( 22 years) were walking by the lake. A mad man lift up his lungi and flashed his body parts at my daughter. My daughter was hoping that her daughter didnt see this. She panicked and tried to change her route. He flashed again. She yelled for a security guard from an resident apartment. In the meantime I the mad man ran away.

I told her never to walk there again."- (age 77 years)

It is familiar to most of us. I could hear my mother, father, grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, all well wishers say. ' just dont go there. '

How many such city spaces will not be accessed because sexual violation was experienced there?

Shabana in Manchester never stepped out alone. She never experienced street sexual harassment either.
and then again Bangalore, Tokyo, Mexico City and other cities have women only public transport.


Blank Noise This Place is building evidence.

We ask you to revisit the site and exact location where you experienced harassment and photograph it. Please send in an account of what happened with a photo of that place. This project is open to women from across the globe, across age groups.

It would be fantastic if you could get others around you involved- more so if you got people without cameras involved and even shared them.

We could organize week long events with small groups of individuals who want to participate in this.

(Amrutha Bhushan and Goonja from Bangalore will be re -visiting their site. I will be doing the same from Kolkata. If you would like to get involved from your city and get others involved too- email us!)

All photographs will be uploaded at :
http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace

and put on a world wide map at :
http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace/map/

To participate email us and we will add you right here. Email us at blurtblanknoise at gmail.com subject titled BLANK NOISE THIS PLACE!

Also see: http://blog.blanknoise.org/2008/03/blank-noise-this-place.html


Why are we doing this?

• Because our experience of the city is based on fear and mapped with places to 'avoid'.
  
• Because we want to break the myth of site- that sexual harassment takes place only in 'certain places' at certain hours.
• Because we want women to reclaim their city spaces and not fear them.
• Because Blank Noise collects testimonials in different forms of media and disseminates them back in public.
• To build an argument collectively.
• The collective building of evidence will trigger towards social transformation
  
• this could also be 'fun'- something for all of us to do and make more meaning once people have participated.
• for those convinced- please add more!

List of Participants for Blank Noise This Place:

• Dianne Sharma Winter
  
• Amrutha Bhushan
  
• Goonja
  
• Jasmeen Patheja
  
• Purba Sarkar
  
• Poorna Banerjee
  
• Sunayana Roy
  
• Dana Roy
  
• Nabila Zaidi
  
• you?

important: Blank Noise is not anti men. Poster were published on this blog- extending the argument of the previous post- on segregated public spaces.

photo above- from a regular bus- image of women's reservation seat
photo below from



Bangalore's 'women only' buses. Painted pink.
The women Soumya C. Shekhar of Blank Noise and I spoke with, saw this as an immediate relief, as something convenient.
How do you experience public environments that are exclusively male or female?
Perhaps bloggers and Blank Noise blog visitors from Bombay/ Mumbai who take the 'ladies compartment' in the train will have anecdotes to add!

Also see - Pukar's Gender and Space project

http://www.pukar.org.in/genderandspace/index.html

This time we invite you to laugh.

Laugh out loud. Record it. Email it to us/ or upload it on yousendit.com

3 months from today the Department of Fun and Games will construct devices that will broadcast your laughter through independent radio.



simply put- imagine a street scape filled with the sound of many laughing women!

Here's one Blank Noise recorded in 2006 August. This was played at Delhi's South Ex Subway. (hear)


Simple ways to record on a windows machine:

On a windows machine

1. Plug a microphone to the "sound-in" of your sound card
2. Open Windows sound recorder and hit the record button
Watch the instruction video here:

OR

2. Download a free recording and sound editing software-Audacity is one of the best one's around[download it from here:http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

and use it to record your audio:

Watch the instruction video here:

[more detailed instructions here:

http://info.umuc.edu/de/ezine/how_to/audacity/audacity.htm]

On a Macintosh:

1: Open Garageband

2: Record

watch the instruction video here:

Or read the easy insructions here:http://macaudioguy.com/2007/12/27/how-to-do-basic-audio-recording-on-your-mac-using-garageband-08/

via Fred Miller

LECCO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian man was given a suspended jail sentence for staring too intensely at a woman sitting in front of him on a train.

A judge sentenced the man in his 30s, whose name was not revealed, to 10 days in prison and a 40 euro fine after a 55-year old woman filed a complaint for sexual harassment.

His lawyer said on Friday he would appeal the sentence. The court will explain its verdict later.

The two met on two separate occasions in 2005 on a commuter train going from Lecco, a town in northern Italy, to Milan.

The first time, the man sat next to the woman but she felt he had moved too close for comfort. The next day, the man sat in front of the same woman and according to her complaint, stared at her for the whole journey.

The two did not speak.

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Shabana 6 mins 30 sec credits: Dale Copley – project assistant Jamie Finlay- sound editing
(audio link)


This is not about the experience of street sexual harassment.

Translated text: “My name is Shabana. I moved to Manchester from Lahore 20-22 years ago. I got married here and have been staying here since. We do visit Pakistan, but now this place is our home. I think women are safer in Manchester than in India or Pakistan. I don’t think women in Pakistan or India are unsafe, however I think women here are safer. Women have a place in society here. They are respected and taken care of. If someone sees an elderly woman standing, she is offered a seat. This is what I feel. If you are in Pakistan you could belong to any age group, be a little girl or a much older woman, but if you are walking alone, you are bound to find men stalking you or harassing you in public. It isn’t the same here. In Manchester if a woman does not allow it a man cannot even look at her. There is no way he could try touching her. It is 4 pm. I am returning home from work. I will get home and cook dinner. If I need to shop I will go with my husband. We don’t go out on social visits or for fun in the evenings. No. If there is a holiday, like the recent bank holiday, we travel together, as a family, not alone. My children are busy with their games and they do not consider going out much. I have three sons. They are 18, 16 and 3 years old. I always have a phone. Why must I complain about someone harassing me? I have never been harassed or violated. Even when I was younger I was never harassed or bullied on the street. I don’t feel any kind of fear in Manchester. There is no reason to fear. My children fear going to Pakistan when they hear about genocide. I feel safe here. At this point, I am lost. I don’t know my way home! I started my new job yesterday and am lost today.” 10 minutes into meeting Shabana, Dale and I realize she is lost. She pulls out a used enveloped from her handbag which bears the home postal address. Dale locates her address on the map and we soon find ourselves at the bus stop waiting for bus no. 15 Shabana contd. “I used to spend my day at home, sometimes watching tv, doing household chores, talking with friends and gossiping about them.” The bus arrives The phone gives us immense security. It also makes us gossip about each other. We will have to pay for our sins one day. We gossip and we sin. Despite this knowledge we don’t stop talking on the telephone. I know someone who has been warned by the doctors to not use the phone, but she just wont listen. Whenever I phone her I cannot get through. It is always busy. I realized how ignorant I am now that I am out alone. It is a big problem. The fact that I don’t know my way around town is the biggest problem. There is no other problem. I am grateful to God for introducing me to strangers who help, and drop me home. Today is my second day. Someone helped me make a bus pass yesterday. Today you are dropping me home! I used to spend all my time at home before. My children were much younger then. It was a different phase. Now I am in another phase and hence I decided to get a job. I always wanted to work outside home but it wasn’t an acceptable idea for my mother in law and family. They wouldn’t agree to the idea of me going out to work and them cooking for me. I did the cooking. I have been cooking. It is only now that I am doing what I want to do. Working outside home is not culturally accepted. No. It is impossible to see that acceptance come from an Asian mother in law. When it was the right time to learn English, I was busy cooking food for the family. Today I realize that I should have learnt English. I feel the need for it now. I regret not having learnt it. No one let me learn. They told me that I wasn’t going to be out and interacting with others anyways and so I don’t need to learn English. I know what I am doing is courageous but there are many challenges. Not knowing how to speak in English makes it a bigger problem. My sisters live in UK as well.

Am so glad I put this envelope in my handbag this morning. A letter had come this morning. I kept the envelope. I knew this would be helpful if I were to lose my way home. Dale and I met Shabana while wandering through the streets of Manchester. We were looking out for people to interview. She was the only one who agreed to be interviewed. Ten minutes into the conversation we realized that she was lost. She found a used enveloped in her handbag, which had the home address. Dale located her address on the map and we soon find ourselves at the bus stop waiting for bus number 15. Shabana is home by 5 30. She said she would take us to interview her friends. She comes out of her house 10 minutes later to say that the friend whom we were to interview is not at home and goes back inside. We have not been in touch since.

Editing assistant- Jamie Finlay- Cornerhouse
Project assistant- Dale Copley

In conversation with women between the age group of 11-80 years, in Manchester, UK.
Groups spoken with include Chinese Women's Centre- Wai Yin Society, Bangladeshi Women's Centre- Ananna, Salford Women's Centre, staff of Cornerhouse and strangers!

Supported by Cornerhouse as a part of Asian Triennial '08, organized by Shisha.

http://ia360908.us.archive.org/3/items/StreetTalesOfHyperWomenBetweenTheAgeGroupOf11To80Years/hyperwomen_64kb.mp3

This time, squeeze them properly. Put your hands inside my T-shirt and squeeze.
Blank Noise Action Hero Janet

Blank Noise Action Heroes
http://blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com archives your inspiring, brave, spontaneous, and even humorous stories of resistance. Write to us how you dealt with being sexually intimidated/ attacked/ violated/ or 'teased' in public. What worked for you? How did you 'deal with it'? How were you an Action Hero?


Share your story now. You can participate if you have a story to share. If you experienced it or witnessed it, or even heard about it! Find out from mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, strangers, colleagues.

You may find this submission form useful to submit your story or you could even email us your story at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com- subject titled Action Hero Online.