Rahul Desarda Week 6

Why Loiter? Radical Possibilities for gendered dissent

Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan

At the outset, the authors discuss how in today’s world, the urban-educated women possess a longing to roam independently and discover their cities without any constraints. Further, the article brings to light society’s outlook towards these women and highlights that when an unfortunate incident happens, more often than not, these women are held responsible rather than the actual perpetrators of such acts.

In a social experiment executed by the author in Mumbai, it was found that the use of public spaces by women was thought of as something provisional and not intrinsic. Often, poor and low caste men are believed to be the habitual predators of these women because of the prevailing intersectionality between caste and class. The article also notes that we assume (without further investigation) that women have less access to public spaces than men. We live in a society where a “good woman” is the one who hardly comes out in the public spaces and the woman who frequently goes out is a “bad woman” who should not be considered worthy of social protection. This is certainly not in line with ideals of equality which demands that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex or gender.