Week 6, Priya Gala

Why Loiter? Radical Possibilities for Gendered Dissent by Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade & Sameera Khan

This article talks about the importance of woman’s access to public streets in the form of loitering. The article draws much from the Gender and Space Project done in collaboration by the authors named PUKAR i.e. Partners in Urban Knowledge Action & Research. Multiple important arguments are made in this article, however, due to constraint of word limit this summary will be focusing on two arguments. The first is about how women’s access to public space or pleasure in general should be the goal and not end of violence. Because he latter is divisive in nature and creates an “us and them” rift. However, the right to pleasure is non-divisive and a category that involves right against violence. Thus, right to pleasure for women should be our main goal. Secondly, the authors talk about intersectionality in Bombay and the targeted section here are lower caste males as they are always seen as a threat to woman explicitly in the form of assault and implicitly by having a consensual relationship with them. Thus, maintaining distance becomes important which reinforces the intersectionality. Furthermore, they also discuss the category of the “Mumbai tapori” who is a lower-class male and a threat to women’s safety on streets. And if one class is seen as a threat the other won’t be able to enjoy their liberty and therefore it is important for all to be able to claim the right because rights cannot come at the exclusion of others.