On November 29th, 2020, from 6 PM to 8 PM, we had Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan from Why Loiter (@whyloiter) tweet about "A Movement To Reclaim Public Spaces":
Hi everyone, this is @whyloiter and @samjourno123- we are taking over the @prajnya handle this evening in order to have a great discussion with you all on women, public space, citizenship, pleasure, violence .... #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:06 PM)
That we are in the midst of a pandemic, with limited mobility makes it difficult for us to lay claim on public space. How has it been for you? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:09 PM)
@wohoothisnut: Incredibly difficult. It has been very tiring to manage household chores and academic work. Added to this is the stress brought in by the pandemic and of having senior citizens and immunocompromised folks at home. (29/11/2020, 06:26 PM)
@prajnya: The stress and anxiety at this time is unprecedented. @guptasonali we know has important things to say about this. #prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv (29/11/2020, 06:30 PM)
@swarraj: Haven't stepped out in months. But have also had no time to loiter. Or linger. Or leisure. (29/11/2020, 06:11 PM)@holywalkamoly: In the past 9 months, I have stepped outside only for 'essential' work like buying grocery, medicines, office for imp meetings. Only recently, I have started walking & hiking but that too because of the unavoidable need to exercise. Walking is no longer for leisure, for small discoveries, for clearing your mind, for being in touch with your surroundings. Interestingly though, I have re-discovered the familiar places in a new way in their new avatar, post-lockdown. (29/11/2020, 06:22 PM)
@whyloiter: This is so interesting - rediscovering the familiar. What do these spaces come to mean in the lockdown? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:28 PM)
@SanskariStree: I think of the women who are the backbones of our cities, the domestic workers, the labourers, now jobless; so many of them heads of their households as the sole breadwinners. the #pandemic must’ve been much more than the threat of illness #prajnya16days #whyloiter
@holywalkamoly: For many Indian women & girls, home is not the safest place. As many women are now locked inside houses, the need to discuss feminist access to public space is all the more urgent during pandemic. #prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv @weloiter (29/11/2020, 07:00 PM)
@prajnya: Yes! This ridiculous binary of public and private and pushing women into their legitimate "safe" spaces of the home has caused a lot of damage . #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 07:04 PM)
@whyloiter: In face women's homes may be the least safe places for them. But the discourse of safety only addresses the public making it very clear that control of women rather than women's safety is the actual concern. #prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv @prajnya (29/11/2020, 07:09 PM)
@whyloiter: The big concern is that the pandemic is being used to suppress dissent. What will it mean for the gains we have made in women's access to the public. Just before the pandemic we saw women led movements for democracy and citizenship. @prajnya #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:19 PM)
@whyloiter: We now see even fewer women out in public. We need to think about what the post pandemic city will look like. Do weigh in on how you imagine the post pandemic city? @swarraj @Shakthi_2016 @SupriyaJaan @CityOrdinary @Laadli_PF @weconpol #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:24 PM)
@whyloiter: What might it mean to be stuck inside dreaming of the outside? @prajnya @SanskariStree @CityOrdinary @SupriyaJaan @Laadli_PF @weconpol #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:17 PM)
Yes, what might it mean? Esp. when public space is still looked at as a space of 'danger' and contagion- danger from a virus, from a pandemic...#prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 06:21 PM)
@swarraj: To be honest, I cannot remember what the world looks like outside. As an introvert, being inside has suited me well. But if I had to pick one concern it would be what you posted earlier about women getting pushed back to domestic spaces. (29/11/2020, 06:34 PM)
@prajnya: Back to domestication !! And the heightened levels of violence for women in that private space. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:39 PM)
@whyloiter: Also I think many women have lost jobs. In any case as @WILPodcast has focused on, women were in any case being pushed out of the labour force. The pandemic has only worsened this situation. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:39 PM)
@prajnya: The implications on women's work outside the home has been hit the hardest along with girls education #prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv (29/11/2020, 06:49 PM)
In re-discovering the familiar in new ways, how might we bring back pleasure in experiencing the city? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 06:27 PM)
Going to school/college is a way for girls to access public space. News such as this is disheartening - #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter Covid blow: 37% girls from poor families uncertain of returning to school | India News - Times of India (29/11/2020, 06:43 PM)
Here is Question 2: we wld love to hear yr opinion ? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:33 PM)
@swarraj: I think absolutely! One of the great lessons younger feminists have taught me is that the absolutely personal is absolutely political. In ways that I could not have imagined possible. And loitering and pleasure are central. (29/11/2020, 06:42 PM)
@prajnya: And this is a right to be claimed not just by women and girls but all citizens - including those on the margins often accused of making public space inaccessible for women. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 06:46 PM)
@whyloiter: Loitering has become very much part of a feminist lexicon of access to public space. Something that we find really exciting. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:48 PM)
@holywalkamoly: What comes to mind are the people dependent on public transport to access place of work, hospitals, etc. The basic bus services (for all people) started very late. Pre-covid, many college-going and working women used to take a day pass & go to parks, monuments and markets. (29/11/2020, 06:47 PM)
@holywalkamoly: Inefficient city planning and design restricts the movement of people with disabilities. A city not designed for them forces them to restrict movement to essential purposes. Their constant dependence on an able body also increases. (29/11/2020, 06:50 PM)
@prajnya: Absolutely! In a sense the pandemic may force us to experience the city the way differently abled people always have: with limited access to public space @saysnidhigoyal @RisingFlameNow wld love to hear from u #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:55 PM)
@holywalkamoly: We cannot keep the kids outside of the 'loitering' discourse either. Children are loiterers by nature. Few public places and playgrounds, unsafe access and commute to schools are some of the big deterrents to their emotional and psychological growth. (29/11/2020, 06:54 PM)
@whyloiter: We keep being asked what loitering means to women in the slums. Our research showed that women ACROSS CLASS wanted to loiter, to have fun in the public and hang out purposelessly. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 06:36 PM)
@TTheej: Many of us have a very unidimensional image of the public. Apart from having all voices heard, it is necessary for all peoples to be seen, not just as tokens. Especially since the visual medium has been complicit in validating diversity only as long contributes to the exotic. (29/11/2020, 07:48 PM)
@TTheej: I remember being consoled by a fellow commuter on the bus after a miserable day. It was a private pain, yes, but her consolation was not an intrusion, it was an acknowledgement. Everyone needs the possibilities of these encounters. They are reqd reminders of a world outside. (29/11/2020, 07:52 PM)
This is what @whyloiter has always maintained about everyone's right to public space (29/11/2020, 07:00 PM)
@whyloiter: The fabulous instagram account @IndLoveProject challenges so wonderfully and and brilliantly ideas of love jihad, centring the right of people to make choices and exercise agency and centring the right to love by choice. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter(29/11/2020, 07:12 PM)
@prajnya: Excellent initiative @IndLoveProject - challenging simply and directly what the State wld prefer stays private and hidden! #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:14 PM)
@whyloiter: "Anxieties about love jihad do not exist in a vacuum, they exist along a continuum which encompasses a range of fears in regard to the potential outcomes of women’s mobility and exercise of agency of any kind, particularly sexual agency." [Link] #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:03 PM)
@prajnya: This is also part of the fears that families have when women access the public - consensual friendships & relationships that women may strike up there - esp outside the boundaries of their class, caste, religion. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:07 PM)
@whyloiter: Here's another piece speaking to love jihad: Love-Jihad (Muslim Sexual Seduction) and ched-chad (sexual harassment): Hindu nationalist discourses and the Ideal/deviant urban citizen in India by Aastha Tyagi & Atreyee Sen #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:05 PM)
@whyloiter: Is Love without Borders Possible? by Tanika Sarkar #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:06 PM)
@whyloiter: Love Jihad and Demographic Fears by Mohan Rao #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:08 PM)
Question 4 : why is public space always framed in terms of danger? Why is the loss of accessibility to the public not seen as a form of violence? @kavita_krishnan @BlankNoise @jasmeenpatheja @pinthecreep @viswanathkv #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 07:24 PM)
@holywalkamoly: Public spaces are fount of possibilities. By framing them as 'dangerous' it is easier for the establishment to reduce the possibility of upsetting the hierarchies & status-quo (of all kinds). Public spaces pose a real danger to the power that the state commands over its people (29/11/2020, 07:32 PM)
@holywalkamoly: State and patriarchy thrive on limiting accessibility, suppressing sexuality & policing liberties. What is violence for the governed/vulnerable is not so for the governing. #prajnya16days #whyloiter @weloiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 07:51 PM)
@whyloiter: We at #WhyLoiter wrote this piece long ago ...but the same rhetoric on women's 'safety' is still presented to us !! (29/11/2020, 07:32 PM)
@wohoothisnut: The concept "curfews" in women's hostels which is imposed under this idea of "protecting women" while men have relaxed/no curfews. Hence, when women face violence in public spaces, there is always this question of what she was doing out late (past her curfew). (29/11/2020, 07:34 PM)
@prajnya: What was she doing there? What was she wearing? With whom was she there? No man is ever asked that even if he has been assaulted in public space. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 08:07 PM)
@BlankNoise: 'Why was she out past curfew?' Circles of victim blaming / shaming narratives #INeverAskForIt Blame is sticky. Follows us where we go. Pasted on street walls, campus corridors, home. (29/11/2020, 07: 38 PM)
@whyloiter: If Women Could Risk Pleasure: Reinterpreting Violence in Public Space by Shilpa Phadke speaks to the question of what we count as violence. Only unstructured stranger violence is seen as violence. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07: 28 PM)
@whyloiter: The everyday restrictions on mobility which women experience as violence are called by other names like protectionism and love. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:29 PM)
@whyloiter: In our research every time there was a widely reported sexual assault on a woman, young women in our workshops expressed the fear, not that they would be attacked but that they would face greater restrictions on their mobility as a result of the narratives of danger produced. (29/11/2020, 07:30 PM)
@prajnya: The media narrative on women and safety establishes a hierarchy of danger with a) men safe everywhere b) women safe at home c) strangers as the ones to fear ! So totally bogus ! #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:37 PM)
@prajnya: In actuality: a) more men assaulted in public BECAUSE of the statistical reality of there being more men in public b) More women in India assaulted at home (NCRB) c) NCRB & UN stats show women are most often attacked by people they know ! #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:40 PM)
From @whyloiter book: (29/11/2020, 07:27 PM)
Question 5: what increases accessibility to the city - tall fencing or low unlocked gates? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter @whyloiter (29/11/2020, 07:43 PM)
@whyloiter: In our book we talk at length about the difference between the fenced (and beautified) Oval maidan and the katta bounded Shivaji Park arguing that the latter is a much more accessible and therefore friendly for women and other marginal citizens. #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:47 PM)
@prajnya: Which Mumbaikar has not hung around at #ShivajiPark ? How many can claim loitering at #OvalMaidan beautiful as it is! Infrastructure - just fencing- makes a huge difference to how welcome people feel in a space #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:50 PM)
@prajnya: Tell us abt such spaces in your city/ town? Which are welcoming to all citizens including women? #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 07:59 PM)
@prajnya: Delhi folks? @safetipinapp Kolkata folks? Bengaluru? @BlankNoise Kochi people? Chennai ? Hyderabad? Pune? Patna? Friends in Karachi? @girlsatdhabas #prajnya16days #nosgbv #WhyLoiter (29/11/2020, 08:05 PM)
@swarraj: Wrong person to answer but in Chennai, I would imagine the two beaches--Marina and Elliot's. (29/11/2020, 08:08 PM)
What research by @whyloiter showed us consistently: (29/11/2020, 07:47 PM)
And our final question for this evening . Ques 6: #prajnya16days #WhyLoiter #nosgbv (29/11/2020, 07:55PM)
Ok folks this is @samjourno123 & #ShilpaPhadke from #WhyLoiter saying bye fm the @prajnya handle - thanks to all at #Prajnya for inviting us ! Looking fwd to more such conversations. One final slide of the most famous quote fm @whyloiter #prajnya16days #nosgbv #16DaysOfActivism (29/11/2020, 08:17 PM)
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