The Jasleen Kaur incident took a new turn today. After being treated as a hero for taking a stand against eve teasing and filing a complaint against the guy who misbehaved with her at the traffic signal, chances are that the whole issue was a hoax.
She supposedly has some connection with AAP, and wanted to get some political mileage through this incident. But nothing has been proved yet.
As of this moment, I don’t know what the truth is. But let’s assume that Jasleen was at fault. She did it for publicity. And the fact that she is a girl helped her in gaining immediate attention. So now, as a guy, will I not want a girl to have extra privileges from the government? I will. In spite of this case or the Rohtak girls’ case which happened a few years ago, I still want special laws for women.
I am not promoting these cases in any way. All I am saying is that women should be given an edge over men when it comes to these cases (oops…I said it).
As a guy you might question, ‘What if something like this happens with you?’ Of course I don’t want it to happen, and will regret it if it does, but I still want to stick to my earlier statement.
And as a girl of a developing nation in the 21st century, you might feel that you don’t need privileges, just equality will do.
But for a gender which was suppressed for 100s of years in our country, drastic measures are required to pull them up to the same pedestal as that of men. If an extra set of laws is what it takes to make women living in villages and small towns, stand up and express them freely, then why not.
Every progressive step has repercussions, just like this one. Therefore it important to weigh out the probable end result against the probable side effects. The probable end result in this case is men and women getting the same status, not just on paper but practically. And if in the quest of achieving this we have to deal with some false charges against men, then don’t you think it’s a small price to pay.
If by being unequal today guarantees equality forever then what’s wrong in it? I want women to have an upper hand in cases of eve teasing, rape, dowry, sexual assault, etc, because these are the cases which are on an all time high in our country. This needs to be sorted out, and sorted out quickly.
A huge section of women are still being suppressed, and I want them to have extra tools at their disposal, so that they can fight their way back. This is the only reason why a girl’s statement is given more weightage when she comes up to report a case of sexual harassment or rape.
The government wants to change things which have been continuing for ages, and that is why special laws are made for women, and I can’t agree more.
