Michaela Cross, a 23 year old American student of “South Asian Studies” from the University of Chicago who travelled to India in 2012 to study has written a document called “India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear” on CNN’s ireport under the name “RoseChasm”. She describes how she was sexually harassed, groped, stalked, stared and masturbated at. It was so bad that she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder upon her return to the United States.
Michaela Cross writes that, “India is wonderful but extremely dangerous for women”.
She tells us various stories about harassment and groping. For instance; one where she was dancing in the city of Pune at the Ganesha festival. She realised that she was being photographed and being filmed by men. She tells us how men wanted to touch her at the bazaar while she was shopping for sarees. She talks about a man (a vendor) who followed her for forty minutes till she bought something. She mentions Goa where she was lying hunched in a foetal position, holding a pair of scissors with the door bolted shut, while the staff member of the hotel tried to rape her room-mate called me over and over, and breathing into the phone?
I can understand where she is coming from. There was a headline in India’s top news channel (Aaj Tak) called the “Sick Indian man”. What they showed was that, no matter where women go – Indian men will stare at women, try to touch them and given a chance rape them. The gang rape incident in Mumbai where a photo-journalist was gang-raped in the heart of Mumbai on the 22nd of August seems to confirm this fact. Nothing seems to have changed much in India since the Delhi gang-rape incident. The harsh reality is that women in India are not safe. This is how it feels to be a woman in India?
You can read the entire story of Michaela Cross and her personal account describing repeated sexual harassment “India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear” on CNN.
Michaela Cross – sexual harassment in India
However, I personally know many foreign women in living in India and many foreign women who have travelled to India and nothing have happened to them. Some have talked about being stared and lewd remarks passed at them but that is standard in India. Women travelling to India should expect to be stared at.
What are your opinions on this story? She is being oversensitive? I understand that these incidents are true but can we really paint all Indian men with the same brush.
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