I'd like to meet the person who coined the phrase "eve-teasing" and shake him warmly by the throat. The British get blamed for a lot of the ills in India but this absurd term has got "made in India" stamped all over it. "Eve teasing" means verbally sexually harassing a woman and you can see how the phrase evolved. A committee of worthies must have sat around a table, prevaricated for several days and after lots of "ai-oh"ing, decided that any term with the word "sexual" in it was definitely a no-no. This is, after all, the country where Bollywood actresses can writhe seductively under a shower (fully clothed of course) but never kiss their hero. In the end, out committee decided that, as the first woman, Eve should be the representative of all women and that any affront to her modesty (good, safe term that one), should be regarded as teasing. And so eve-teasing was born and our committee members toddled off safely to their beds, secure in the knowledge that no matter how ribald or offensive an action could get, it would always be referred to as simply, "eve-teasing", with all the harmless playfulness that the word, "teasing" implies. What bollocks.
But there you go, eve-teasing it is and eve-teasing it will probably remain. I suppose the male equivalent would be Adam-baiting or Adam-jibing but if it does exist, I've never heard it expressed. "Eve-teasing" though, is such a dreadful phrase and one which can't fail to make any English speaking foreigner sit up and say, "what the f...". From whatever angle you look at it, it's both corny and offensive. And yet now, even Rediff has got onto the eve-teasing band-waggon and launched an advertising campaign to "tackle the menace". As the Rediff article says, "according to a survey, a woman is sexually harassed every 51 minutes and molested every 21 minutes." And pretty fed up of it she must be too, even if those figures do look a little tame by western standards.
Eve-teasing is a menace of course. Eve does not like to be teased, and if those nasty boys continue to make fun of her she will stamp her feet and cwy and cwy and cwy. Grow up India, for goodness sake.
But there you go, eve-teasing it is and eve-teasing it will probably remain. I suppose the male equivalent would be Adam-baiting or Adam-jibing but if it does exist, I've never heard it expressed. "Eve-teasing" though, is such a dreadful phrase and one which can't fail to make any English speaking foreigner sit up and say, "what the f...". From whatever angle you look at it, it's both corny and offensive. And yet now, even Rediff has got onto the eve-teasing band-waggon and launched an advertising campaign to "tackle the menace". As the Rediff article says, "according to a survey, a woman is sexually harassed every 51 minutes and molested every 21 minutes." And pretty fed up of it she must be too, even if those figures do look a little tame by western standards.
Eve-teasing is a menace of course. Eve does not like to be teased, and if those nasty boys continue to make fun of her she will stamp her feet and cwy and cwy and cwy. Grow up India, for goodness sake.
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