Any Bengalurean will tell that auto rides can be a nightmarish experience these days. Recently, a Bengaluru girl was slut shamed by an auto driver for wearing a dress that reached up to her knees. But she is not the only girl in the city who has faced such criticism about her dressing choice. “I have been questioned about my dressing choice by rickshaw drivers a number of times. One time my friends and I were heading out to a brunch gathering and we hailed an auto.
Everything seemed fine at first but a little while later, the auto driver interrupted us mid conversation and started hurling abuses at us for not being dressed appropriately. When we told him that it was none of his business to bother about what we were wearing, he raised his voice even louder said he was just ‘warning us’.
It obviously drew a lot of attention so we got off at the next signal and asked our friends to pick us up because we were terrified,” says Swathi Shetty, a student.
But it’s not only young girls who have fallen prey to such comments from rickshaw drivers. Raksha Hari, a 32-year-old mother of a three-year-old son, recollects, “My car broke down after an event so my son and I had to take a rickshaw to get home once. I was dressed in a gown that was sleeveless and had a slit till my calf muscle. Luckily I had a shrug so I covered by arms with that.
A few minutes later the auto guy started murmuring to himself and I assumed he was asking for directions and tried to explain the route. He flared up and started telling me he knew the way in a raised voice. I apologised and backed off but he went on about how indecently I was dressed and what a bad impression I was leaving on my son. I told him to stop the auto so I could get off, after which he called me ungrateful and said he was doing a favour by helping me because nobody else would drop a lady who was dressed so ‘indecently’ despite having a son!”
It doesn’t end with slut shaming, some women have even been body shamed by these drivers! “I dread traveling by autos now because almost every single driver has told me I’m too fat and need to loose weight. I am tired of telling them that it is none of their business to tell me what to do but they refuse to listen! Instead, they decide to give me a pep talk and tell me inspiring tales of how actresses like Sonakshi Sinha and Parineeti Chopra were so fat but have lost weight and gone on to look good now. One driver told me that no man will ever marry me if I’m so fat and another told me that it was because of me that his auto was so slow. He said my weight was holding it down!” says Shobha, a freelancer in the city.
So what is it that gives these auto drivers the authority to tell women what to do? “It’s the patriarchy that’s still dominant in the country. In so many families, we see women earning for everybody while the man gambles or drinks it away. It’s the idea that men have in their head that they can tell women what to do and that women have to listen to them. We have been the submissive race for too long and now its biting us in the back. No matter what women achieve, men always think that they can look down on them” explains psychiatrist Mamtha Shetty.
