India Has A Serious Staring Problem

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:04]Why do some men stare at women like they've never  seen one before? If you're a woman walking on the streets of India, it can often feel like a  daunting experience. The constant stares, that feeling of eyes being glued onto you,  following you. Now, this is something that almost every woman has experienced. And  it sounds small when you say it out loud.

[00:00:25]Staring. It's just staring, right? No, it rarely  stops at staring. That's only the beginning. So, what happens next? What makes these men  so comfortable making you uncomfortable?

[00:00:40]The first wall is built at home. In a  lot of traditional Indian households, boys and girls are kept apart from a  very young age. Not just physically, but socially. You are told not to talk too  much, not to get too close, be seen together, or not to cross that invisible line. So women  never become normal to men. They become distant, something you are curious about but not allowed  to understand. And while all of this distance is being created, nobody is actually teaching you  anything meaningful either. Nothing about intimacy cuz that's too taboo in our community. Nothing  about boundaries that appears non-existent. and consent. It's completely foreign. Nothing  about how to exist around the opposite sex without shame, fear, and entitlement.  And this applies to both boys and girls.

[00:01:42]Okay.

[00:02:16]Because everyone is kept in the dark. Then one day  society expects them same people to suddenly know how to behave, how to date, how to marry, how to  respect somebody's body, understand what no means, and how to recognize discomfort. But how how are  you supposed to respect boundaries? You were never taught. How are you supposed to understand women  as people when your whole upbringing treated them like a separate world? And that is where the  danger starts. Because when women are kept unfamiliar, they stop being seen as people you  interact with. They become something you stare at, something you whisper about, something forbidden  and separate. And when a society raises boys to desire women, but never teaches them how to  understand women, that ignorance does not stay innocent. it becomes entitlement. In the will  to change, the author Belle Hooks talks about how men are not raised to emotionally understand  or connect with women properly. One line reads, "Patriarchy keeps them from knowing themselves,  from being in touch with their feelings, from loving." And that is exactly the point  because that is not just about boys being kept away from girls. It is also about boys  being kept away from their own emotions. So when they finally grow up and start existing  around women, there is a disconnect in every way. They may desire women. They may want to  access women. They may even feel entitled to women. But they were never taught how to actually  understand women. And this is where it stops being innocent because you're older now and you have  more freedom. And as a man, society gives you more room to move through the world however you  want. So if nobody taught you boundaries before, you definitely have a responsibility to learn  them now. I was standing and this is like 6:00 and at 6:15 this guy was off right at the cycle  track. It's crowded. If you're from Hyderabad, you would know this cycling track is  extremely crowded in like I wish my camera would have opened like 2 milliseconds  earlier. I could have showed his face.

[00:04:27]This guy wasing off right in front of me and now  he left. But [ __ ] because women should not have to pay the price or because some men were taught  to watch women but never taught to respect them.

[00:04:40]And look, I'll admit how you grow up shapes a  lot. But you're grown now, so what's the excuse?

[00:04:53]So here's the thing. Even when it starts, it  doesn't get corrected. It gets excused. He's just looking. Boys will be boys, they say. How  do you know he's even looking at you? Just don't look back. And that that's the problem. Because  instead of men being called out on this behavior, it gets normalized. Men will be men. And  when something gets normalized enough, people start treating it like it's acceptable.  It's literally basic conditioning. So when men stare make women uncomfortable and nothing  happens, no one corrects them. In fact, people even defend them. So you are saying that women  invite her women in white. Yes. Yes. Yes. What do you think that teaches them? It teaches them that  they can keep doing it and that there are no real consequences. And when there are no consequences,  men get comfortable. And that's how behavior that should have been corrected becomes behavior men  feel entitled to repeat. Public spaces turn into places where women are watched and monitored. And  this is where people start playing dumb. Like men just don't know better. No, a lot of you do.  You know what you're staring at. You know when you're staring and you know you're making someone  uncomfortable. You just feel comfortable doing it.

[00:06:13]And that comfort, that's where entitlement comes  in. There's expectation. You expect to be able to look and watch to take up that space. And these  men, the ones who were seated in front of us, they decided to just rotate 90° and keep staring  at us. Me and three of my cousin sisters. Like, what the hell? I swear to God, it was  so awkward and so embarrassing. Like, and the worst part was one of my sister was 13.  And I I felt so sad that that this is what she had to experience. And then there's another layer  to it because while real interaction with women is restricted, access to women online isn't. A lot of  men grow up with very little real life experience talking to women, but unlimited access to content.  Content where women are reduced to mere bodies, where interaction isn't real. It's one-sided.  Where everything is designed to be watched, sometimes even paid for. So now you've got  a situation where women are unfamiliar in real life but hyperfamiliar in a sexualized way  online. You've barely interacted with real women, but you've seen thousands of  sexualized versions of them.

[00:07:33]So when you step into the real  world, that mindset doesn't just disappear because staring starts to  look less like curiosity now and more like consumption just without the screen. And  when you're used to watching women like that, it becomes easier to feel entitled to look  in real life, too. And once that entitlement is there, it needs a justification.  And that's where the excuses come in.

[00:07:56]A car directed girls older than 10 years to not  wear jeans and not use mobile phones because apparently wearing provocative clothing like  jeans invite attention and ultimately lead to It's your fault. It all begins with what  you wear. Scientific studies suggest that women who wear skirts are the leading  cause of Do you know why? because men have eyes. In fact, here are some examples  of provocative clothing that could cause.

[00:09:04]Let's be honest, it does not matter what she was  wearing. In the book why Liter Women and Risk on Mumbai streets author Schulpa Far writes when a  woman is attacked in a public space the question of what she was doing there in the first place  is inevitably asked along with variations on the theme. What was she wearing and whom was she  with? Concerns about the safety of women then are essentially about sexual safety and not  safety from theft or accident or even murder.

[00:09:36]Women get stared at in everything.  Modest, covered, traditional or western, you are getting stared at. God forbid you  can see my shoulders in a shirt. I'm still going to get stared at. So at what point do we  stop pretending this is about clothes. I have experienced this myself when I was in India in  a busy city. Mind you, I was fully covered full traditional outfit dupata on. The only skin you  could really see was a bit of my arms. That too threw my dupa and still stares. If you see someone  different, you glance for a second or two and then you move on with your life. You don't stare. And  I'm someone who will stare back when a man stares at me to break their eye contact to make them  uncomfortable. But it didn't change anything.

[00:10:23]And it got to a point where I just didn't want  to go out anymore. Even if I was in a pair, I had to make sure I was in a group just  to feel a bit safer and a bit less watched.

[00:10:45]Let me tell you, I went to Bankhari temple because  I am a huge huge devotey of Lord Krishna and I continue to be one. But like yesterday at the Bank  Vihari temple when I was there fully covered with proper clothes, you all know that how crowded that  place is. But apart from being crowded and being religious, that place is also very scary for  a girl especially a solo traveler in Bindavad.

[00:11:12]When the doors opened, the crowd rushed ahead like  anything. And in that rush, I have lost the count of how many times I was touched inappropriately.  You know, you can you can like curse me, you can say words, you can say inappropriate things to me,  but this is the ground reality. And I want you to know that not every religious place consists of  people who are good. Not every religious person is good by heart and by mentality. Getting Radhir  Rati written on your heads on your cheeks will not bring Radhi in your head or in your heart. You  need to become that. You need to do the inner engineering first. Then then please gather the  guts to get Radha. I mean being a devotey nothing was as hurtful as seeing Radharani's name written  on the forehead of somebody who has lust in his eyes for a 20-year-old. I don't know how in the  future we'll you know control this matter but I am just asking you to be safe because not every  religious person is a good person again the issue is clearly not what women are wearing and if  your behavior changes based on what a woman is wearing that's not her problem that's your lack  of self-control and when you really look at it under all of this lies a huge contradiction a lot  of things get excused under the name of culture but it's the very same culture that worships  goddesses bows down to dura Lakshmi Saraswati the same culture that calls women shakti but then  when that same feminine exists in real life in a daughter in a wife in a daughter-in-law a woman  with her own autonomy then suddenly that divinity disappears because women are praised as symbols  but not respected as people it is easy to worship a goddess who does not question you much harder  to respect a woman who does. Because some of you will sit there religious and all, you love your  mother, right? You love and respect your sister, but then you step outside and treat someone  else's mother or sister like she's not even a person. But actually, scratch all of that  because I hate that argument. Why does a woman have to be someone's mother or wife before  she deserves respect? What about the fact that she's a human being? What about the fact that  she exists outside of what she means to a man?

[00:13:42]So clearly this isn't about  respect. It's about control.

[00:13:46]You don't get to worship women in theory  and disrespect them in reality. Pick one.

[00:13:54]Act three. Eyes that make you shrink.  This is the part I don't think a lot of men actually understand. For you as a man,  it might feel like nothing, but for women, it never is. Because in that moment, we're not  just thinking, "Oh, he's just looking." We're thinking, "Is he going to follow me? Is he going  to say anything? Is this going to escalate? Can I even say no at this point? Am I going to have  to play into this just to stay safe?" Because we do not get the luxury of assuming it ends at  a stair. not in a place where women's safety is still a real concern. And then you add groups  into it. One man staring is uncomfortable.

[00:14:38]A group of men staring that feels like  a situation. The laughing, whispering, that lack of shame. It starts feeling intentional,  like you're being watched on purpose. For example, you see this even during festivals like Holly.  Something that is supposed to be joyful and colorful somehow becomes another space where women  have to stay alert because some men use the crowd, the colors, the chaos as an excuse to touch women  inappropriately, to cross boundaries and then hide behind its holy. And that tells you everything  because if your respect for women disappears the moment there's a crowd, music or a festival,  it was never respect. It was just convenience.

[00:15:21]So when women react strongly, it's not because  we're dramatic. It's because we've seen how this can escalate. We've heard the stories. We've  seen what happens when things go left. So no, it doesn't feel small. It feels like the beginning  of something you have to be ready to get out of.

[00:15:40]And because of that, women don't always say  anything. Not because we're okay with it, but because we're trying to stay safe. Because  when a man is already comfortable making you uncomfortable, you don't know how he's going to  react when you challenge him. Is he going to get angry? And what will he do in that anger? And  in a place where women have been attacked for rejecting men, you don't get that luxury of  assuming every man can take rejection. Well, so here's a map of India taken from a study.  In the left it's 2020 and on the right it's from 2022. Red is higher crime, orange is second  highest and dark green is the lowest. And after looking at this, if anything, it doesn't  look like a problem that's going away. To make matters worse, this is from 4 years  ago. Visually, you can see some areas are getting darker between 2020 and 2022. What's  crazier is that this is just what's reported.

[00:16:44]A lot of cases don't even make it this far.  So, what you're looking at isn't even the full picture. Family honor, fear, or shame of what  comes after usually gets in the way. Again, it's women dealing with the consequences. The fact  that women have to calculate their safety just to exist around you should concern you. Silence isn't  acceptance. Sometimes it's just survival. To think because of all of this, women are just and stay  alert. constantly and it still happens. So at what point do we stop asking women to adjust and start  asking men to behave because women are taught how to avoid danger but men are not taught enough  how to not be the danger because until men start holding themselves and each other accountable  women will keep paying the price. As a woman, if I see five men on a street and if I see like  10 15 straight dogs, I would any day walk into a street with 10 15 straight dogs because I know my  dignity won't be at stake. So I don't understand how in a country where safety is not guaranteed,  where basic human dignity is not guaranteed. How is your main concern removing animals? I feel  frustrated as a as a member of the youth in this country because there's nothing we can do. We are  protesting. We are doing everything that we can.

[00:18:08]police detain. So what are we supposed to do in a  country like this? Act four. When silence becomes the teacher. Because at first I thought the answer  was simple education. In my head I was like okay surely the areas with lower education must have  higher violence against women. Simple, right?

[00:18:29]But the more I looked into it, the more I realized  it's not that simple because literacy alone is not enough. Senior Congress leader from Karnataka was  heard making an outrageous and sexist comment in the state assembly on Thursday. There is a  saying when is good lie down and enjoy it.

[00:18:50]That's exactly the position into which you are.  You can be literate and still be misogynistic.

[00:18:56]You can have all the degrees in the world and  still not understand consent and believe and treat women like they're beneath you. And that's  where the research made it clearer to me because I found studies showing that deeply rooted  patriarchy is linked to higher crimes against women. And honestly, that makes sense because if  a society teaches men that they are above women, that women's bodies need to be controlled, and  that a woman's honor belongs to her family, if it teaches them that rejection is  disrespect, an incident of a man harassing, sexually assaulting a woman in Bengaluru in  broad daylight has shocked the city. This is the footage of a young woman being attacked by a  man who she had actually turned down on Instagram.

[00:19:42]Violence doesn't come out of nowhere. Harassment,  staring, it grows in a culture that keeps excusing it. In January 2018, 10 in 10 days in Hiana  seemed to shock everyone. And once again, Because the real gap in the conversation  nobody wants to have is sex, consent, boundaries, intimacy, respect. And in India,  these conversations are still treated like something shameful. I walked through 170 cities.  I met 85,000 women and girls in large gatherings to small huddles with families inside homes. What  do you think they said to me? Well, in most of our discussions, I heard a whole lot of nothing. One  Reddit user asked, "What's sex education like in India?" And another user said, "What do you mean  what is it like?" The word sex is a taboo here.

[00:21:04]Only girls will be taught about menstruation.  That too in a very hushed voice. Unless it is the reproductive chapter from 8th grade which  is taught to the class as a whole. Still asking questions on it is a big no no in most schools.  That tells you a lot on its own. There's also another paper called Beyond Academics, a case  for bringing comprehensive sexuality education to Indian classrooms and it basically says this.  India is the second most populous country globally with the largest youth population between  ages 10 to 24 despite a young and culturally diverse demography. India has consistently  depprioritized knowledge, awareness and acceptance of comprehensive sexuality education  for its youth. So basically India has one of the largest youth populations in the world but  comprehensive sex education is still treated like something optional, shameful or inappropriate.  And that silence has consequences because when young people are not taught properly about sex,  consent, boundaries, intimacy and respect, they don't just magically learn it. They learn from  friends who also don't know. They learn from the internet which has a lot of misinformation, from  sexualized content. They learn from nothing. And that is the problem. You cannot keep sex education  out of homes, out of schools, out of policy, and then be surprised when ignorance fills the  gap. Because when adults refuse to have these conversations, the internet raises the child. And  that is dangerous. Because when you refuse to talk about sex, you don't create purity. You create  ignorance. and ignorance mixed with entitlement.

[00:22:47]That is what's really scary. So yes, schools  matter, but homes matter too. Parents matter too because this is not just an education issue.  It's a patriarchy issue, a parenting problem, a silence issue, and a big accountability issue.  And until we address that, women will keep being told to adjust around the behavior of men who  were never taught corrected or held accountable.