BLANK NOISE SPECTATORS SPECIAL

Blank Noise is a public and community arts project that seeks to address the phenomenon of ‘eve teasing’ as street sexual harassment. Since its start in 2003, hundreds of individuals, both men and women, have contributed to building this project. Our volunteers have come from various disciplines – journalists, software engineers, lawyers, amongst others – and have helped build Blank Noise into an inclusive space.

This is the Blank Noise way of involving people and asking them to TALK, SHARE, BLOG:

“Blank Noise is focussed strongly on public spaces, but we heard about Bell Bajao at about the same time our “Spectator’s Special” blog event was culminating. This was an event in which we asked spectators of street harassment to respond and write in and share experiences:

Blank Noise Spectators Special asks members of the public, both men and women to share what they witnessed. What was your first reaction? Was it to intervene? Was it to ignore? What did you do? What would you rather have done? Can you share your thoughts about being a spectator. If you have been a ‘special spectator’ , that is, intervened in the situation, please tell us how! Was it with wit and humor? Or did you physically assault the ‘perpetrator’? Did you walk away? Or call the cops? Or gather a crowd? Or see another spectator take charge of the situation and participate in any way.

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Here is the Blank Noise blog and here is Blank Noise Spectators.

Here is the post:

11.9.08
Speak out, ring the bell

This past month has been all about the spectator at Blank Noise. We asked you to send in stories of street harassment: what you saw, how you reacted, what provoked you, how you negotiated with the larger public around you when it was someone else being harassed.
We have many, many spectator responses.

I was walking to the gurudwara early morning.. One boy was dragging a girl forcing her to come on the motor bike. I think they worked at night and were returning home. The boy insisted that the she come with him. I was observing and walking past. I passed a shiv mandir/temple and it struck me that I should go help that girl.

I went in and said “what is the problem?”
The boy asked me to mind my own business.

Finally he let go off her hand. The girl went off with another boy. I got scared thinking that now the boys might attack me. I hopped into a taxi and went to the gurudwara. This was a huge experience for me.

We are still asking you to share your experiences as spectator’s. If you are a male and have witnessed street harassment, write to us. Speak out. As we continue with our Spectator’s Special – the “special spectator’s who acted as well – we join hands to support another effort – Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao.

Breakthrough is a fabulous group that does advocacy around rights issues using new media, and their latest campaign is Bell Bajao, asking you to speak out and take action when you encounter domestic violence. Ring the bell, register your protest, speak up and don’t look the other way.

It ties in beautifully with the phase we are at with Blank Noise as well, right now – asking for men’s responses to issues of violence against women whether in the private space (as the Bell Bajao campaign highlights) or in the public sphere (which is what Blank Noise is about).

The Bell Bajao campaign is up here and it tells you all about responding to domestic violence, provides a forum to share testimonials, games to play, a Wiki page that details both responses as well as what the law says.

More than anything, it asks you to speak out and share. Go to their blog and break the silence around domestic violence by speaking out.

Check out the post here.

Tagged domestic violence, Law

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