WOMEN SPECIAL...WHAT WOMEN WANT MUMBAI : SAFE CITY, EQUALITY AT WORK AND HOME

WHAT WOMEN WANT MUMBAI : SAFE CITY, EQUALITY AT WORK AND HOME      Delve into the mind of the average woman in Mumbai and she considers herself better off than her counterparts in other major cities of India, especially in terms of safety. But she still sees her life as a dayto-day struggle compounded by the worry of getting home safe, particularly after dark. She believes the city grants her the freedom to hop on to trains, collect worldclass degrees on par with her brother or work her way to independence, but the balance for equality with her brother, husband, fellow male colleagues or friends still remains tipped against her.     TOI and IMRB surveyed the perceptions of city women, whose voices capture their day-to-day triumphs and travails. Being a woman in Mumbai, apparently, entails basic existential challenges, like finding a decent public toilet once one steps out of the house, a concern rated by 43% of surveyed women as their major complaint with public places. Finding equal footing with men remains a pipe dream given that four of 10 women said their offices don’t recognize their basic rights to maternity leave, or eight of 10 felt they shouldered a major chunk of the cooking, cleaning and other household drudgery by themselves. On the positive side, women have a say in the family’s savings and investments.     Here are the survey’s key findings: STREET VIEW     Mumbai seems to instill an overall sense of safety in its women with three out of 10 saying they feel unsafe on the streets. However, probe deeper and the jitters are palpable. The safety quotient dips with the sun, with 44% of women saying they feel unsafe after it gets dark. Of them, one out of three feels scared after 8 pm, with the fear factor progressively rising to two of three between 10 and 11pm. Another 14% say they feel afraid at all times after dark.     Oddly, hours generally considered offpeak seem to generate more fear, with one in two women saying they feel unsafe during their morning and evening walks, even within the familiarity of their own neighbourhood. This comes in the backdrop of a recent spate of chain snatchings.     Even as women routinely put up with sexual harassment at railway stations and bus-stops, the survey also bears out a substantial trust deficit in the police. Nearly seven of 10 women admitted to facing some form of misbehaviour on the city’s streets, but 94% of them never reported this to the police. An overwhelming nine of 10 women have never called 103, the police helpline for women.     “The experience of most women and girls shows that they are almost inured to daily street harassment,” says former police commissioner Julio Ribeiro pointing out that this is becoming worse with each passing day as people lose fear of the law.     Women’s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes points out that the process of approaching cops is time-consuming and a deterrent to the ordinary woman. “Moreover, lodging the complaint is only the starting point. It can take months of follow-up to know what has happened of one’s case,” she points out.     Nandita Gandhi, of women’s resource centre Akshara, thinks low awareness about police interventions, such as helplines, is also to blame. “Women often don’t approach the police as they feel they won’t get a sympathetic ear and the police are so overburdened that they are unable to lend an ear.” Akshara, along with the BEST, has been plastering buses with the helpline number to drive home the point.     Agnes feels women should volunteer to help police fight the scourge. “The police have been asking girl students and homemakers to play decoy at frequent harassment spots to trap offenders.” HOME & OFFICE     But respect and equality for women perhaps needs to start within the four walls of our homes and offices. While empowerment seems to be hitting home over the years, freedom for girls comes with its limits. While nearly nine of 10 girls felt they had received education on par with their brothers, the largesse didn’t extend to personal freedoms. More than eight of 10 said they didn’t have as much freedom as their brothers to roam about in public or marry a person of their choice.     The imbalance seems to carry into marriage. Seven out of 10 women said they had a say in the family’s large investments – either jointly or by themselves -- but household work remained mainly in the female domain with eight of 10 saying the drudgery inadvertently fell into their laps. More than 55% of women had never used a contraceptive to date, indicating their inability to assert choices.     Workplaces, while welcoming female participation, have failed to go the extra mile to be truly inclusive. Significantly, nine of 10 women saw equal opportunity on office floors; they said they didn’t feel discriminated against for being a woman. But 43% women said their offices didn’t follow basic norms for maternity leave or have sexual harassment cells. Childcare facilities, such as crèches, were wanting.     “This shows that we have a long way to go,” says Laxmi Lingam, a gender specialist from TISS, pointing out that if this was the sorry reality in the financial capital, the scenario would be far worse in far-flung suburbs and smaller cities and towns.     She believes we need a new benchmarking system to rate the inclusiveness of corporates, government bodies, educational and healthcare institutions. PUBLIC SPACES     It is a positive sign that women are coming out of the shadows to reclaim their public spaces.     A case in point is the right to a safe commute. Mumbai allows more freedom for women to hop on to a bus or train as compared to Delhi. But the ride isn’t all smooth. The lack of adequate safety is evident in the fact that more than one in three women faced lewd comments en route to their destinations. This only aggravates problems that anyway plague commuters -- seven of 10 women encountered refusals by automen or cabbies, while one in two women complained of overcharging.     Sana Syed, under the aegis of the Help Mumbai Foundation, has filed a PIL in the Bombay high court to force the state to perform its duty and provide protective measures to women commuters. The PIL calls for more women constables in plainclothes on trains to create an environment of safety for the 20 lakh women commuters who travel on various lines daily. It also petitions for an overall increase in the ratio of policewomen in the constabulary.     It’s not just women’s safety that is ignored, but infrastructure as basic as public toilets. When asked about their major complaint about public spaces, 43% of women highlighted the need for toilets, which was much more than the number of women (7%) who felt the need for security guards.     Women’s groups and organisations have also come out in large numbers to launch a ‘right to pee’ campaign highlighting the disparity between men’s and women’s sanitation, besides participating in public forums and protests following the Delhi gang rape. On Thursday, hundreds danced at places like the Bandra amphitheatre to mark their freedom as part of the One Billion Rising campaign. Madhavi Rajadhyaksha | TOI130218