The right to 'soot'a woman

THE EDITOR: A man said he had the right to "soot" me on Monday. I was returning home from my morning walk. He "sooted" – once, twice, three times. I ignored it the first two times. The third time I asked, “Who just soot me?” He responded, “I just feel like sooting.” I told him I did not want to be sooted. He said he could soot me if he wanted. Didn’t he know that was illegal? That was when he said he had the right to soot me.

“You see the young girl they kidnapped? That happens when men feel they have the right to do whatever they want, regardless of what the woman wants. You see all the women being killed? That happens when men are doing what they please. It is not right to soot somebody.”

He told me he could do what he wanted. He could soot who he wanted. He had the right to soot. I walked off. He was still sooting behind me.

Men and women are not equal in our society. Men have more power. That idea that men have the power (and right) to do as they wish to women is harmful. This manifests itself in many ways.

The first stage is normalisation. Some things normalise harmful mindsets – sexist attitudes, unwanted (non-sexual) touch, the idea that boys will be boys. The second stage is degradation – cat-calling, victim-blaming, flashing/exposing. This is where sooting and other street harassment belong. The final stage is assault – groping, molestation, rape and murder.

Murder and rape are not isolated incidents. The normalisation of harmful attitudes reinforces and excuses degradation and assault.

Stop sooting. Stop excusing. Stop molesting. Stop raping. Stop killing. Just stop.

The Offences Against the Person Act says: “Harassment of a person includes alarming the person or causing the person distress by engaging in a course of conduct such as…making contact with the person, whether by gesture, directly, verbally, by telephone, computer, post or in any other way.” A “course of conduct” means the behaviour was “carried out on at least two occasions.”

S MAHARAJ

via e-mail