Delhi Airport, Terminal 2, security check. There are an equal number of booths for the frisking of men and women. However, male passengers outnumbered women 10 to 1 (why the imbalance, even I was surprised) today. The female security personnel sit idle most of the time, but do not frisk men; they are for women passengers only. The cozy little enclosed booths for women lie empty. The queues for men have more than ten passengers each; no covid distancing. Women passengers, frisked quickly, wait for over 15 minutes for the men they are traveling with to cross this labyrinth. As they wait, they are forced to look at men like me lift our T shirts and expose our pot bellies to them, while we put our belts back on. Nobody bothered to make cozy booths for us, you see.
Equality. Not equity.
95% of India's domestic air travelers belong to the 5% elite urban savarna class. In such elite places like airports, the Indian establishment throws a bone of equality at elite women. Equal number of toilets. Equal number of queues. We are prepared for you to reach equity, is the messaging.
And then, the moment you step out of these elite spaces, the inequity between women and men is starkly visible. But most of that inequity exists for the oppressed classes. There are no public toilets, for example, in India. Indian men pee wherever. Elite Indian women walk into restaurants and malls and use their toilets. But where do the poor Indian women go?
Most elite Indian women are kept busy in fighting for equal access to toilets in their own elite spaces (offices, malls, universities). And silenced by giving them what they want, occasionally. Voices that could have spoken for the vast majority of India that is poor and opposed, are silenced like this. By throwing a bone.
[Flying off now. Can't see your criticism till the morning, thank you. Probably won't look at it then too 😁]
Equality. Not equity.
95% of India's domestic air travelers belong to the 5% elite urban savarna class. In such elite places like airports, the Indian establishment throws a bone of equality at elite women. Equal number of toilets. Equal number of queues. We are prepared for you to reach equity, is the messaging.
And then, the moment you step out of these elite spaces, the inequity between women and men is starkly visible. But most of that inequity exists for the oppressed classes. There are no public toilets, for example, in India. Indian men pee wherever. Elite Indian women walk into restaurants and malls and use their toilets. But where do the poor Indian women go?
Most elite Indian women are kept busy in fighting for equal access to toilets in their own elite spaces (offices, malls, universities). And silenced by giving them what they want, occasionally. Voices that could have spoken for the vast majority of India that is poor and opposed, are silenced like this. By throwing a bone.
[Flying off now. Can't see your criticism till the morning, thank you. Probably won't look at it then too 😁]