Written submission from Dr Tina Basi, Department of Sociology,
London School of Economics and Political Science (SPP0081)

From: Dr Tina Basi, Sociologist, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science. Areas of expertise include: gender, identity, power, body, clothing, space, and material culture. I conducted a year-long ethnographic study of women working in the call centre industry in Delhi from 2002-2003. Many of the strategies that the women used to negotiate their safety in the journey to and from work in the call centres have begun to manifest in new, more corporeal ways throughout the rest of the world. The cultural insights acquired from the Indian study offer a useful framework for investigating the concerns emerging from the sexual harassment of women and girls in public places in the UK. The emerging behaviour of Indian women in the ways in which they exercised agency and autonomy, if understood and supported by the Government here in the UK, can provide both the Government and women with a set of tools that may help to mitigate the social and cultural factors that lead to harassment of women and girls.

Executive Summary

• Women have used clothing as a way of managing unwanted attention from men and to increase their social mobility in other countries. The practice of veiling as a form of social mobility is common in countries where women’s participation and visibility in public life is limited.
• In Europe and North America, the numbers of women transforming their bodies through strength training and weight lifting are growing, with many successful female athletes acting as role models for women’s autonomy and women’s visibility in the public, male dominated realm of sport.
• Women’s mobility in public spaces is increased by transforming their appearance, and now bodies, to manage unwanted attention. This increased mobility leads to greater presence and visibility of women thereby diminishing two of the reasons that sexual harassment is perpetrated by men against women, firstly by diminishing men’s visible majority over women in numbers and secondly, by diminishing men’s physical strength over women.

Written evidence

1. This submission begins by responding to the question, “are there good practice examples or innovative thinking about tackling sexual harassment in the public realm either in the UK or internationally?” The case study that I will present is based on an ethnographic research project that was conducted by me between 2002-2003 and examined the experiences of women working in the call centre industry of New Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) of India. It has been well documented that women in India are oppressed by widespread discrimination and that violence against women is both socially and culturally legitimated as well as being a daily occurrence for many women. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the outsourcing industry experienced rapid expansion and many women were welcomed into the work force, largely for their abilities to perform emotional labour when dealing with customers from the UK and USA. The sharp increase brought with it a number of challenges for employers as the call centre shifts were performed at night, due to the time difference, and almost all of the call centres were housed in new, purpose-built complexes located outside of the city and away from public transport routes. To guarantee safety of all employees, not just women, and to reassure family members concerned about giving permission to work, employers provided free transport by way of minivans that collected up to ten employees at a time. Not wishing to add to anyone’s commute, as many were already commuting up to two hours each way, employees waited, dressed for the office, outside their homes and on their streets for transport vehicles to arrive. Waits could often be up to one hour. Great care was taken to strategically clothe the body in order to deflect and mitigate unwanted attention. Careful veiling and covering of the body by use of headscarves and shawls allowed women to be visible in public and make their decision to be part of the labour force known to their neighbours and others.

2. The inquiry asks, “What are the factors (including social and cultural factors) that lead to sexual harassment of women and girls in public places?” and “Why does sexual harassment of women and girls in public places happen?” Sexual harassment, as studies have shown, is not about sex but about power. In India and wider South Asian culture, there are long-held beliefs that men and women should be segregated with men occupying the public realm and women occupying the private realm. The Indian case study highlights two contributing factors to the sexual harassment of women by men. Firstly, the evidence shows that men dominate women in public spaces simply by occupying more space in the public realm through numbers. Though women are now more visible in public spaces, these are only certain public spaces and during certain times of the day. Secondly, men dominate women by using their physical size to overcome them. At least one of these two factors, if not both, correlates with accounts from many of the experiences of women reporting sexual harassment in the UK.

3. The inquiry asks, “What are the wider implications for society?” In India, sexual harassment of women is described using the euphemistic term ‘eve-teasing’. This terms normalises sexual harassment and connotes a youthful, adolescent, expected rite-of-passage by using the term ‘teasing’. The downgrading of any form of sexual harassment immediately normalises it and denigrates the seriousness of it and the trauma it can cause to those who are subjected to it. Language is important and a key insight here is to undertake a discursive analysis of language used to discuss and evaluate any policies or laws concerning sexual harassment. In particular, the use of the concept ‘victim’ immediately implies powerlessness. The on-going use of the term ‘victim’ perpetuates a systemic victimisation that builds on the pre-existing trauma of the physical incident. Those who have experienced sexual harassment are not given time and space to recover from the experience as the language used to describe their experience continues to disempower them. Greater use of detailed and stark language to describe all kinds of sexual harassment would make some effort towards preventing the normalising of such behaviours, which is what occurs when using umbrella terms. A new discursive framework to describe, analyse, and investigate women’s experiences of sexual harassment is required.

4. The inquiry asks, “What gaps exist in the evidence about sexual harassment in public places?” Currently, far too much emphasis is placed on women as victims, which only further victimises them. More research must be done to gather evidence on the strategies women use to avoid being harassed in public places. The Indian case study provides a useful starting point for examining women’s approaches to negotiating safety and power in public spaces by using sartorial strategies to manage unwanted attention. A simple reading of veiling practices would suggest that women are hiding or covering their bodies when they are in fact creating vehicles of mobility. Under the veils and shawls, many of the women working in call centres were wearing revealing clothing such as short-sleeved tops, or spaghetti straps. Many of them wore ornate jewellery and make up but rather than shield these from men’s unwanted glances, they created vehicles for safe movement in public by draping fabrics to give them space. Previous studies have been undertaken in the UK (Entwistle, 2000) that make similar arguments about women’s use of the suit jacket in office environments. A key piece of evidence in my study was a taxonomy of strategies to negotiate access to public spaces, this included the use of women only public transport, travelling with relatives or male friends, strategizing time of day and routes for journeys. A similar research exercise in the UK would prove valuable the sharing of data might increase women’s visibility and presence in public spaces by empowering them through the use of these strategies.

5. In Sydney 2000, women’s weightlifting was added as an Olympic medal event, also in that same year was the incorporation of CrossFit, a strength training fitness programme that has now become a global sport. These two developments have contributed to a trajectory that celebrates women’s muscular physiques. In the two decades that have followed, many marketing campaigns and health and wellness campaigns have focussed on the changing woman’s physique due to sport (#thisgirlcan #liftlikeagirl). In ways that can be compared with the use of sartorial strategies to negotiate power and safety in public spaces, women have also embarked on the development, and in some cases transformation, of their bodies to negotiate access, safety, and respect in spaces previously reserved for men such as gyms and weight training facilities.

6. Closer examination of both the use of sartorial strategies and the women’s strengthening programmes suggest that they are not dissimilar in that they are working towards, firstly, increasing women’s actual size in public spaces, be that through increased mobility using clothing or increased muscles through weight training. In essence, women are taking up more room. Secondly, as women take up more physical space, their presence inspires other women to do the same and in doing so, they enable, empower, and make safe other women. In two seemingly opposed ways, veiling and muscles create visibility for women by increasing their size and increasing their numbers.

7. “Include any recommendations for action by the Government or others which you would like the committee to consider.”

• To develop a discursive framework that places women in a position of power and autonomy as opposed one of being the victim;
• To undertake research into women’s individual strategies to manage unwanted attention and to mitigate opportunities for perpetrators to harass them and to develop a taxonomy and shared tool from this data;
• To invest in strength training programming for girls and young women;
• And to invest in a health campaign that promotes muscular strength and size over conventional views of the aesthetics of women’s bodies.

March 2018

References

Basi, JKT (2009) Women, Identity, and India’s Call Centre Industry. London: Routledge.

Entwistle, J. (2000) The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.