For generations, we have heard women tell horrific stories of being groped, touched and caressed without consent. In a patriarchal society, such violence is often a “punishment” for being on the street, being open, or being “difficult.” Essentially, it is a punishment for a woman for appearing in public and taking up space. The “punisher” can be a stranger, a friend, a relative, or sometimes a man in uniform.
Lately, our social media timelines are full of videos Demonstrators are attacked of men in uniform. On October 3, 2026, during a protest at Jantar Mantar, a young journalist questioned Deputy Commissioner of Police Vivek Bhagat about the absence of women police personnel at the protest site. In response: The AKP allegedly fumbled her and pushed her away. This is something that no male journalist asking the same question would have faced. A man might have been pushed or held; However, her “punishment” wasn’t just for asking the question; it was also because of being a woman. That is the only reason the “punishment” was meted out by her body. Later, The journalist was arrested At the same time, an FIR against the AKP is required to be registered.
The Indian state has a notorious history of using institutions designed to protect citizens, especially women, from them. These include cases of rape in custody, mass sexual violence by security forces and organized campaigns against women who dare to question those in power. We have numerous parallels around the world.
During the Tahrir Square protests in Cairo in 2011, the same square, celebrated as a place where women spent nights in tents, led marches and spoke on stages, became a site of violence when protesting women were stripped and attacked. Imprisoned women were subjected to coercive measures “Virginity tests” and they were threatened with prostitution charges if they “failed” the test. When the military was questioned about the tests, a spokesperson told CNN“The girls who were arrested were nothing like your daughter or my daughter.” First, these women were abused; Then her character was put on trial.
In 2019, during the protests in Chile, human rights institutions documented sexual violence by police against detained protesters, including forced disrobing. All of these police crackdowns on demonstrators have a common goal: to “correct” protesting women.
The body as a place of control
The disciplines of femininity have no single executor. The rules about how a woman should appear and behave are not enforced by a single authority; Rather, they are enforced by everyone and by institutions. From a young age, women learn to experience their own bodies as objects to be stared at, judged, or violated; These experiences lead to a hesitant and restricted way of finding one’s way around the space. Women then engage in “security work” by self-censoring, self-deprecating, and remaining overly vigilant to “protect” themselves. Through this security work, we control ourselves and subject ourselves to disciplinary power, making it a mundane, monotonous task that women simply do in order to exist.
Uninvited touch, then, asserts that women’s bodies are “available” to others. The behavior of a woman’s body is constantly negotiated intersubjectively and is linked to the patterns of social interaction in which she exists. The sociologist Liz Kelly in her work Surviving sexual violenceuses the term “Continuum of Violence” argue that everyday acts of violence, often dismissed as “minor acts” such as stalking, whistling, commenting, groping and flashing, are not separate from more serious acts of violence such as rape and murder. Rather, they are closely linked to each other. All of these actions treat women’s bodies as something that men have “access” to without permission.
Women cannot predict how events will unfold after a nasty comment or whether an incident will end with a comment or escalate. Therefore, everyday acts of harassment lie on the same continuum as rape. These persistent, low-level threats ensure that women remain cautious and vigilant, even those who may not have experienced sexual violence themselves.
Protesting women pose a threat to patriarchal institutions
Hostility toward women protesters is not just a reaction to the issues they are protesting; It is also directed against the protest action of women themselves. When state institutions are anchored in patriarchal norms, they take harsher action against women. This reflects intolerance towards women asserting their own voice, challenging authority and claiming public space by participating in protests.
Protesting women are often labeled as immoral, loud, uncultured and a disgrace to their families and communities. They do not fit into the patriarchal image of “decent” women. Once they are portrayed as “unrespectable,” violence against them, presented as a disciplinary measure to “fix” them, is legitimized by patriarchal institutions. The deeply masculine culture of institutions such as the police and security forces is manifested in the use of sexualized forms of violence, such as groping, pulling protesters by their clothing, and insulting protesters. These are not just crowd control tactics; it is also targeted humiliation.
In addition, the images of such experiences have a strong deterrent effect on other women. What deters them most, however, is the impunity of the police and security forces, which comes from those in higher positions of authority. On July 31st we all saw one Prime Minister’s video in which he repeatedly mentioned the “culture shock” he experienced when he heard the protesters’ profanities. However, he never once mentioned the use of force against female protesters. The Prime Minister conveniently overlooked the sexual assaults faced by women and chose not to demand accountability from the police and security forces. This lack of accountability towards police and security forces has been seen at every recent protest and emboldened these men in uniform.
In 2023, we all remember what female wrestlers were like kidnapped and attacked by Delhi Police during a protest against Bharatiya Janata Party leader and then MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, whom they accused of sexual harassment. Three years later, on the same sidewalk, we saw protesters being beaten, and in several cases even police officers Sexually harassing women were recorded.
During the protests in June we saw Additional DCP Sandeep Lamba hits a protester. Over the past week, we have been appalled by the brutality of the Delhi Police, particularly against women. Police officers have not only been accused of attacking protesters, but have also been seen doing so Protection of right-wing extremist thugs who use sexualized forms of violence against young women Protesters.
The rejection of shame
Patriarchal forces always seem to forget that the body they use as a weapon against women belongs to them. We are the owners of our own bodies. Therefore, the perpetrators’ various tactics to hurt and silence women fail to silence them; Women reclaim the narrative of shame the moment they refuse to accept it. Using women’s bodies as weapons only works as long as women continue to bear the burden of shame. The moment women reject this shame and others refuse to look away, this tactic of teaching them a lesson begins to fail.
In recent months, we have seen powerful men use age-old patriarchal tactics to shame and bully young protesters, but these attempts have utterly failed. Every day, demonstrators bravely and tirelessly reclaim the streets.
The regime is making a mistake by not recognizing who it is dealing with. These are women who were groped on buses, followed in lanes, and touched by relatives in spaces that were supposed to be safe, but still went to school, to work, to the streets, to protests. They raise their voices for themselves and for the women alongside them, and any attempt to silence them only adds one more woman to the crowd.