A picture from one of the many programmes for empowerment of women by blank noise project

Hi this will appeared on page 7 of DNA Newspaper, Bangalore. I am working as an intern there. So you are seeing news before its published. Hurray!

Poonam Vaidya

The internet, the newest and most flexible media, can oppress or empower women. As the saying goes, “it’s not the media, but the way it is used.” Pornography, cyber-stalkers, anonymous online attacks, disfiguring photos and forms of sexual harassment and threats are a few ways women are ”virtually” oppressed, while sites and blogs like Blank Noise Project, Ultra Violet and Hengasara Hakkina Sangha empower them.

Blank Noise is a public and participatory arts project begun in August 2003 with a small group of 9 participants. Conceived by  Jasmeen Patheja in August 2003, it started out as a student project at Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in Bangalore as a personal reaction to confront street harassment, commonly known as eve teasing. The project has grown through workshops and local volunteers to a five-city, hundred-plus volunteer project that seeks to address street sexual violence through dialogue made possible as a result of sustained public interventions.

“The site has already grown out of the main url at to include a separate blog for Action Heroes. We also just started ‘Blank Noise Guy’, which invites male reactions and responses to street sexual harassment ” says Hemangini Gupta, Coordinator of the Blank Noise Project. “We are self and volunteer-funded.” She adds.

Through various interventions and techniques the project hopes to bring a change in the public perception of eve teasing. “I did not ‘Ask for It’ is the current main focus of the project, but we are also working on other projects that will start the process of questioning the relationships between clothes and violence inflicted upon women. For instance, we are asking people to send in phrases and sayings in their local language that deal with this assumption that a way a woman behaves determines the way in which she is treated – or the potency her very existence has, in disrupting a household. Another project, Reporting To Remember, which is a project compiling acts of violence against women in the name of culture, tradition and religion is also ongoing” says Hemangini.

Besides these, older projects included making innovative street signs, and a display of daily objects that can be used for self defense, photographing the scene of crime and building a dictionary of words they consider that can be considered as ‘eve teasing’ and Late Night Walks.   A more controversial aspect of the blog is the Bangalore-used ‘Unwanted’, where photos of men accused of Eve Teasing are uploaded and collected.Hengasara Hakkina Sangha is a women’s rights organization’ started in 1993 with a feminist, activist women’s rights resource center based in Bangalore, which aims to trigger a women’s movement in India by providing knowledge about the law and  training poor rural women and NGO activists working with them in Karnataka. Today, NGOs, state institutions, media, civil society organizations, professional organizations, students and trade unions to promote women’s rights through research, documentation and communication. Its main objective is to enable all women to control and transform their lives, their slogan being “Rights, not favours”.

“A lot of people have contacted us regarding the ’sexual harassment at work’ issue. We have also got women in crisis and women and men who want to volunteer to help.” says Usha B.N. of Hengasara Hakkina Sangha, also the Associate Editor of Ultra Violet.

It also began Ultra Violet, a blog which features a community of young feminists blogging on the various issues, challenges, and triumphs that affect women in the areas of gender, law and rights. “It first started only as an experiment, but now has raised awareness, mostly among the youth, who frequent the internet.” says Usha. The blog provides a place to explore and understand young women. It is also a space to celebrate women’s histories, wisdom, creativity, laughter and love for life. ‘Violet’ is the colour of feminism adding ‘Ultra’, makes it ‘extremely violet’ firmly stating that it is a feminist blog and not ‘just another space for women’. “There are no plans to expand right now. We want to keep intact the quality of the website and blog through regular updating, keep it interactive and seek maximum feedback.”

Story Links and Details

Blank Noise

http://blog.blanknoise.org/

http://blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com

http://blanknoiseguy.blogspot.com/

Ultraviolet

http://youngfeminists.wordpress.com/

http://aninditasengupta.com/

http://meenu.wordpress.com/

http://sharanyamanivannan.wordpress.com/about/

http://apusworld.com/blog/

Hengasara Hakkina Sangha

http://hengasarahakkinasangha.org/weare.html

More…..

http://womensblogs.sitagita.com/BlogView.Asp?BId=1080

http://www.workofwomen.org/member_profiles.php

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/about/

http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog

http://feministblogs.org/

A picture from one of the many programmes for empowerment of women by blank noise project

http://womensblogs.sitagita.com/BlogView.Asp?BId=1080

http://www.awid.org/eng/About-AWID/Staff

http://www.indiatogether.org/women/

http://www.indiatogether.org/women/

http://www.sitagita.com/

http://www.saveindianfamily.org/

http://nirati.wordpress.com/

http://womensblogs.sitagita.com/BlogView.Asp?BId=1080

http://www.swingingpuss.com

http://www.blogbharti.com/category/women/

http://infochangeindia.org/Women/

http://www.beginningwithi.com/travel/0806bangalorestreets.html

http://www.sexualharassmentsupport.org/

http://www.imow.org/home/index

http://sexualharassmentsupport.org/blog/2009/02/11/pink-chaddi-campaingn/