Eve teasing
Taylor Cook, On e-mail
I am in Bangladesh this summer to intern and study development with an internationally renowned NGO. Unfortunately, I have received almost daily lessons in a particularly disturbing manifestation of South-Asian patriarchy: so-called "Eve teasing." The public groping and verbal harassment in Dhaka is shameless and beyond disgusting. Not only is it psychologically detrimental to me and the entire female population, it has serious consequences for Bangladesh's development as well. A society cannot reach its full potential when half the population lives under daily threat of sexual violence and has to be constantly preoccupied with maintaining their safety and sanity. Women and men who want to live in a stable prosperous society cannot tolerate public violence of any sort. All the Nobel Prize winning programmes in the world will not be of much use until the women and girls of Bangladesh can commute to and from school and work without fear.
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