How safe are we, the women?

“Women thy name is frailty,” Shakespeare said. This is something to ponder on. Are the women really frail? In what sense are they frail? Are they frail in strength? Frail in their character? Frail in their emotions? Or plainly frail in the sense of their presence in the world?
A girl in Delhi, gang raped in a moving bus and brutally discarded has led to uproar in many cities of India. This is one incident that has been brought to our eyes, all thanks to media. But we know in our hearts that many such incidences happen every day in the lives of women all over the world but remain hidden in the guise of family prestige and fear of becoming an outcast.
Yet, I am sure still many of us in Bhutan hardly cared for this Delhi incident. Then came in the story about our own two Bhutanese girls who were molested by two BMTC employees in Bangalore. Eyebrows of more Bhutanese raised and we could see people in our country too questioning the safety of women in the world.
But come to think of it, how safe are our own Bhutanese women in Bhutan? As an adult I’ve not taken a ride in public buses and I do speak with my fingers crossed hoping against hope that now the scenario would have changed somehow. I remember, back in my childhood days, private cars were luxury affordable for the few affluent only. So as a little girl travelling to my relatives places I remember travelling in buses. The handy boy would pass lewd comments on the female passengers and the other fellow travelers would bellow with laughter, enjoying each moment of the awkward situation in which the woman in question would be put in. Sometimes, one had to witness ghastly scenes of men touching women in awkward places in these buses. Who thought of these actions as more than a simple game men were allowed to play by the default of being born a man?
Today as we witness more such crimes happening in all pockets of the world, we might begin to question ourselves, is this culmination of such casual pranks that has given birth to such horrendous acts? And the most important question to ask is should we allow ourselves to be a victim or even a spectator of such social evils? Can we let these devils in the guise of humans go scot free? Don’t we think that at some point not just the women but even men have a higher price to pay as a father? As a brother? As a husband? Or even for the simple reason of co- existing in the beautiful world created by God for both male and female?
Maybe, today one Damini succumbed to death as a result of the brutish act of six men but how many Daminis should die to wake up the humans in these brutes? How many such horrors should women live to ultimately be blessed with a space to walk free of fear on the Earth in which they were created to live and flourish in?