Hyderabad: When women are humanised in our minds, we will become far more sensitive, said actor-director Rahul Ravindran on Saturday while addressing a panel discussion on sexual harassment in public spaces and what men can do differently.
He was speaking at the fourth edition of the ‘Stand with Her’ campaign’s panel discussion series, held here in the city on the theme “Public Spaces as Shared Spaces”. The Times of India is media partner for the campaign. The panel brought together filmmaker Sekhar Kammula and Women’s Safety Wing DG Charu Sinha among others.
Ravindran spoke about the shift in mindset that men needed to make. He said popular culture often reduced women to objects of desire, leaving men ill-equipped to see them as equals. “Once, if you can just smile at them and they can see that you are not a threat, your life becomes richer,” he said. On the importance of speaking up, he was direct: the sacrifices women make to share their experiences are enormous, and men owe them the basic courtesy of listening without judgement. “As men, we should make it comfortable for them to open up to us,” he said.
Sekhar Kammula said the problem often ran deeper than deliberate misconduct, with much of it stemming from unconscious behaviour that men did not recognise as harmful. He noted that in his films he had tried to show considerate and respectful men not as heroes, but as ordinary people. “It is not so simple, but we have to create an environment that will make women feel safe,” he said, adding that men in positions of authority carried a particular responsibility to act rather than stay silent.
DG Charu Sinha said women had spent years normalising what should never have been acceptable, adjusting their clothes, routes and behaviour to manage men around them. “Your presence is a choice. You have to make it safe for women around you,” she said. The discussion closed with what remains at the heart of the campaign: “Be a man. Stand up for women.”
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