Hi! We are a team of three researchers looking at the state of moral policing of women in India. We believe it is a cause for concern, and a survey that we are conducting is our starting point.   

Most of the questions in this survey need you to mark the answer that is applicable to you. You are, however, free to add your own personal comments to most of the questions. We would like to know of your own experiences and opinions.  It should not take too much of your time either. 

http://www.moralpol icing.in/survey/index.php?sid=44597&lang=en   We would also be thankful if you could spread the word about this survey. The researchers can be reached at moralpolicingindia@gmail.com.

Thank you so much! ~ Ravisha, Ritika, Subir

http://www.moralpolicing.in/  

Dear Friend

I vividly remember my biology class on reproduction. There we were a bunch of 14-year-old boys and girls, giggly and uncomfortable, trying very hard not to look at the pictures of male and female sex organs in our textbooks. I think the teacher must have spent all of 10 minutes on the subject and we were happy just to get it over with. Some 25 odd years later, nothing has changed. Sex education remains a taboo for most schools.

Take the recently reported case of a 15-year-old living in a colony in suburban Mumbai. The girl, who comes from a middle class family, was in a relationship with a boy in her school for over a year. They used birth control rarely. She knew nothing about it and the boy claimed it was not required. She found out she was pregnant when her mother noticed a swelling on her stomach and insisted she gets tested. She is 4 months pregnant, too late to have an abortion. Her boyfriend has been arrested and she has dropped out of school.

Dr Duru Shah further adds,” People are going to have sex. Spreading information on safe sex will not increase sexual activity. It will ensure people have safe sex.”

Lack of information from proper channels forces teenagers to turn to the Internet or friends.  “My 12 year old daughter came from school and told me babies are born when papas rape mamas”, recounts the mother of two teenagers. “I had rather they heard about sex from the school than the school bus."

Three years ago, education authorities at the central government level proposed starting an ‘Adolescent Health education” program in schools around the country. That has since gone into cold storage.  It’s time to take a serious look at it because sexuality education is critical to save lives.

From https://www.facebook.com/events/142973995807009 -

Join us for a candid discussion with Samhita Mukhopadhyay, U.S.-based feminist writer and editor of prominent feminist blog Feministing.com, about ways to utilize the blogosphere as an activist tool, and a reading from her recent book: Outdated: How Dating is Ruining Your Love Life (Seal Press, 2011). Outdated addresses the difficulty of negotiating loving relationships within the borderlands of race, culture, class, and sexuality—and of holding true to our convictions and maintaining our independence while we do it.

BIO: Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a writer, speaker and technologist residing in Brooklyn, NY. Mukhopadhyay is a sought after speaker, regularly lecturing at college and universities and at conferences about race, politics, technology, sexuality and feminism. She has a BA from the State University of New York at Albany in Women’s Studies and Sociology and an MA from San Francisco State in Women and Gender Studies where her research focused on the politics of the feminist blogosphere.

• • When

    Saturday, December 3, 2011
  • Time

    6:00pm until 9:00pm

• Where

  1 Riviera CHS, 15th Road, Santa Cruz W, Mumbai, India