’You Thought I’d Be Ashamed?’ Mangaluru Woman gives it back to stalker in Scathing Post

’You Thought I’d Be Ashamed?’ Mangaluru Woman gives it back to stalker in Scathing Post

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Jun 28, 2017: Every single woman in our country has tales of being sexual harassed in some form or the other. They get pinched, groped and ogled at everyday.

But when it comes to responding to harassers many often find themselves in "you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t" situation. In many cases dealing with it becomes so exhausting that women often choose not to report the incident.

 

These days, social media has emerged as a space where scores of women voice their personal experiences with harassers. This in turn encourages other women to speak out for themselves. More recently, Rashmi Shetty, a 22-year-old woman from Mangaluru, chose to take down her stalker with a scathing Facebook message.

"So confident that if I asked for help I’ll never be able to prove your fault? And that people wouldn’t take my side or take me seriously? Well, guess what? I take my side. These streets are as much mine as they are of undeserving assholes like you. You or a hundred like you will not scare me into staying home and not being free," she writes

Rashmi, who is pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions in Bihar, says this is not her first time being catcalled and followed. This time she decided to retaliate by shaming the stalker by revealing his scooter’s number plate.

Her post speaks for each and every woman who has been sexually harassed. Read the post below:

KA 19 EU 0932
You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?

I was followed by the guy who this scooter belongs to today in broad daylight. In a busy street in Mangalore. 3pm in the noon in the center of the city, from Aloysius degree college to Balmatta, to a guy dares to follow a woman who’s walking while there is a swarm of cops thirty steps behind.

You think you can halt a million times ahead of me and honk at me while I cross you as you take a good fucking look at my butt? And that would embarrass me enough to cry at my fate of being a woman in this country, this generation, this world?

You think I’d freak out and run so fast that I fucking run into your arms? You think you stopping and making phone calls to your gang would would threaten me into never getting out alone? So confident that if I asked for help if never be able to prove your fault? And that people wouldn’t take my side or take me seriously?

Well, guess what? I take my side. These streets are as much mine as they are of undeserving assholes like you. You or a hundred like you will not scare me into staying home and not being free. This is a message from all the strong girls to you and your likes: if you try curtailing our freedom, we will fight back.

And we will knock you down. I was only waiting for you to make a move so I can smack your face with my heels- the same ones you were trying so hard to catch up with. And you think you can do anything under the veil of anonymity? Here, I’m not anonymous anymore. And I won’t let you be either. And let me repeat, I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU.

I hope this reaches you somehow.

You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?

You’re the one who should be both.

And yeah, F**K YOU.

And that’s how you take down a stalker. Every word in her speaks for rage and utter frustration that women go through. You go girl!