India – loved it, but I came back feeling so violated.

[LondonLass40]

Just back from the Golden Triangle with my husband (43) and 12yr daughter. Stunning forts, incredible food ( lucky no Delhi belly 😀) amazing history is genuinely breathtaking.

But I’m struggling to process the darker side.

One afternoon in Delhi, my husband stayed at the hotel. I took my daughter to a busy market near cannaught place in broad daylight, crowded. A man walked past and grabbed my breast. Right in front of my daughter. He just kept walking. I froze. My poor girl kept asking why he touched Mummy.

Then there was the constant selfie nonsense when my husband was there and men lining up, putting their arms around me, getting too close while my husband stood there awkwardly not knowing what to do.

And the worst part was at the Red Fort queue. This guy kept pushing into me from behind – clearly not an accident. I turned around and shouted at him. He didn't run, didn't even look embarrassed , he just walked away ignoring me like I was invisible. I spoke to a security guard who just pretend to do something and did absolutely nothing.

I know these issues aren't isolated to India and this could happen in London too. But this was so blatant, so frequent, so relentless that I simply cannot ignore it. I've been to so many tourist destinations around the world and have never experienced harassment on this scale. It felt inescapable.

I don't know – does this only happen to Western women? I'm sure men like this do the same to Indian women too. How on earth do they deal with this every single day? I honestly don't think I'd go back.

This happened to me in Malta. Morning time, I was walking to a bakery in a busy touristy area, I was so shocked that I didn‘t do or say anything, and the guy disappeared just as fast as it happened. Sadly this can and does happen in a lot of places - but it is a reason why I won’t go to Egypt or Tunisia or Morocco or a number of other places where women‘s rights are questionable.

You do realise they are entirely separate countries? Different religions and language too..

Various. Raj mahal. Jaipour etc

What an incredibly couragous young woman, and also thank goodness she has such good, decent parents, and married a decent man. Must have been so hard for them to go against the harsh social mores of the time, and so publicly.

A friend did a PhD in Trieste in the 90s and he said it was still pretty sexually conservative, and the young women would only have sex out of wedlock of they were engaged and the wedding date booked.

But Greece was part of the ottoman empire and they have such a close historical relationship

Is this a question or “question”?

Lots of countries were parts of empires and have close historical relationships. Still doesn’t make them similar or stop them being dissimilar in many ways.

So you admit a Turkish man and a Greek man are fundamentally different? Hmm

Greece were part of the Ottoman empire due to conquest. They fought & gained independence in the early 19th century, and Greeks as well as Armenians suffered genocide from the Turkish army in WW1. Turkey has also become more religiously conservative recently due to Erdoğan although they were founded to be secular.

Plus the Ottoman empire allowed conquered subjects to retain their own religion, customs etc. A little like India has many different customs, a different majority religion despite the British empire, and isn't majority Muslim despite the Muslim Mughals ruling before that.

Yes, she was incredibly brave. And as you say, fortunately her family and husband were unusually supportive compared to the general reaction. It must have been very scary, especially with the Mafia involved.
It does seem that in Italy in general the law was widely being challenged, but it took until 1981 for the marry your rapist law (enshrined in the official Italian Penal Code) to be repealed, and rape was only legally recognised as a crime against an individual woman in 1996.

Yes, I expect it is a bit different now but I think the South & rural areas are still more conservative. I looked a but into the 'passport bro' phenomenon and a common destination for these unpleasant types seemed to be southern Italy in the belief women were more sexually conservative/domestic etc there- a lot of their ideas about countries are incorrect but probably this one has some accuracy.

What even compared to Afghanistan? Or Somalia?

Obviously those are worse

You aren't posting in good faith so i can't be bothered to respond in kind.

It would be wasted time.

India has a female PM and currently has a female president

…and? So was my home country. Actually, parts of it belonged to the Austro Hungarian Empire too, so which country is it now supposed to be indistinguishable from?

For periods in their history, the Ottomans could be fairly liberal in how they handled their vassal states. While not equal to Muslims, other religious groups were granted a large degree of protection and autonomy (this at a time when the Spanish Inquisition was ongoing, and persecuted groups did migrate to the Ottoman Empire to escape this). As long as they remained loyal to the Sultan they were left to manage their own affairs.

Turkey and Greece are different countries. Yes.

But you are bored and bad faith posting again.

That doesn’t mean much. Pakistan has also had a female PM.

Sadly not. Sexual harassment of single women in Japan is common apparently

India has always been a true democracy where the constitution is followed. It's had democratic continuity, whereas Pakistan and Bangladesh have had years and years of coups, military rule and intermitttency.

But it’s track record on women’s rights is abysmal.
So it having a female PM means little.

Same. Not to mention the crowding. Just NO.

It's really a frightening thought. Women's rights and the idea of sexual equality are such a recent thing in the UK, but so many of us thought the direction of travel would continue the same way. And it feels like it has started to fall apart already, cheered on by a completely deluded group of women who consider themselves feminists but pursue the destruction of women's rights with the zeal of a MAGA born again Christian.

The gang rape on Brighton beach is horrific. Grinning Egyptian men raping an English woman in the beach. Sobering. What’s that George Michael song? “What was over there is over here”. How prescient he was.

And they spat on her as they gang raped her. And filmed the rape on their phones.

It has been reported in the MSM that in court one said "to me, rape is sex".
And that another is claiming asylum based on the fact he is a murderer and therefore could potentially face the death penalty in Egypt.

They had been in the UK for just three months when they committed gang rape, btw.

Repeatedly spat on too. A minor detail in the midst of the unimaginable horror she suffered, but one that fully and wholly illustrated their contempt of the woman they were repeatedly raping, kicking and choking.

As left leaning as I am, I would like to see men like this face a firing squad. Then thrown in a hole.

Cross posted with you about the spitting @Noodledog

They had been in the UK for just three months when they committed gang rape, btw.

Fucking fucking hell.