{"id":72712,"date":"2025-07-02T14:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jul\/02\/india-women-safety-public-spaces-home"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:00:06","slug":"women-in-india-dont-want-safe-zones-they-want-to-enjoy-public-spaces-as-equals-nilanjana-bhowmick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72712","title":{"rendered":"Women in India don\u2019t want \u2018safe zones\u2019 \u2013 they want to enjoy public spaces as equals | Nilanjana Bhowmick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Segregation does not make going outside any safer or more comfortable for women \u2013 it only reinforces the idea that the public sphere belongs to men<\/p>\n<p>A couple of weeks ago, I was in an upmarket neighbourhood in Delhi for a photoshoot. The sun was already unforgiving, and only a handful of walkers and joggers had dared to step out in the heat. A few children, on their summer break from school, gave curious glances in our direction, but they quickly lost interest and returned to their games. Women walking by offered quick looks, but the men stared \u2013 every single one who passed us.<\/p>\n<p>Then one went a step further. Mid-shoot, he walked straight up and interrupted us. At first, we smiled \u2013 out of habit, out of conditioning \u2013 thinking that he would leave. But he didn\u2019t. Instead, his questions turned increasingly personal. From \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d to \u201cDo you have an Insta page?\u201d and \u201cWhere do you stay?\u201d, the questions grew increasingly intrusive.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jul\/02\/india-women-safety-public-spaces-home\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Segregation does not make going outside any safer or more comfortable for women \u2013 it only reinforces the idea that the public sphere belongs to menA couple of weeks ago, I was in an upmarket neighbourhood in Delhi for a photoshoot. The sun was already &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[218,353,934,646,59,62,78,440,79,61,2410,281,617,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-development","category-delhi","category-domestic-violence","category-gender","category-global-development","category-india","category-life-and-style","category-sexual-violence","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-violence-against-women-and-girls","category-women","category-womens-rights-and-gender-equality","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72713,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72712\/revisions\/72713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}