Last week, the world was reminded of the horrific Delhi gang rape incident that took place exactly one year ago. The case shook India and the rest of the world, causing women all over the country to demand that the local authorities tighten the laws for sex crimes.
The innocent victim and her boyfriend were on their way from a movie, when four men raped the woman, and attacked her boyfriend. The defenseless woman was not only raped, but the rapists also impaled her with a metal rod and used their hands to tear out her inner organs.
Before her death, the victim, known as Nirbhaya, said that her attackers should be hanged or burned alive, so that an incident like this will never happen to another woman. Nirbhaya died 13 days later while receiving medical treatment all the way in Singapore.
To spread the message about women’s safety in India, a film school in India called Whistling Woods International, released a video to address the problem about the “male gaze”.
The male gaze is often described as a man’s eyes lingering over the curvatures of a woman’s body, to the point where it often becomes uncomfortable for the woman.
The video, called “Dekh Le”, shows numerous situations in which a man leers at a woman in public places, making the woman feel uncomfortable and violated. But instead of just biting their tongue, the women subtly speak up with mirrors that show the men what they look like when they leer at women. The lyrics in the video say in Hindi, “Look how you look when you’re looking at me”.
Whistling Woods International said:
On 16th December 2012, the horrific incident of Nirbhaya’s Rape Case not only shattered Nirbhaya’s family but every single Indian. This incident did trigger a sense of solidarity to stand up, fight against and do our best to eradicate such atrocities & gender inequality.
At Cinema100, 2013, a WWI Initiative to commemorate the completion of 100 years of Indian Cinema, we commissioned our Alumni Ketan Rana to make an ad on Woman Empowerment. Watch the video & Spread the awareness to Think, Reflect & Act!
“Dekh Le” sends a powerful message to women that it is in fact okay to speak up rather than to suffer in silence. The video was also released exactly one year after Nirbhaya’s tragic incident.
Watch the video here and tell us what you think:
