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Talking about empowerment is odd,
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because when we talk about empowerment,
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what affects us most are the stories.
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So I want to begin with an everyday story.
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What is it really like to be a young woman in India?
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Now I've spent the last 27 years of my life
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in India, lived in three small towns,
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two major cities,
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and I've had several experiences.
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When I was seven,
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a private tutor who used to come home
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to teach me mathematics molested me.
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He put his hand up my skirt.
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He put his hand up my skirt and told me
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he knew how to make me feel good.
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At 17, a boy from my high school
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circulated an email
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detailing all the sexually aggressive things
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he could do to me
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because I didn't pay attention to him.
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At 19, I helped a friend
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whose friends had forcefully
married her to an older man
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escape an abusive marriage.
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At 21, when my friend and I were walking
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down the road one afternoon,
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a man pulled down his pants
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and masturbated in front of us.
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We called people for help, and nobody came.
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At 25, when I was walking home one evening,
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two men on a motorcycle attacked me.
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I spent two nights in hospital
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recovering from trauma and injuries.
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So throughout my life, I've seen women
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— family, friends, colleagues —
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live through these experiences,
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and they seldom talk about it.
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So in simple words, life in India is not easy.
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But today I'm not going to talk to you about this fear.
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I'm going to talk to you about an interesting path
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of learning that this fear took me.
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So what happened one night in December 2012
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changed my life.
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So a young girl, a 23-year old student,
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boarded a bus in Delhi with her male friend.
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There were six men on the bus, young men
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who you might encounter every day in India,
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and the chilling account of what followed
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was played over and over again
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in the Indian and international media.
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This girl was raped repeatedly,
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forcefully penetrated with a blunt rod,
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beaten, bitten, and left to die.
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Her friend was gagged, attacked,
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and knocked unconscious.
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She died on the 29th of December.
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Another time, when most of us here
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were preparing to welcome the new year,
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India plunged into darkness.
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For the first time in our history,
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men and women in Indian cities
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woke up to the horrific truth
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about the true state of women in the country.
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Now, like many other young women,
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I was absolutely terrified.
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I couldn't believe that something like this
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could happen in a national capital.
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I was angry and I was frustrated,
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but most of all, I felt utterly, completely helpless.
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But really, what do you do, right?
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Some write blogs, some ignore it,
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some join protests.
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I did all of it. In fact, that's what everyone was doing
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two years ago.
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So the media was filled with stories about
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all the horrific deeds
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that Indian men are capable of.
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They were compared to animals,
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sexually repressed beasts.
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In fact, so alien and unthinkable was this event
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in an Indian mind
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that the response from the Indian media,
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public, and politicians, proved one point:
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no one knew what to do.
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And no one wanted to be responsible for it.
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In fact, these were a few insensitive comments
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which were made in the media
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by prominent people
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in response to sexual violence
against women in general.
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So the first one is made by a member of parliament,
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the second one is made by a spiritual leader,
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and the third one was actually
the defendants' lawyer
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when the girl was fighting for her life
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and she passed away.
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Now, as a woman watching this day after day,
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I was tired.
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So as a writer and gender activist,
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I have written extensively on women,
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but this time, I realized it was different,
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because a part of me realized
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I was a part of that young woman too,
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and I decided I wanted to change this.
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So I did something spontaneous, hasty.
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I logged on to a citizen journalism platform
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called iReport,
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and I recorded a video talking about
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what the scene was like in Bangalore.
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I talked about how I felt,
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I talked about the ground realities,
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and I talked about the frustrations of living in India.
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In a few hours, the blog was shared widely,
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and comments and thoughts poured in
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from across the world.
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In that moment, a few things occurred to me.
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One, technology was always at hand
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for many young women like me.
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Two, like me, most young women
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hardly use it to express their views.
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Three, I realized for the first time
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that my voice mattered.
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So in the months that followed,
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I covered a trail of events in Bangalore
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which had no space in the mainstream news.
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In Cubbon Park, which is a big park in Bangalore,
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I gathered with over a hundred others
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when groups of young men came forward
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to wear skirts to prove that clothing
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does not invite rape.
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When I reported about these events,
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I felt I had charge, I felt like I had a channel
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to release all the emotions I had inside of me.
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I attended the town hall march
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when students held up signs saying
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"Kill them, hang them."
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"You wouldn't do this to your mothers or sisters."
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I went to a candlelight vigil
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where citizens gathered together
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to talk about the issue of sexual violence openly,
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and I recall a lot of blogs
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in response to how worrying the situation was
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in India at that point.
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Now, the reactions confused me.
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While supportive comments poured
in from across the world,
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as did vicious ones.
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So some called me a hypocrite.
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Some called me a victim, a rape apologist.
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Some even said I had a political motive.
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But this one comment kind of describes
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what we are discussing here today.
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But I was soon to learn that this was not all.
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As empowered as I felt
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with the new liberty that this
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citizen journalism channel gave me,
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I found myself in an unfamiliar situation.
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So sometime last August, I logged onto Facebook
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and I was looking through my news feed,
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and I noticed there was a link
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that was being shared by my friends.
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I clicked on the link: it led me back
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to a report uploaded by an American girl
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called Michaela Cross.
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The report was titled,
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"India: The story you never wanted to hear."
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And in this report, she recounted her firsthand
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account of facing sexual harassment in India.
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She wrote, "There is no way to prepare for the eyes,
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the eyes that every day stared
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with such entitlement at my body,
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with no change of expression
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whether I met their gaze or not.
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Walking to the fruit seller's or the tailor's,
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I got stares so sharp
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that they sliced away bits of me piece by piece."
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She called India a traveler's
heaven and a woman's hell.
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She said she was stalked, groped,
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and masturbated at.
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Now, late that evening, the report went viral.
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It was on news channels across the world.
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Everyone was discussing it.
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It had over a million views,
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a thousand comments and shares,
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and I found myself witnessing
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a very similar thing.
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The media was caught in this vicious cycle
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of opinion and outburst
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and no outcome whatsoever.
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So that night, as I sat wondering
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how I should respond,
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I found myself filled with doubt.
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You see, as a writer, I approached this issue
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as an observer,
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as an Indian, I felt embarrassment and disbelief,
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and as an activist, I looked
at it as a defender of rights,
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but as a citizen journalist,
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I suddenly felt very vulnerable.
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I mean, here she was, a young woman
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who was using a channel to talk about
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her experience just as I was,
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and yet I felt unsettled.
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You see, no one ever tells you
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that true empowerment comes from giving yourself
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the permission to think and act.
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Empowerment is often made to sound as if
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it's an ideal, it's a wonderful outcome.
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When we talk about empowerment, we often
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talk about giving people access to materials,
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giving them access to tools.
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But the thing is, empowerment is an emotion.
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It's a feeling.
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The first step to empowerment
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is to give yourself the authority,
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the key to independent will,
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and for women everywhere,
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no matter who we are or where we come from,
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that is the most difficult step.
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We fear the sound of our own voice,
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for it means admission, but it is this that gives us
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the power to change our environment.
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Now in this situation where I was faced
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with so many different kinds of realities,
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I was unsure how to judge,
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because I didn't know what it would mean for me.
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I feared to judge because I
didn't know what it would be
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if I didn't support the same view as this girl.
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I didn't know what it would mean for me
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if I was challenging someone else's truth.
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But yet, it was simple.
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I had to make a decision:
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should I speak up or should I stay quiet?
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So after a lot of thought,
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I recorded a video blog in response,
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and I told Michaela, well,
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there are different sides to India,
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and I also tried to explain, you know,
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I tried to explain that things would be okay
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and I expressed my regret for what she had faced.
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And a few days later, I was invited to talk
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on air with her,
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and for the first time, I reached out to this girl
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who I had never met, who was so far away,
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but yet I felt so close to.
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Since this report came to light,
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more young people than ever
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were discussing sexual harassment on the campus,
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and the university that Michaela belonged to
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gave her the assistance she needed.
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The university even took measures
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to train its students to equip them
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with the skills that they need
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to confront challenges such as harassment,
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and for the first the time, I felt I wasn't alone.
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You see, if there's anything that I've learned
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as an active citizen journalist
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over the past few years,
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it is our dire lack as a society to actively find
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avenues where our voices can be heard.
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We don't realize that when we are standing up,
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we are not just standing up as individuals,
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we are standing up for our communities,
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our friends, our peers.
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Most of us say that women are denied their rights,
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but the truth is, oftentimes,
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women deny themselves these rights.
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In a recent survey in India,
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95 percent of the women who work in I.T.,
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aviation, hospitality, and call centers,
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said they didn't feel safe returning home alone
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after work in the late hours or in the evening.
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In Bangalore, where I come from,
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this number is 85 percent.
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In rural areas in India,
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if anything is to go by the recent
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gang rapes in [Badar?] and acid attacks in Odisha
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and Aligarh are supposed to go by,
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we need to act really soon.
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Don't get me wrong:
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the challenges that women will face
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in telling their stories is real,
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but we need to start pursuing
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and trying to identify mediums
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to participate in our system
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and not just pursue the media blindly.
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Today, more women than ever
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are standing up and questioning
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the government in India,
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and this is a result of that courage.
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There is a sixfold increase in women
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reporting harassment,
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and the government passed
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the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act in 2013
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to protect women against sexual assault.
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As I end this talk,
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I just want to say
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that I know a lot of us in this room have our secrets,
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but let us speak up.
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Let us fight the shame and talk about it.
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It could be a platform, a community,
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your loved one, whoever or whatever you choose,
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but let us speak up.
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The truth is, the end to this problem
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begins with us.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)