{"id":2266,"date":"2013-09-04T06:42:01","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T10:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2015-03-13T22:35:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T02:35:17","slug":"safety-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Safety in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lately there have been some scary articles about how dangerous it is to be a female tourist in India. This article is a wonderful counterpoint to that, speaking for the many female tourists who have a wonderful and safe time in India.<\/p>\n

She makes some wonderful points, including that in many cases the expectation you have going in is going to inform your experience.<\/p>\n

A while back there was a nasty troll on my Facebook fan page<\/a>. He started out by telling me that if I ever visited India, I would be raped.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I informed him that I have visited India and never felt unsafe for a single moment. He started asking what my gender was, apparently thinking I must be a man (this was the first clue he wasn\u2019t a friend if he hadn\u2019t even looked at my pictures or clicked around enough to know I was a woman!) I didn\u2019t want to engage with him but I was very frustrated by this implication that a woman cannot enjoy India without getting raped! So I told him to go look at the photo album. He came back from that to say that of course I wasn\u2019t raped: I was dark-haired and chunky.<\/p>\n

He confidently told me that if I were slimmer and blonde, I would be raped for sure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At that point I blocked him (and tried to report him to FB, but apparently telling someone they are too ugly to be raped doesn\u2019t \u201cviolate the community standards\u201d at FB!) But there wasn\u2019t much I could say against his point. I am dark haired. I was actually pretty slender when I went to India a couple years ago. I\u2019ve put on a little weight since then!<\/p>\n

But I knew there were women who stood out as more foreign than me who were having a wonderful time visiting India. Finally there is an article saying just that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, no one\u2019s account can and should be generalised \u2014 one sixth of humanity lives in India; there are many Indias in India; every traveler interacts only with a small fraction of Indians, and can thus only give a tiny fragment of the true Indian experience \u2014 whatever that is. But I believe that we make our experiences as much as our experiences make us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not to say that rape doesn\u2019t happen. It certainly does and I don\u2019t mean to make light of anyone\u2019s experience. My heart goes out to those Indian women who have been raped. There is some reform that needs to happen. Not just in India, but here in America and in other parts of the world as well. Women need to be valued as human beings, not as objects or lesser creatures who owe something to others. I applaud those women<\/a> who are working hard<\/a> to make India safer for women.<\/p>\n

There are men who behave inappropriately all over the world. It happens in India and it happens here.<\/p>\n

I think it is very valuable what Ms. Jane<\/a>\u00a0von Rabenau<\/a> has to say. I think she has a vastly different experience because she looks at the people around her as human beings and she trusts them to be such<\/strong>. A lot of the articles scaring women away from touring India have a racist undertone that makes it sound like Indian men are somehow more brutish or animilistic than western men. This is ridiculous and dangerous. If we start to believe that, then we start treating good men as though they are criminals.<\/p>\n

I think Ms. Jane von Rabenau\u2019s<\/a> article needs to have as many views as the one she is reacting off of. I\u2019ve done my best to help this story go viral and I hope that you will also share this link whenever opportunity arises!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about how dangerous it is to be a female tourist in India. This article is a wonderful counterpoint to that, speaking for the many female tourists who have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":2269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[121,6,53,911,912,906,910,909,913,907,914,5,908,915],"class_list":["post-2266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-the-life","tag-ambaa","tag-hindu","tag-hinduism","tag-how-to-travel-safely-in-india","tag-india-today","tag-jane-von-rabenau","tag-rape-in-india","tag-safe-travel-in-india","tag-safety-in-india","tag-touring-india","tag-traveling-to-india","tag-white-hindu","tag-women-in-india","tag-women-traveling-alone"],"yoast_head":"\nSafety in India<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Safety in India\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The White Hindu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-04T10:42:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-14T02:35:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/317\/2013\/09\/jane-1_660_090213023506.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ambaa Choate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ambaa Choate\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/\",\"name\":\"Safety in India\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-04T10:42:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-14T02:35:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1\"},\"description\":\"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Safety in India\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/\",\"name\":\"The White Hindu\",\"description\":\"The journey of an American convert to Hinduism.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1\",\"name\":\"Ambaa Choate\",\"description\":\"Ambaa is an American woman of European ancestry who is also a practicing Hindu. She is fascinated with questions of philosophy, culture, and the meaning of life. Join her in the journey to explore how a non-Indian convert to Hinduism experiences her religion.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/author\/whitehindu\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Safety in India","description":"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Safety in India","og_description":"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/","og_site_name":"The White Hindu","article_published_time":"2013-09-04T10:42:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-14T02:35:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":"660","height":"533","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/317\/2013\/09\/jane-1_660_090213023506.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ambaa Choate","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ambaa Choate","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/","name":"Safety in India","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-09-04T10:42:01+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-14T02:35:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1"},"description":"Today I want to talk about this article I saw on Twitter over the weekend: India and A Blonde Tourist. Lately there have been some scary articles about","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2013\/09\/safety-in-india\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Safety in India"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/","name":"The White Hindu","description":"The journey of an American convert to Hinduism.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1","name":"Ambaa Choate","description":"Ambaa is an American woman of European ancestry who is also a practicing Hindu. She is fascinated with questions of philosophy, culture, and the meaning of life. Join her in the journey to explore how a non-Indian convert to Hinduism experiences her religion.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/author\/whitehindu\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}