India, May 4 -- Women know exactly how vulnerable we are in public, but whenever we speak about it men seem to believe that the solution is to learn the art of self defence. "Teach your daughter karate so she can defend herself when she is sexually harassed", they say, quite forgetting that that even being among the best wrestlers in the world didn't save Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat from being sexually abused, or that a number of police officers trained in the use of firearms were among the victims of HD Prajwal Revanna.

While the only long term strategy to reducing sexual harassment is a combination of behaviour change communication directed at men and speedy legal action being taken against the perpetrators, we know that calling out...