Women spaces- the only answer to harrasment?

I came across this article in Hindu, with the same title as the one given above. The articles talks about giving women a space for themselves as the only way to reduce sexual harassment. It comes up with the ideas of women only cabs, women only trains, women only floors in hotels and so on in different parts of the world. But how effective are these?

India have also got the same provisions. There are ladies only car in trains, there are taxis for women in metros like Bombay and yet the harassment and eve teasing has not dipped even for the sake of it. Only recently was there a report about a small girl who was hospitalised after being chased by a gang of men in Bombay. What does that mean? Is the path to the future actually taking u back to the stone age behaviour? Am sure the men during that time would have treated women with more respect than what is being shown now.

I may not be well versed with the ways of the world, and i certainly am not a feminist, but my heart certainly goes out for the women community for the chauvinism shown to them by the a minority of the male community. Education was supposed to bridge the gap between the opposite sex, but the same is found to have been a failure in this endeavour. Not just in India, but every where.

Education, "the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life", has lost it's soul purpose in the course of time. It is only a means to get ahead in life, it has become a selfish act rather than a selfless act.

What many of the men lack is the ability to respect women for what they are, to have a lady stand up tall and yet be happy for her. By respect i do not mean the respect shown for your mother or your elder sister, but towards everyone in the opposite sex irrespective of age, occupation and the likes, to accept the individuals as they are. All the mistreatment unleashed upon women is only a way to vent a guy's frustration, a way to regain control over the females, a control they never had in the first place to begin with.

Once you start respecting others, then it is not possible for you to hurt them. once you start accepting others as one among you, it's hard for you to mistreat them. If males can be friends with others of the same sex in spite of the various back grounds they hail from, in spite of the different behavioral traits, in spite of different characters, then why cant we open up to the females? Why cant we treat them as one among equals, why cant we show them respect, grace, love? Why cant we enjoy life along side them rather than over them? Why should we be skeptical about them?

Woman is one of the greatest treasure than god has created for men to lead a happy life. It's true that they bring sadness but you can never be complete unless you have the shade of a female on you. I would like to end this with the words of a person i met once,...

"Girls are like clay, they can be moulded into any which way a guy wants. The only question to be answered is how we want to handle it. Should we handle it with care, love, tenderness and make a great model or should we treat them with chauvinism, power and cruelty and break it at an early stage".