As a Girl in India, I Learned to Be Afraid of Men

My first sense as a young girl of sexual menace came from my Indian grandfather. He never sexually threatened or molested me. But he made sure I knew that the world in which I, a girl, was growing up was perilous to women. Screaming reproaches at my dress or my uppity talk, he made it clear that the only way to protect myself from the ever-present danger of men was by conducting and dressing myself with impeccable modesty, by making myself as invisible as possible. He also made me understand that, in the way of a wolf pup, my survival in the world of the alpha male depended on avoiding eye contact or any other sign of a pretense to equal status.

My grandfather was a conservative patriarch who ruled over a household overflowing with women and children: my grandmother, my two then-unmarried aunts, my uncle's wife, and their three children. Every one of these individuals jumped at his command, fearful of his quick and unpredictable temper. The fear he wanted me to feel toward men in general—the best way...