A few days ago I wrote a post about the Delhi gang rape. It was called “Angry” and it detailed the rage I felt both about what that young woman had suffered and what every woman in this country experiences to greater or lesser degree.

I’m not the only one writing. Or talking. Or expressing my anger. All over the country, and now in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan – people are out on the streets protesting. They are being interviewed on the news; they’re talking with their friends. Their stories are finally coming out. Women are sharing what has been happening to them for as long as they can remember.

But anger isn”t enough. Anger needs to be channeled, directed, made useful. Otherwise, it’s just ranting. Scolding. Nagging. After a while, people stop listening. More to the point, the angry people themselves begin to lose hope. They start to believe that nothing can or will ever change.

Aristotle said:

Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right people, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power and that is far from easy.

We need a strategy, a plan, a timeline. We need to stop lighting candles and shouting slogans and get down to the hard, rewarding work of organizing. That happens person to person, door-to-door, and it ends with concrete political and social change.

This is our moment. What are we going to do with it?

Two suggestions – simple, but effective:

1. Older Women Unite. Women over 40 are a force to be reckoned with. “Old enough to know what you want and young enough to enjoy it,” my Aunt Sheila told me on my 40th birthday.

Aunt Sheila, I’m paraphrasing here: “Young enough to notice an a**h*** and old enough to do something about him.”

Older women are everywhere. We shop, we ride the buses and trains, we teach, we work in offices. We attend weddings, we visit hospitals, we go to the post office. And a lifetime of observing human nature has refined our “something’s not quite right” detectors. We can tell by the way a girl sets her shoulders that she’s expecting trouble. We can smell the testosterone as a gang of boys spots an easy target. We are watching all the time and, because being over 40 renders us invisible: no one is watching us. 

Oooh. What could be better? POUNCE!

Women over 40: We have the power to change the world.Or at least the course of one young woman’s world. If all of us simply resolve never to allow boys or men to intimidate girls or women, just imagine how our neighborhoods could change.

I tested this out yesterday because I didn’t want to just spout advice. I was walking to the local shop and I watched a young girl round the corner. There were three young men standing on the roof of their house and I saw her body stiffen as she noted their presence. She pulled out her cell phone and pretended to be engrossed in it as she walked past. I stopped stock still in the road, turned slowly and dramatically, folded my arms and glared up at them there on the roof. All three of them saw me. All three of them dropped their gaze, looked slightly furtive and ashamed, then turned to each other and started chatting. The whole scene changed. The power equation altered. I was in control and they just looked silly.

Women over 40: All we need to do is to swagger in and take charge. We own this place.

2. Dump the politicians. This is key. We all know that the system routinely, deliberately, systematically fails women. Police, social services, the IAS, the lot. There are procedures, protocols and laws in place. They are excellent as laws go and, if enforced, they would change the face of the nation.  But they are not enforced and we all know why. Why on earth would MLAs and MPs welcome harsh sentences for rapists when most of them have rape charges pending themselves?

Get rid of them. There is no other option.

The “India Against Corruption” Movement exists. We have a choice. We can get rid of these blood-sucking, life-draining sycophants forever. Just say it:  No candidate with any charge against him will ever be allowed to win.

And like everything else worth doing, this means hard work, one voter at a time. Do it! Get out on the street and start talking to your neighbors, your family, your friends. Tell them how you feel about the humiliation, the abuse, the rape – actual or virtual – that women go through every single day. Remind them that they are also women; that they are fathers of girls.

We can change the world. We really, really can.