Sunday, September 8, 2013

All Talk !

Not so long ago, I had written a post about how a couple of girls in the North East were molested by a group of men, and how it was unceremoniously captured on camera.  It was the biggest media coupe at that time, with almost every other "literal" (mark my word here, I mean literal who may not necessarily be educated!) person, expressing their disgust on Facebook (that's where the likes are !).  Approximately a year has passed and those poor girls have gone into the oblivion. Their per pretors are nowhere being discussed or no more are the people lighting candles for their punishment. 

After this incident, happened the Nirbhaya incident, the brutal gang rape case of a physiotherapy student which was soon followed by the horrific story of a 5 yrs old being sadistically raped of her childhood. Again, these incidents were media fodder for quite some time, people discussed it vehemently on whatsapp and what-not, and not before long these incidents are too biting the dust. 

The latest media sensation was the gangrape of journalist in Mumbai - a city that was once regarded as the safest city in the country. People are back quoting their pseudo-intelligent but largely unavaialable thoughts and garnering the "likes" and "views" and "opinion" of the like-minded.!

The first two times these incidents happened, as a woman, I was shocked and burned my heart out on the social media ( yaa my pseudo thoughts, for a penny!). Then as more and more such incidents began to roll, I began to care less. These days when I read of such a news, my first thoughts are thank god I am not in India, and thank god my sister is planning to get out there soon. I don't want to justify my apathy, but somewhere the general pattern of all these cases have made me callous. 

When I read notes of my male collegues, discussing how women "should" be respected and how they will teach their kids to "recognise a woman's heart under her clothes", I can't but smirk  ! It were exactly these collegues who drew graphs based on a woman's appearance, who rated how woman looked and who openly discussed that a "girl should not be so loud" ! Some of these guys are my best friends, and I know for a fact they wouldn't do wrong to anyone, but aren't these sort of sexist ideas, the basic reason of the hitherto upmanship of the male gender ?

I thought a lot about why do men rape women and the answer is simply to assert power ! Which brings us to the next part, why do men need to assert their power ? Simple...because all their life they have been told that woman are expected to follow a certain code of conduct, failing which they have a right to punish. The worst punishment (even before murder) is to rape her and shame her.  Sometimes there are lesser evil punishments, judge her, gossip about her and just stare at her until she herself get embarrassed. Somewhere the root cause of this code-of-coduct coming into existence is the sexism that has been all prevalent in the society. And in all societies, not just ours.  It's eradication is going to be the responsibility of each individual family, and I can only hope they do their parts right. 

No punishment can deter the occurrence of these events, and they can only be curbed by prevention. As a woman in India (who has been a victim of hidden molestation, unabashed leaching and yet become so de-sensitized to it), I can only count days before such incidents happen again. And one other thing, make sure my sons are brought up right !

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I heard what you said and I probably know where this is coming from
Appreciate that you will make sure your sons are brought up right…
Now let’s face the facts… We are a patriarchal society. It’s all an ego issue, it always has been. The dominance over women begins at home. I am myself, not sure if I would be able to stand a woman who is more successful than me at home. But let me cross that bridge when I reach it. The “abhimaan” comes into picture. But that’s exactly the point… That’s what I have to change in me and every person I know, that I can influence.
I agree to most of it except
1. The male colleagues who drew graphs based on other women’s appearances were probably just appreciating the girl. That’s like healthy flirting Or when you play FLAMES with your girl friends Or rate a man on a scale of 1 to 10 on his physique. I think we want our society to be atleast this open about our feelings, don’t we? So does that mean asking a girl you like out on a date or for a dance also show sexist beahviour? Again subduing these feelings would result into passive aggressive sexual behavior. Won’t we become a Taliban of sorts?? The good thing that you mention is you believe these colleagues would do no harm to that girl. Phew… That’s a relief to hear… Probably because they are better than that and can take an educated decision before any action… That’s exactly my point that I made.
2. Another point is that no amount of punishment can stop these crimes…Not entirely true. I mean we never know what works for whom? Even if 10% of probable rapists/criminals are dissuaded by the punishment; it works for me.
3. And lastly talk is important… we are a free country, last that I checked . Some of the best reforms have been through editorials and speeches. Maybe that “commenting” on some “glamorous” platform like Facebook irks you off… But again to generalize that everyone does that for garnering the “likes” is also a bit wrong… And today instead of personal blogs I think social media is a more powerful platform with a superior outreach.
One more thing, it kind of irritates me when even the slightest of ideas are seen from the sexist view. Shouldn’t we be discussing better things instead of highlighting everything as being a sexist comment. Come on we know better than that…