Comments

  1. says

    The saddest thing is, there are many people who would take what is said in this video at face value, and not as hyperbole inteded to point out the tautological reasoning and sheer absurdity of victim blaming.

    I can imagine the video being triggering to someone. It made me queasy in the stomach.

  3. Ogvorbis: Heading down the Failure Road. Again. says

    Shit. Thank you, PZed.

    I’m glad I watched that.

    Checking out for a while. Sorry.

  4. Seize says

    That film was arresting. For those of you lacking the context, the jewelry and ornate sari in the one cut are the cultural equivalent of a white dress with a veil.

  7. blf says

    I am afraid I didn’t last very long. The plastic smile meant it was too sickening to watch, and the sing-song voice meant it was too sickening to listen to, so I abandoned AV rather quickly. Yes, I HapPY PeoPL WiTH BriiiIIGGHT SMILES SpeaKING LiKE ThIS MAKES ME WanT TO [redacted], preferably with a cheese grater and two lobsters.

    </derail>

  8. Jack Krebs says

    That was good – I’m glad to see women standing up for themselves around the world. It’s a very long battle, but someone has to start.

  9. says

    Bicarbonate:

    It’s nice to have allies on the other side of the planet.

    I don’t think of it that way. Rape is a global happening, and the systemic sexism underpinning it and enabling it is pretty much the same all over. People everywhere have to speak up and keep hammering away, until change happens.

  10. says

    Jack Krebs:

    I’m glad to see women standing up for themselves around the world.

    Yeah, it’s nice. What else is nice is for men to speak up and speak out, to stop staying silent when they hear all the bits and pieces that shore up rape culture. Men measure themselves by how other men view them. It makes a whole lot of difference when men speak up.

  12. =8)-DX says

    Yeah, it’s nice. What else is nice is for men to speak up and speak out, to stop staying silent when they hear all the bits and pieces that shore up rape culture.

    Um. Well yeah. That and aknowledge that much of our own behaviour, the stereotypes we propagate, all those oh-so-funny jokes.. are not just part of the problem.. are the problem.

    /ot: I used to live in this space where I didn’t understand how anyone could treat a woman badly. Now I live in a space where I aknowledge it is always difficult to resist culture, resist one’s own failings, live everyday life without kicking some other human being in the shins.

  13. stevem says

    re Caine @11:

    I really hope the othering won’t continue in this thread: oh, it’s good those people are speaking out. Rape and rape culture are problematic everywhere.

    QFT!!!111!!! Really should have been said it thus: ” it’s good those people [any persons] are speaking out.”

    I wish I had said it FIRST ever.

  15. otrame says

    Wow.

    Though I was raped when I was 13 and nearly raped another time, I have never been triggered by discussion of rape, and at worst am made very uncomfortable by graphic depictions of rape. Please understand, I am not bragging, claiming I am somehow stronger or better than those who are triggered. I am simply describing the facts. So I don’t pay much attention to trigger warnings.

    It was the end that got me. Not the deliberately plastic smile, not the violence. Not the cop. I approved of the entire message and thought it was very well made.

    It was the end. All those women saying “It’s my fault.” And the funny thing is, I don’t think I EVER thought it was my fault. My parents, bless them both, were stunned and devastated, and this was long enough ago that they didn’t have any idea how common what happened to me is, and they had no social system to support them because in those days you did NOT talk about such things. Yet they never gave the slightest impression for a split second that I was some how to blame for what happened. I honestly don’t think it ever occurred to them that I or anyone would think it was my fault.

    Yet those women saying “It’s may fault” nit me hard. I’m sitting here crying. Maybe it’s because I know how bad it is in India. Maybe it’s because I know how bad it is everywhere. Maybe it’s because my rape and near rape actually make me feel LUCKY because I know much worse it could have been and how bad it has been for others.

    Fuck.

  16. praxis.makes.perfect (Just call me Prax. It's easier to type) says

    @otrame – #15

    I am so sorry that it happened to you, too. Thank you for sharing your story.

    I think, at one tome or another, many of us who have survived rape and near rape (which is, in my experience, no less damaging, terrifying and horrifying) have felt the way you do now. Lucky. It’s such s twisted thing, to be thankful this way, only because we have heard so many stories from so many children, women and men and we are all too terribly aware that it could have always been worse. We survived. We survived in ways others could not or did not.

    I think that even if we manage to escape the same of feeling that the assault is our fault, at some point or another we will experience a kind of “survivor’s guilt”.

    I can’t tell you how many times I felt lucky… and then felt shame for being so lucky when others had experiences that horrified me beyond words, experiences I am not sure I would have been able to survive… and then comes the anger and the hurt simply because there are enough stories out there to compare to mine to make some sick “continuum” of the horrors of sexual assault.

    I wish you weren’t crying. I understand why. I just wish you didn’t have to.

    I know I’ve worded all of this badly, and for that I apologize. I just hope my meaning is clear enough that you understand that you are not alone in the way you feel. …and that by me acknowledging you’re not alone in it I’m also reminding myself, and others, that none of us are alone in this. The more we speak out, the more we draw together and work together to make people see and understand us and our experiences the better the world will be.

  17. kayden says

    Shocking and powerful. Hope the men and women this video is targeted at get the message loud and clear.

  18. Francisco Bacopa says

    I hope everyone understands how otrame’s example at #15 shows the importance of supportive parents, friends, and community. Well, it seems to have been just parents in that case and not the community, but in any case that seems to have made a big positive difference.

    Perhaps the tears were from being reminded how so many others might have no support at all.

  19. says

    The narrators are Bollywood actresses. They’re sending a message to India in response to the stupid and insensitive comments made regarding the publicity generated by recent rape cases in that country, and to the police and justice system that still treat women just like this.

    Yes, they were being sarcastic.

  21. says

    Seize @4: oh! I thought it represented a class thing, thank you for letting me know I was wrong. :)

    I’ll go add that nuance to my own post about it.

    otrame @15: Understood, completely. It can feel pretty overwhelming sometimes. Remember you’re not fighting rape culture alone.