The world knows that a woman has been raped in a Delhi-bus in India. The world doesn’t know that women have been raped in India every 20 minutes.
Across the nation, a woman is raped every 20 minutes, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. These frightening figures have risen steadily in recent years: in 2010, 24,206 rapes were reported, an almost 10% increase over 2001. The number of unreported rapes is without a doubt greater.
We know that sexualized violence is underreported. If it were not, we would have received much scary statistics. I will not be surprised if I get to know that a woman is raped every 20 seconds in India. India has high domestic violence, dowry death, bride burning rates. Don’t we already know that violence in the home normalizes violence in the street?
In June 2012, Trust Law’s poll showed Canada was the best G20 country, India was the worst.
In 2011, India was one of the worlds five most dangerous countries for women.
India blames women for being raped. India asks women not to get raped. India does not teach men not to rape. Misogyny is deep rooted in Indian society. Most Indians believe rape is about sex. They do not know that rape is not about sex, rape is about violence and violence is about pain. Men are attracted to “masculinity”. Masculinity teaches men to get pleasure by causing pain. They know humans are violent by nature. That’s all. But they don’t want to know humans are also adaptable, which allows human species to survive.
Obviously, men’s rights activists are more powerful and influential than feminists or women’s rights activists in India.
The truth is, women can’t stop rape. Men have to stop rape. Men have more power. They should be responsible for their own acts and behaviour. Yesterday I asked my cat how to stop rape. She gave me a straight answer, ‘men must stop raping’. Even cats know the simple fact that men must stop raping to end rape.
The woman in Delhi was not raped, but gangraped. Rape is now an outdated thing. Media is not anymore interested in rape. They are interested in gangrape. If you are not gangraped, none will come to help you. Rape culture of urban India has been replaced by gangrape culture.
Someone asked me on Twitter today, ‘what’s gonna happen when gang rape is outdated?’ I said, ‘mass murder of women!’ Seriously, what else!
You want to keep your male domination intact, your misogyny alive, you want to make women’s status low, women’s prostitution ( where men learn it is OK to rape women and children) increase, rape-porn sell, sex trafficking grow, and you think you can end rape! Never.
Grow up, guys! for the sake of humanity!
Do people see many women in Indian beaurocracy. In Thailand and to a lesser extent China you see women marshalling traffic and people, and collecting tickets on buses, working in post offices and such like.Seeing women in jobs like police and government does not mean women are not exploited, perhaps in pay and promotion prospects, but it does sometimes mean that a man has to comply to the instructions of a woman.
There a few countries in the World where women can make a living as a taxi-driver, but it sometimes happens in North Europe. India should like outside itself for examples of work which can be done by women in the 21 st century…..After all, the Chinese have already deployed a women in space.
I’m sure more women is positions of authority is good, but remember that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have already had female Prime Ministers/Presidents. Also in a few areas like maths and science India actually has better female participation/representation that most Western countries. More work needs to be done.
They are however a minority… Remember the Bengal CM – Mamta Banerjee (a woman) outright said that the rape allegations were to detract from her government…
Antony Goddard – India has had women in space already. Kalpana Chawla died on her second space mission on Colombia…
Yes, you do. I’ve seen women ticket collectors in both trains and buses, women in the govt bureaucracy, traffic cops. Its there, not as widespread as many other places, I am sure, but definitely there.
Take a look at this news…
For some, rape is a virtual game
Maria Akram TNN
New Delhi: They stalk a mother on a subway station before violently raping her. Then they move on to attack her two daughters, described as virgin schoolgirls. And then they rape any woman they see. This depraved, utterly sickening scenario exists in a video game called Rapelay. This game—and other equally repellent varieties— form a category called ‘Rape Games’. They are just a click away, or can be procured from dealers, and find
takers among ‘niche’ customers.
While traders in Delhi say sales are steady, if not phenomenal, many download this sordid software from websites that offer them. One such file sharing website has 511 peers for Rapelay. Another such game, ‘Custer’s Revenge’ has 34 peers on the same website.
“One will not find these games easily as only some traders keep it as those wanting to buy aren’t comfortable buying it over the counter,” said a store-owner at Delhi pirated video and games mecca Palika Bazar.
———– ———
thats pretty disgusting, but really, how relevant is it? I see it as a similar argument as video games being the cause of gun violence etc.
Completely irrelevant. Men have to be tought to understand, respect and value women as equals, and see and reject the harm of rape and violence. Computer games people play don’t directly influence or create bad behaviours. It is our knowledge of social norms and empathy with fellow humans that prevents us from harming others.
Well the important things is she din’t have any violent assault weapons to defend herself. She might of actual hit the rapist who was just trying to culturally enrich her.
Don’t be an arse. Rape isn’t part of anyone’s culture. In a country of over a billion people, the majority of whom live below the poverty line in rural areas, there is bound to be social dysfunction. Some people in India live in slums where people shit on the road. That’s not Indian culture, that’s poverty in a developing country. Your solution is to give everyone more guns, because you’re a fucking idiot.
I completely agree Taslima esp the part about “The truth is, women can’t stop rape. Men have to stop rape.”
Rape is one of the weapons to establish patriarchal system.
I live in NYC. I usually take several taxi cabs a day. Sometimes, the driver (who is always male) talks to me. Usually, I am asked personal questions that make me uncomfortable, and I must teach them some manners by writing down their tlc number. If he persists, I will not hesitate to call the police. Anyways, the cab drivers are overwhelmingly Muslim, and originate from countries where women are treated terribly like Egypt-Pakistan-Africa and India. I used to be so naive. Until I became an avid activist for women’s rights, I had no idea that women and girls were treated so badly. I knew they are treated like second class citizens, but being burned-whipped-murdered-raped regularly was something new to me, and it makes my blood boil. I have been asked “oh, have you ever been to India” by the cabbies. My response used to be “No but I’d love to!” Now, I have a much different opinion!! Men could stop raping if they chose to. They choose NOT to. I don’t understand how women can love men when they hate us…
THE MAYAN SKEPTIC APOCALYPSE 12/21/2012
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a little souvenir
it is the video about the PIGS
India has a huge problem with steeply rising crime rates due to the social pressures and cultural clash of economic transformation. Crimes against women are about 9.8% from all reported crimes and rape is about 1% of them… as a matter of fact women can be more worried of being murdered than raped in India.
http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-CII2011/cii-2011/figure%20at%20a%20glance.pdf
Rape is wrong, of course, but I think there is a broader problem in India than just rape being on the rise.
I don’t know what to say about Masculinity being about “getting pleasure out of inflicting pain”. What I learned about Masculinity from my father, grandparents and mentors is that being a man is about: duty, resilience, respect, self control, asertivity, self confidence, team playing, kindness to the weak, sportsmanship, integrity, self sacrifice, dependability and protecting the ones you love. I don’t remember being taught that being an abusive asshole was the hallmark of a mature man but rather a proof of low character.
“Obviously, men’s rights activists are more powerful and influential than feminists or women’s rights activists in India.”
Well, that would make India the first country in the world where feminism is not the strongest not corporate lobbying power.
“What I learned about Masculinity from my father, grandparents and mentors is that being a man is about: duty, resilience, respect, self control, asertivity, self confidence, team playing, kindness to the weak, sportsmanship, integrity, self sacrifice, dependability and protecting the ones you love.”
Those are all good traits, though I don’t know why need to be “masculine” ones. Regardless of your gender, you should strive for those things.
It’s not about “being a man” – it’s about being a human.
No. Masculinity does not have a monopoly on any of those positive HUMAN qualities. This co-opting of human traits like kindness to the weak, respect and self confidence as “masculine” feeds misogyny. It IS misogyny.
Mary Lou
Yeah, that always works. How about you stop using people’s suffering for your personal agenda.
Stein
1. Key word: Reported. Get a clue about that one. I’d also check murder statistics against what else happened to those women prior to being murdered. The root is the same: No value for the lives of women.
2. There are always other problems. So?
3. You’ve never met anyone ever who has a different sense of masculinity involving dominance, machismo, or even a twisted sort of “respect” for women, which all treat women as being of lesser value?
4.
And then the completely full-of-shit claim finally emerges.
Sorry, I should have said: “That would make India the first country where feminism is not the strongest not corporate or RELIGIOUS lobbying power”.
So? So stop using people’s suffering for your personal agenda. I understand that women in india suffer from rape and violence but the fact is that the economic, cultural and social clash is stressing life for everybody, it’s not just all about the women all the time. Consider that suicide for domestic violence is about to become the leading death cause for married men between age 30 and 45: an Indian man suicides every 6 minutes.
Yes I have met that kind of men, I call them abusive assholes, and by the way, there are also this kind of people among women, but I doubt that even for them being a man or a woman is defined by getting pleasure by causing pain.
This is not the first time and the last time that a minor girl or a major
girl has been raped.
Over the years, there have been cases of step-fathers / uncles / grand
fathers raping the ones who trust them the most.
If that has happened over the generations, how can this be stopped.
Currently the media is reporting about the outrage over the gang-rape of a
girl in a public bus but wonder how long will it last… till perhaps
something else newsy turns up and perhaps until the next such or worst
happens.
With political parties trying to garner public sympathy (and perhaps votes
in the next election), they have over the years acted like Gandhi’s three
monkeys when it comes to fielding their candidates.
Here is a report that has been circulated and reported even in international
media (Pakistan included):
HYPOCRITES: Political Parties Field Rapists in Elections | India … http://www.indiatimes.com/india/hypocrites-politi…
One can’t expect anything from the current crop of politicians but words
meant for media-bites only.
There is need for URGENT and STRONG ACTION NOW. All those men (born out of women) have sisters and wives MUST
– FORCE the political parties to drop any candidates who have been convicted
or accused of rape and sexual assaults,
– ENSURE that rape and assault cases are fast-tracked in special courts to
be set up NOW,
– RECALL the parliament NOW without waiting for the next session,
– PASS strong laws with unanimous vote to try and punish those accused of
rape and sexual assault,
– FIND a way to protect the women from being ‘raped’ and ‘assaulted’ in the
court with lawyers out there to defend their clients even though they know
the real facts,
– SHIFT the onus on the accused to prove their innocence.
Before the next election, all parties should vet the aspirants for ticket
before they become candidates.
The public, in general, and organisations, in particular, can come
up with other ideas which can be passed on to their MPs and Rajya Sabha members.
>> Mary Lou
>> Yeah, that always works. How about you stop
>> using people’s suffering for your personal agenda.
Despite the fact that self-defense has become politically demonized, it certainly doesn’t help when the people who most need to be able to defend themselves are legally or culturally prevented from doing so.
Can their culture be changed so women don’t have to worry about this sort of thing? I certainly hope so. In the meantime, I don’t have a problem with these women having the means to make gang rape a suicidal proposition. I’d rather have them explaining to police how their attackers got those fatal bullet wounds than being raped.
Unfortunately, for every case where a violent act is stopped by a gun, there’s another case where the presence of a gun escalates the violence and make matters worse.
You’re looking for a scapegoat (gun control1!!11!) for a complex cultural problems.
After all, guns are legal in the US, and yet sexual assault rates are still horrendously high here (not nearly as high as India, of course, but much higher than in many other countries with gun control.) That’s because things generally don’t play out in reality like they do in your fantasies – you expect women to constantly have their finger on the trigger, ready to pull their gun at a moment’s notice. But that’s not how it works, here in reality.
The link below on my comment is expired:
HYPOCRITES: Political Parties Field Rapists in Elections | India … http://www.indiatimes.com/india/hypocrites-politi…
Please read the original report @
http://adrindia.org/content/analysis-candidates-mps-and-mlas-who-have-declared-crimes-against-women-including-rape
Skipping over India altogether I know an almost identical case in the United States.
It’s in “Journey Into Darkness” by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Douglas is one of the first FBI profilers.
The case I speak of is the US Marine training to be a fighter pilot. She (yes, she) lived next door to a retired Marine colonel who didn’t want women in combat or the military but her dedication to honor so impressed him that he asked her to have his sword for her swearing in ceremony.
She was out running on a lonely road one day when the boyfriend of a woman sailor saw her as he drove. He hit her with his car just enough to knock her down and stun her. He got her in the car and whenever she started to revive again he slugged her to stun her again. He drove her to a wooded area and dragged her in. He broke a branch off a tree and it had a bluntly sharpened end. He rammed it up her crotch. A couple picnicking a distance away heard what they called a death scream.
He was caught and Douglas was called in by the prosecution to assess the killer’s claim he was a split personality and one of his 3 alters had done the crime so he was not guilty for reasons of insanity. Douglas called him a phony, He claimed he hallucinated the alters but he had never told anyone. They did not ask his girlfriend because the prosecution decided to respect that on the rule of a spouse not being compelled to testify against a spouse. Douglas noted that when they got his mail by search warrant it included an order for a penis enlargement process.
So the woman he lived with was an enlisted woman in the Navy. What did the killer do for a living? He made love to the enlisted woman. He was a male mistress. A kept man.
The woman he killed represented all his failures in one spot. An unmanly man, a loser while the pilot would have a life of success and honor.
So he asserted his lost (more likely never existing) manhood by a rape/murder. The signature*** was the same as the gang of unemployed/semi-employed workers and the promising young professional woman on the bus in India.
***Douglas explained that MO (modus operandi) is the practical method of committing a crime such as breaking a lock, breaking a window or picking a lock to get in. “Signature” is any colorful impractical item such as a favored vandalism.
Hello, reasonably long-time lurker and now first time poster (well, 3rd post actually, replied to a couple earlier).
From Taslima’s original post:
India blames women for being raped.
Misogyny is deep rooted in Indian society.
I was going to say I unfortunately agreed with the former but not entirely with the latter, but thinking it through, one does follow the other and so they must both be true. But I’m not comfortable with the generalization. Im sure you know that there is not one single culture across India. In Kerala, where I am from, we have matrilinear families and its not just about names, women have more say in matters there.
And on a related note, the Trust Law poll which ranks India worse than Saudi Arabia, seems to be based on the opinions of x number of activists/experts etc. Is this really a valid poll? The justification is a comparison to the UNDP Gender Inequality Index, but this does not consider violence or human trafficking.
Here is a song of defiance and protest against the horrible rape in 2012, and circulate it to support India’s Daughter (as media is portraying her).
Some colleagues have composed a song of defiance against misogyny that we were horrified to know prevails in the subcontinent recently when a young girl was raped by six men in Delhi. The song is in Punjabi, with Hindi-Urdu commentary. Please circulate it as widely as possible.
Men who rape female,must be vasactomised,n,then be sent to jail wid rigorous punishment…
I think until Indian society puts women on the same par as men violence and rape against women will contiue. Women are just as important as men in society throughout the world and they should be respected and given equal equality. The trouble with some Indian men they think they have carte blanche to do exactly as they wish with women. Many societies in the world are still patricarchal which is some of the problem i think. I agree with many of the comments on this site The author Taslina who has written this article is quite right what she has said men commit rape and they must stop it when people say they are animals i get annoyed as to my knowledge i don’t really know of any other animals which acts in such a way. I noticed she is a secular humanist i am a member of the british humanist association myself. How can some humans treat other ins such a inhuman way and cause such suffering i can’t understand it at all myself.
Carole Heath a good comment and many other comments on this site., misogyny is evil and must be stopped worldwide. I am also a secular humanist so yourself and Taslina have something in common with myself. Yes some men do think they have carte blanche as you say to do what ever they wish with the female of the species I completely agree. Until societies as you say Carole put women on the same par as men this type of behaviour will continue to exist.