After widespread protests against Delhi gang rape case, many people thought men would now stop raping women in India. But they were wrong. Many children, girls, and women continued to be raped, gang-raped and murdered since the protests.
A few days ago, a Swiss tourist was gang raped. Indians proudly say, Atithi Devo Bhava, ‘the guest is god’. But many Indian men can easily fuck their god. They raped many foreigner women in the past, and now they have gang raped a Swiss tourist.
Police said,’tourists were in the wrong place at the wrong time’. It is a form of victim blaming. No place should be wrong place & no time should be wrong time. Men shouldn’t rape anywhere.
In highly patriarchal India, I think, feminist movement by women won’t work. Men who believe in women’s rights, should seriously start feminist movements, and fight for women’s rights and freedom. Feminist movements of men, by men, may find success. Men can convince their fellow men to stop rape, domestic violence, dowry, dowry murder, bride burning, trafficking etc. Misogynists don’t listen to women. They hate feminists, they call them lesbo sluts. They take men seriously. Whatever rights women got so far (the right not to burn alive at husband’s funeral pyre, the right to vote, the right to divorce, the right to remarry, the right to have equal laws) in the Indian subcontinent was because of a handful of sane men.
Men will benefit from gender equality. I like what Michael Kimmel says about feminist movement:
If the goal is gender equality, the means is feminism. Feminism remains one of the world’s most powerful ideologies because it requires that we examine not just ourselves but our interactions and the institutions in which we find ourselves, and that we understand these interactions and institutions as organized in a field of power. Feminism is about that critique, and it is about transformation. The feminist transformation of society is a revolution-in-progress.For nearly two centuries, we men have met insecurity by frantically shoring up our privilege or by running away. These strategies have never brought us the security and the peace we have sought. Perhaps now, as men, we can stand with women and embrace the rest of this revolution—embrace it because of our sense of justice and fairness, embrace it for our children, our wives, our partners and ourselves. Today, we men are also coming to realize that gender equality is in our interests as men; that we will benefit from gender equality. That gender equality holds out a promise of better relationships with our wives, with our children and with other men.
Nearly a century ago, an American writer wrote an essay called “Feminism for Men.” Its first line was this: “Feminism will make it possible for the first time for men to be free.”
Death penalty, life sentence, castration — nothing can stop men from raping, because since childhood they learn from society that women are for fuck, so it is alright to rape them. It’s hard to unlearn that. Men can not learn anything about women’s rights and dignity if they do not unlearn that first.
Sadly, it may take this attack on a white tourist to spur action against rape in India, not the thousands of assaults and rapes that have gone unpunished (or the woman was punished). It was the same with incidents like the Bhopal disaster versus the tsunami in Thailand – nobody cared when it was the poor and nameless who died, but when a lot of foreigners were killed or had the ability to speak out, the world paid attention.
It shouldn’t be that way, everyone’s life is equally valuable. Unfortunately, it often is.
Hello
Your understanding that men will favour men has limited application. We must understand that men too are exploited and suppressed. All workers irrespective of their religion, caste, sex etc are exploited by the present rulers and controllers of the national wealth.
The unity must be on this line, meaning all exploited must unite. This unity is the only way to fight against all oppression. When this poerfull ally wins through revolutionary movement, rest of the oppression like women, Dalits can be removed once and for all.
All other forms of struggle will be diversionary in nature and may give a temporary relief for a section.
Must thrive to unite all the oppressed sections of our society.
I really do not know the solution to this problem of treating women as disposable commodities in India. While I agree misogyny exists in the West, it is largely private. In India it is out there in the open which makes it very unsafe for women.
I think if those men who were involved in those rapes had something to lose by committing those crimes, then they would certainly not have done them. This might be a huge factor for the relatively less number of such violent crimes in the West because people know they will be hunted down and be punished. They would also be rejected by society at large and find it difficult to get work.
However, the main problem which is the mindset of many men to treat women as sexual objects only manifests in the form of incest, childhood abuse, domestic violence, marital rape, sexual harassment at work etc. These are very much prevalent in the West and the East.
I welcome any feedback comments on this.