Martin S Pribble, an Australian atheist blogger sent me his article on recent rape cases.I always like when men write for women’s rights and freedom, and protest against oppression of women. Martin wrote:
..It has been said that we live in a pornografied society, where porn is available at every laptop, on every phone and tablet. Far be it from me to make a judgement on whether porn is bad or not, much of the porn being circulated these days is based on an idea of “pleasure for men”. Men’s faces are rarely seen, just as we don’t see our own faces unless looking in the mirror, and it often ends in an act of seeming domination over the woman in the piece, having her face covered in semen. No doubt the Steubenville boys have seen plenty of this kind of porn, and it seems that this domination over women is being normalised to an extent in the way they treat members of the opposite sex. Take this out of the porn-theatre, and look around at the way women are portrayed in the mass culture. Much of the advertising industry uses pornographied images of women, designed to entice us, tantilise us, and subdue us, making psychological connections between consumption of goods and the reward of sex. It is all around us, and the mass media knows how this moves and motivates people to consume. This does not justify any acts of violence against women, nor does it place the blame for these boys’ actions upon their upbringing. It only serves to highlight the society in which we live, and the culture that emerges from this. When it comes down to it, these boys must take responsibility for their own actions..
In any situation, we take responsibility for our actions. In a conscientious society, we give heed to the rights of others in an empathetic and thoughtful manner. In both the Steubenville rape case and the case of the Swiss woman who was gang-raped in India, these men have removed themselves from the what is acceptable in a modern world, and given in to their own selfish urges. There is no situation where “no” means “yes”, and there is no excuse for them as sex-objects, but respects the rights of women in the same manner as that of men. This should be our aim, and if successful, while we may not stop the violence completely, we will at least stop blaming the victims of rape for the actions of others.
Do they really remove themselves from the what is acceptable in a modern world, and given to their selfish urges? Or just they drown themselves in a patriarchal world and learn that women are just sex objects, are inferior to men, are shy, but lie, provoke, their ‘no’ means ‘yes’, and men should be proud of their masculinity, should not be afraid of doing hard things, and should take risks in life? I do not think people ‘blame the victims of rape’, they actually blame ‘the women’. If people blamed the victims of rape, they would have blamed boys or men who get raped. But they don’t. Victims are blamed only when victims are women. Misogyny is deeply rooted in society. In so called civilized society misogyny is more privately practiced, and in uncivilized society it is practiced both privately and publicly.
It is true that only women who become the victims of rape are blamed as somehow, whether by their dress or behaviour, of having enticed or provoked their assailants to rape them, and not male victims who are raped, or rather sodomised or forced to have Oral Sex, but they too suffer in a different way, by being ridiculed and humiliated for the atrocities committed upon them by stronger males, as happens in all- male habitats like Prisons, Juvenile Remand homes, Soldiers’ barracks , thus rubbing salt over their wound and breaking their self- esteem and confidence in their masculinity. So, the real Sadists are not all men, but those who want to lord over both women and weaker men to flaunt and impress all with their power over fellow human beings by their Macho- Malehood, which has been wrongly glorified by all patriarchal,or maledominated societies!
The Urgent need of all societies seeking to stop or at least reduce the atrocities committed by men, including rape, on the weaker sections of society, inclusive of both women and delicate men, is to overhaul and revolutionize the concept of what makes a ‘ Real and Super Man’ ! Therefore,there need to be discussion on this subject about the type of image that needs to be promoted and popularized for men to identify with. For, as I see it now, there is more anxiety in men to prove their Masculinity, than in women to prove their Feminity !
I am Mukti Samaddar a 21 year old student of Journalism and mass Communication under Calcutta University.
I am doing a research based project work for my academics. My topic is “Commodification of Human Body Is Leading to increase in number of rapes In India.”
Undoubtedly your interview would add more to my research.
1. How do you think commodification of human body is leading to gender violence?
2. Do you think India is yet not prepared to accept nudity in any form of art?
3. With the course of development where women were suppose to be at par with men the opposite condition is on the card? What is your view?
4. In your blog “No Country for Women” you have stated that rape is now out dated and gang rape is what sell worthy to media. How far exposure to media and growing information society is responsible for this?
5. I’m a 22year old girl and so there are few millions in Indian and Bangladesh with the same question in mind. How do you think we can fight agains this? Is there any way to get rid of this? If not what next?
It will be really kind of you to take out some time from your busy schedule and mail me your reply in my mail id muktisamaddar1@gmail.com
looking forward for your reply
Thank you
I’m not Taslima, and you didn’t ask, but I’d like to comment on #3. As you can see from the following article, in India, the risk of domestic violence rises with a woman’s level of education:
http://womensenews.org/story/domestic-violence/031106/india-domestic-violence-rises-education#.UU8EJBxwd8E
It’s not just India. In this analysis of North American workplaces, women were harassed the more they deviated from feminine stereotypes:
http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facBios/file/Berdahl%20JAP%202007.pdf
So harassment of women has less to do with desire, which “commodification of human body” implies, that men are raping women because they’re horny and they see women as a thing at their disposal, and more to do with punishment and hostility for not behaving “properly”.
And a note about using “Human Body” when you mean women’s bodies. That kind of erases what we know about the problem. Men’s bodies are not commodified to any significant degree, and there certainly isn’t a phenomenon where men are being sexually assaulted because of an increased commodification of their bodies. The first step in talking about an issue is naming it, and what you’re talking about is women and women’s bodies, so why not say so?
I disagree with one thing you’ve said: male victims of rape often are blamed, but the blame takes a slightly different form. They are told it was their fault they were raped because they “weren’t manly enough”, or they’re “too womanish“. Which doesn’t change the overall situation, however – the rape apologists are still saying that being a woman (or in some way “like a woman”, in their minds at least) is the cause of the problem.