Friday, April 17, 2009

It is always her.

Major rant follows. These are my thoughts about an issue that really gets me all hyper and angry. Nita puts things in perspective objectively and coherently than I do here.

Is it OK to molest a girl just because she was passed out? Is a girl who parties and drinks with men inviting them to abuse her? If you do not go out and party, is it OK for you to blame the victim of a rape? Is it ever OK to rape a girl because you 'perceive' she has loose morals? We Indians seem to particularly enjoy attributing blame to a rape victim. This happens all the time.
Remember the Juhu new year incident where two girls were molested by a mob? What happened when the graphic images were shown on TV? Why were the girls 'roaming' around at that time? What were they wearing?
Remember the Mangalore pub incident? Again, the first reaction was what were the girls doing in a pub? Girls should not go to 'such places.'

There are psychologists and other 'experts' who are called on talk shows to talk about what the perpetrator feels and why such a crime takes place. What about what the victim feels? If you ask me, giving even a iota of thought to why the perpetrator committed the horror is wrong. There are no subtleties where rape is concerned. There cannot be any explaining away. If you are a person who tries to see reason in rape, you need to get your head checked. Maybe even stay away from women because then any woman talking to you would be a probable victim.

It seems like it is our national pastime to belittle women who are in difficult situations. It is always the girl who is inviting the perpetrator to abuse her.
Groped in a bus? Why were you wearing jeans?
Teased by the guys at the pan shop? Don't go there without male escort.
Look down when you are walking in a street or the gali ke kutte might think you want them to wink at you, make weird noises and touch you!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Shilpa. Thanks for the comment you left on my blog. I do agree with every word you say here. We need to not give any excuses to the perpetrator.
    The truth is that women are groped and molested and raped whatever they wear. If the offender thinks he can get away with it, he'll do it. To whoever.

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  2. "It seems like it is our national pastime to belittle women who are in difficult situations. It is always the girl who is inviting the perpetrator to abuse her."

    Well said. I have blogged about this too, more than once.
    Makes me mad. And even sadder when women blame women.

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  3. I blogged about this here,
    http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/provocatively-dressed/

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