Just had a glimpse of this video featuring actress Kalki Koechlin and VJ Juhi Pandey. These guys have done an incredible job exploring the outlook of people towards a rape victim in our society. While the video is going viral. let's just digress our focus from the video towards the society, it's outlooks and towards the rape victim.
Our's is a patriarchal society. Every society defines certain norms of living and our norms are defined by our patriarchs. If I were a father of a young, ambitious woman professional, I would have defined rules for her to follow to protect her from the evil world. But if I as a father confine her in my age old cliche cocoon then I am at fault. Remember your daughter is an individual with certain aspirations. She will value and respect your trust more if she is allowed to act as per her aspirations. Her boyfriends, her late working hours, her dressing style are her own choices and you ought to respect them just as she respects yours. I am not telling you to stop being a dotting father. I am just telling you to be more accommodating at the same time. She will love it!
Now let's walk in a victim's shoes for a while. "it's your fault!" "You should understand that you are a woman." "You cant wear that dress tonight! It's too provocative." My fault is that I follow illogical conventional rules blindly without using my so called vital organ - my brain! Infact I am a woman so according to my society's logic I dont possess this vital organ called brain. And this explains the occurrence of such crimes and exploitation of women in my society. The logic is simple- I dont have the ability to follow the rules of my perfect society cause according to my society I dont have that perfect brain. Bravo! Millions of rape, domestic violence and exploitation cases solved in a wink of an eye.
Our society never blames the exploiters, rather it acts as an accomplice. The Godman uses 'Bhaiya theory' to abscond and the juvenile uses his age to abscond. We all are absconding at our individual level by ignoring what is happening to the nation. Once in a while, let's just stop the blame game and educate ourselves that women are not inanimates. They are created to restore balance. Accepting them as they are is all we need to do.
