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.
Nice write-up!
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the norms laid down by our society are fundamentally weak. Where the western countries have genuinely accepted women Cs equal to men, in our country this is true, only in theory.
The majority of Rapes/Assaults/Abuses we see on women, come from the illiterate elements in our society. Men who give in to their carnival whims, foolishly ignoring the consequences of their acts.
Instead of teaching women to conceal themselves, it is men who need to be taught. If only parents would teach their sons to behave like humans instead of teaching their daughters the code/norms of our society, India would be a much better and safer place for women to live in!
PS - (If I may) In your 'about me' section there is a singular-plural discrepancy in the sentence "My single notion is that a species face extinction"
In the article, I think, you could take heed of punctuation marks.
Also, please refrain from commencing a sentence with And/But/Because.
Cheers! :)