I recently had a heated argument with
one my friends. Someone shared on group a message regarding Delhi gang rape and
it was kind of a nice salute to the guy friend who was with the girl and who
fought with her and for her until the end. I loved that message. Salute to the
guy.
The argument started when another one
of my friends commented on it. ‘But I think it was also their mistake. Why
should they travel in a bus at that time in the night in country’s crime
capital?’
And another sad part, the person who
shared the message thought the same. Kudos.
‘With Shakti Mills Compound rape, she
should have gone there with her whole team. Why go with just one more person
and then go into the woods?’
Well, not everyone thought the same. The
criminals were given death penalty, the first extreme punishment given to rapists in the country.
‘Don’t go out at stupid timings and
offer yourself to the monsters.’
That was the sentence that threw me
off. Stupid timing, eh? Like at night. Right. Well, if you just google ‘rapes
in broad daylight’ you get search results that would shame the entire world. This is just as bad as saying ‘what were you doing on CST
station when the terrorist came and shot you dead?’
Another statement: ‘Don’t venture into
dangerous places till the mentality of these people change.’
What does one define as a dangerous
place? A deserted area, subway, call centre, a club at night, a bus, a train.
If you have to list down all dangerous places where rapes have happened there
isn’t a single place left that you would call safe.
And according to surveys there are more
unregistered marital rape cases and rapes by members of family or friends than
actual strangers. That makes ‘home’ one of the most dangerous places to live.
So now do you reckon we ‘be careful’ at home as well?
‘Until the mentality changes, be
careful.’
What makes one think the women who did
get raped weren’t careful or alert? They’d have trashed and writhed, threatened
to go to police, tried to escape or tried to kill the rapist in extreme cases
just as much.
Women have a natural instinct about
certain things. Without looking we can tell which person is ogling at us,
passing snide remarks or inconspicuously trying to follow us. When the woman instincts
kick in there isn’t an ounce of doubt we try our best to be safest. We might
take a cab instead of a bus home, we can disappear in a crowd and stand around a
bunch of other women in a crowded place to avoid the coward, we might keep our
loved ones’ phone numbers on emergency contact list or check where the nearest
policeman or policewoman stands. We are more careful than any of those people
who ask us to be give us credit for. But that’s the point. Being careful’ was
never the solution. And it never will be.
‘It takes time to change these people’s
mentality.’
Agreed. But then as educated modern
generation we should do something than just sit there hands crossed over
shrugging the whole situation by saying the number of sex starved people is
just too huge to be bothered. If you want to change this mentality any time in
the near future, start with yourself. Stop with blaming the victim and trying
to treat her as a ‘poor creature’. Give her equal respect. Stop
looking at her like she isn’t a human anymore. And most importantly, stop
telling her to be more careful the next time. Tell them not to fucking rape.
The saddest part of the argument
though was the person arguing with me was a woman. And no matter how much
I love her, this is the part where I'll have to disagree with her through and through.
