'Rape Vulnerability' Has Become A Woman's 'Anatomical Fate'
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
27 September 2024
At the moment, the entire country is witnessing a veritable rape wave.
A 23-yr-old man in Poona brutally raped and tried to kill an 85-yr-old woman, old enough to be his grandmother. But soon it'll be forgotten because rapes are so common in India and people have got inured to hearing about them so frequently that unless it's screamingly shocking and heinous like this one and the recent rape at R G Kar Medical College in Calcutta, no one cares.
(Representative Image from File )
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Here, I'm not categorising rapes because every rape is an assault not just on the modesty of the victim but on all women.
The question is: Why do rapes happen so frequently and why have people become so blase about them?
Agreed, the skewed sex ratio in northern states and overall pejorative attitude towards women contribute to sex related crimes. That doesn't mean that in other states, where gender ratio is relatively in balance, you don't get to hear the incidents of rapes. Rapes take place all over India.
Most of the rapists have the patronage of political bigwigs and they've connexions far and wide. They are quickly released, nay unleashed, on helpless women.
Have we ever thought of how a rape victim lives life after what happened to her? No amount of counselling can cure a woman of the engrained fear, hatred, incertitude and the vacuum.
I'm not a proponent of any kind of violent punishment but at times, I feel that those who rape must be (clinically) castrated or rendered impotent.
In the Islamic countries, where Sharia is promulgated, rapists are bobbitised in public or even dismembered. It may seem to be extremely uncouth to the 'civilized' world but then, it appears to be the only measure to stop rapes. Violent deeds deserve violent punishments.
What's even more disgusting is the widespread apathy. Instead of condemning and punishing rapists, the victims are held responsible for 'inviting rapists' by dressing up provocatively. But these fools, who criticise women for wearing 'sexy clothes', don't understand that rapists will rape, whether or not women wear 'cheeky clothes'. Rapists are sick people. They've no respect for women. They're perverts and perverts can release their perversions, regardless of the clothes and age of a female. Germaine Greer put it succinctly, 'Any woman with a vagina is a potential prey to perverts.'
We live in a society that accords scant respect to women. We've been brought up to look at a woman with lust. That she can also have different roles is unthinkable to a male psyche.
Anthropologically speaking, rape is a man's way to 'put a woman in place' and assert his patriarchal and chauvinistic supremacy over her. It's not just release of pent-up sexuality, it's also release of anger and frustration. Men rape because they think that they're naturally endowed and empowered to ravage women.
In aboriginal and subaltern societies, women were (and are still) brutally raped by tribesmen comprising their fathers, brothers and other men just to prove that they (women) can be ravaged at will.
In Haryana, when lovers are caught, the girl's often raped by her father and brothers before getting brutally killed. Here, rape's a punishment for eloping with a boy of her choice.
We still have a long long way to go and evolve. At the same time, rape cannot be seen as a phenomenon that's confined to a specific country or a group of people. Granted, the subcontinental male attitude towards women is too disgusting, but rape is more or less a universal issue.
What about the rampant incestuous rapes that go unnoticed and unreported all over the world? Because of social sanctions and taboos, women across the world keep mum when they're abused by their own fathers and brothers. The 'universal objectification' of woman has contributed to women getting sexually abused everywhere.
A famous German sociologist has put it succinctly that 'rape vulnerability' has become a woman's 'anatomical fate.'
Society has a very nebulous perception about sex and it thinks that any violent sexual assault on a woman qualifies to be called a rape. This is utterly wrong. Rape has many ramifications. Even an uncomfortable touch can be a rape or molestation. Rape is not just forceful genital connectivity. It's disconnectivity of (sexual) desires between two individuals, one of them being unwilling.
Millennia back, Roman poet Horace wrote that even lustful eyes of a man could visually rape a woman and Bible states that even to think of a woman in lustful terms is tantamount to mental fornication or rape.
Rapes will continue to take place until men plucked out the demons of lasciviousness from their collective thinking.
Now coming back to rapes in Indian context. Rape is apparently a form of violent (genital) subjugation of women, but it (rape) also manifests itself in myriad ways.
Subtle sexual exploitation in a corporate world is also a rape, albeit ostensibly less violent!
What happened in Kerala film industry is tacit rape, unreported for decades. Very many 'venerable' names are emerging that have been into this dirty and murky vortex for years and decades.
MeToo movement has its potential voices who suffered the ignominy of rape and molestation. But the patriarchal Indian attitude eclipses all these voices because MCPs are active in all walks of life for whom, women are predominantly commodities and secondary entities.
We need to change this mentality and introspect seriously.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/rape-vulnerability-anatomical-fate/d/133298
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