From Hathras in North India to Poland in Europe, women, in general, seem to be going through a tough period in human history. Not that history has any other period known or recorded that had given that gender a kinder treatment. Recent past, especially the second half of the 20th century, had managed to convince many that a time had come when bigotry and masochism may be forced to take a back seat and gender equality, a long sought goal of womankind, may truly appear. Impressions gained ground that all the feminist movements across the world would not go waste and modern man was willing to collaborate in the change that would make society a more equitable place for human beings to live in.
When hope runs high, disappointment chases faster. Come the second decade of the new century and the world was plunged into a bigger crisis. Democratic nations previously governed by, often, weak-kneed but popular leaders suddenly saw these leaders being thrown into the garbage bin. These soft-shelled leaders found themselves replaced by despotic and authoritarian individuals who painted themselves as the single key to solve all the disorders in society. The issue of women’s equality, obviously enough, was one of the serious disorders that needed to be handled with utmost haste. The country that championed freedom and democracy for well over a century and acted as the global police that troubled every undemocratic government across the world, suddenly saw an orange-haired President called Donald Trump who never hesitated to openly abuse any woman, from the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a small-time female correspondent who dared ask him inconvenient questions. And the USA not only tolerated such ugly behavior but appreciated this macho attitude and might actually even gift that President a second term.
In India too, the situation seems to have worsened lately. Take the recent case of the Kerala Pradesh Congress chief Mullappally Ramachandran. While addressing an Opposition protest meeting against the Left-led UDF government, he referred to a woman candidate put up by the ruling coalition as a ‘prostitute’. Mullappally, a former Union minister, berated the Chief Minister for fielding a woman of such character and went on to say that any woman with self-respect, if raped, should die. There is nothing new in Mullappally Ramachandran’s shocking, misogynist remarks.
Victim blaming is not only the most common traits of sexual offenders in India, but also of politicians and ministers for past several years.
It is difficult to forget the notorious remarks of Mulayam Singh Yadav who, in 2014, said boys will be boys and equated rape with boyish mistakes. Senior politicians like Sharad Yadav went even further and opposed strict punishment against stalkers saying he himself used to do that kind of ‘mischief’ in his younger days.
Similarly, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, commenting on an incident in 2013, had said that rape is mainly prevalent in urban ‘India’ due to western influence and such crimes against women do not happen in rural ‘Bharat’. Records of the National Crime Bureau prove that rural India has immense numbers of atrocities on women that mostly go unreported or uninvestigated. The Hathras rape and murder was just one amongst thousand others that the media does not bother to report.
Many others like Azam Khan of Samajwadi Party, Gopal Shetty and Harish Dwivedi of BJP and Kamal Nath of Congress are some of the politicians to make such anti-women comments of late. They do it blatantly and many lap it up in this country as they feel that is the truth. Rural folks in India, even women, are known to claim that ‘clapping can only be done with both hands’, implying the victim must have played an active role in instigating the rapist to not only rape her, but also murder her later.
Victim blaming is the rule rather than the exception for Indians, not just politicians. Such statements coming from lawmakers and even senior police officers often embolden the sexual offenders.
It’s because of this and many similar reasons that in countries like India, women think twice before going to the police station to report sexual harassment. Even the cops are often reluctant to register FIR and instead lay the blame on the victims.
Self-blame is one of the biggest reasons why women are reluctant to report their experiences and even hide them from friends and family. This habit is caused by acceptance of victim blaming by the culture of the society and non-existent principles of the male-dominated societies where women are tutored not to voice their opinion on such matters.
Women often feel as if they are the ones at fault if such an incident occurs. Embarrassment to face society is a common reason why women refuse to report such offences. Honour is made out to be the greatest virtue for women. This falsely prohibits them to not report such abuse. In countries such as India, where a woman is taught about honour while her close relatives are sexually violating her on a regular basis, the elder women of the family also do not cooperate and oppose such exploitation. Instead, it is drilled in to the girl child’s head that her family’s honour must be considered more important than her life. This scares women to report incidents of abuse from within the family because by reporting them, they believe they are not only dishonouring their family and relatives but they will have no one else to turn to. In other cases, women who do wish to speak out are often silenced either by their own families or even the police as reporting such cases, they are told, would only result in bringing further shame to them and their clan.
India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and overall 4,05,861 cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7% from 2018, according to the latest government data released on September 29, 2020.
A total of 32,033 cases of rape were lodged in 2019, which was 7.3% of all crimes against women during the year, the data showed.
Not just in India but in several countries callous politicians being allowed to take decisions on behalf of women are putting their interest ahead of the interest of the people they represent.
In Poland, about one hundred thousand protesters took to the streets in the capital, Warsaw on Friday against the country’s constitutional tribunal which declared earlier this month that abortions in instances where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect were unconstitutional. Poland already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Similar protests have been witnessed in the US not too long ago.
It’s important to not only elect politicians who would champion women’s cause and fight for their rights in order to bring about a real change in society, but Indian women themselves have to change their opinions and attitudes towards other women if a stable evolution is to take place towards a more gender balanced environment.