Apr 11, 2011

The ugly truth.

One day, I could feel the aura or sadness, the glee gone from her eyes suddenly gone. I questioned her several times, but never got a response. I thought it might have been an upset stomach, or a bad mood. Even when making these assumptions, I must not lie when I say that thought didn't strike me. I did. And, to think of it, why do I write it as 'that' thought. Because, we're conditioned like that, aren't we?


Days later, I hear her out: "It was my fault, I shouldn't have worn that dress, and acted like that" 
Hearing all this, a thousand thoughts came to mind. 


I wondered when men will start paying attention to the 'social' element of being a social animal. I wondered if we aren't ashamed yet? If not, we ought to be. 


I couldn't find a starting point for my train of thoughts, so I thought of having various instead:  

- Stop the myth. 

We tend to have stereotypes for everything. We'd warn our younger siblings, or daughters of friends, or local domestic helps that they should beware of the lecherous guy who stares them at the bus stop or in the office or at the departmental store. I've heard mothers talking to their daughters about the wolves hidden in the jungles. While we're on it, have we ever thought of the wolves in the skins on sheep.. what do we have to say of them?

More than 80% of women are raped by someone they know including friends, family or an acquaintance. Given these statistics, we should warn them - don't change relationships and equations with men in our life, but beware of our surroundings. That sounds like a fair deal, doesn't it? 

Instead of assuming rapists will come from another planet, we should accept the sad truth staring at us in the face today. 

- It can't be victim's fault. 


" I sent the wrong signals"
" I was drunk"
" I wasn't sure what's going on" 
" I was stupid to take a walk in the garden" 
" I was coming back late night by myself" 


While I do understand there are changes you'd like to make had you been given another chance to re-write your life, you have to understand... sooner than later, that it is never your fault. Agreed there were choices you could have made to protect you better. Choices such as... you could spend the whole day in bed, you can choose to dress conservatively all the time, you could never walk by yourself. The list will go on.. you can spend an eternity making a list of choices that would save you from being raped. But, let's get this straight. There are rapes in the comforts of your own houses, there have been reported rape cases of nuns, and there are cases of bastards raping you in a very public area. 


The above mentioned choices are a few good-to-do things to keep ourselves safe, however, it is no guarantee. The crux of the matter is -- only one person makes the choice to rape. There are things we can (and should) do to protect ourselves, but the only person who can prevent the rapist himself of herself. Bad decisions, good decisions, neutral decisions, our life is full of all those. Let's try to understand our rights to make all those decisions. We should be able to trust our family and friends, otherwise, what good is it? We can't live in a cocoon, we should be able to trust our neighbors, colleagues, and other people we co-exist with. But, the bottom line is this. Rapists make the choice to breach our trust, to rob us of our freedom. It's their fault, it's a crime that's theirs, and in no way should we be held responsible. Rapists have no right to rape. Period. 


- Speak up.!


The knowledge that she will keep quiet for fear of being ill-treated and taunted is exactly what drives most rapists to their crime.  In cases where it's the acquaintances or family members who've raped the girl, she'll be asked to protect the name of the family and keep quiet. In India, it's all the more prevalent. 


The figures speak for themselves, only about 17% of the total rape cases are reported. Rest are all unheard. A big factor to this difference is realization. We'd tell ourselves... 
" it's nothing like we see in movies, or read about in the newspapers" 
" it's in a marriage, how can it be rape at all"
" this can't be proved" 


We can't imagine the extent of this unheard cases with our limited media-education. We buy stereotypes, and hasn't been told, doesn't fit the bill. But the truth is: all these are rapes staring us in reality. 


- We can make a difference. 


Every time I stumble upon a piece of news, I think... what can I do, how can I even help, and where would we reach with the little efforts that I put in.


Only recently have I started realizing, I could be of help. We all could 


We don't need to tell our stories and live the horror in writing again, but we can stop feeling guilty of the crime. 
We can acknowledge a "NO" is good enough of get our definitions straight. There's nothing like grey area here, it's as simple a question to be answered in a yes or a no. 


We can give our condolences to those who are shattered by the horror still. 
We can hear them out. 


There are so  many little things we could do. If we can't think where to start from, we can start with holding on to the trust, together we can and we should make a difference.