Rape and respectability

Society must change to end gender-based violence

Most people regard the International Women’s Day (IWD) as an occasion to pay tribute to the accomplishments of women – but it also serves as a grim reminder of the trials and tribulations faced by women in a patriachal world. The existence of a separate day dedicated to women places them in the realm of the social ‘other’, different from and still not equal to a man. Despite new legislation drafted to promote equality, the soaring success of women in a range of fields and feminism moving from a political to a more theoretical agenda, the theme for this year’s IWD, “A promise is a promise: time for action to end violence against women,” aptly reasserts that the struggle to end gender discrimination has not moved past its foundational stages. As the conversation focuses on the essential safety and security of women, it reminds us that feminism is as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago, when IWD was first celebrated.

Multiple cases of women being brutally raped have surfaced in the past few years; in their latest Violence Against Women Report, the women’s welfare NGO, Aurat Foundation, reports that the percentage of reported cases of violence against women in Pakistan has risen by 6.47 percent from 2010 to 2011. In India, a 23-year old girl was gang raped and murdered on a bus while a fifteen year old girl in Maldives was ‘allegedly’ raped by her step-father and a high-school student was reported to have been harassed and raped by her classmates in Ohio in the US. But these are only the cases that garner international media attention; in Pakistan there are 827 reported cases of rape in 2011 alone, in addition to the countless cases that go unreported every day. While these number of incidents is gruesome, what is even more terrifying is how society has reacted to such instances of violence. Following the Delhi-rape case, the defense lawyer made a statement that reflects the rape culture in a nutshell: “Until today, I have not seen a single incident or example when a respected lady has been raped. Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect.” Depressingly, the “respected ladies don’t get raped by the mafia” argument is not an anomaly as many prominent Indian politicians shared his reasoning. The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee said, “Earlier, if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded but now everything is open. It’s like an open market with open options.” To give another example of victim blaming, in the Maldives case, the 15-year-old alleged rape victim is being sentenced to a 100 lashes for premarital sex. We are living in a society that not only tolerates such crimes but also rationalises them while treating male sexual aggression as a norm. In her article on rape culture, Melissa McEwan suggests that “Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is not to be in the same room as a rapist.” How is a woman to register that she is an equal when she feels unsafe walking out of her house? When she always has be alert, always has to pay attention, always has to has to watch her back, always has to be aware of her surroundings and must never let her guard down for a moment lest she be sexually assaulted and if despite all of this protection, she is raped, she will be made to think it was “her fault”.

As we rave on about ‘violence against women,’ it is useful to provide a definition of what it means. Violence against women is any act of gender based violence, whether physical, sexual or mental or the threat of such, that causes suffering to women. Violence is not restricted to extreme acts such as bride-burning, rape or honor-killing, rather most women face violence in a much more discreet manner, living in a society that views them as subordinate beings. In a culture such as ours, women face violence that begins with discriminatory remarks to rape itself. Such a culture is created through the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process involving the regulation of their behavior, their bodies and their thinking. Take the media’s eroticization of violence—for instance in the latest James Bond movie ‘Skyfall’, Bond stands by as Javier Bardem shoots a woman in the head, causing the glass of whiskey on her head to topple to the ground and casually remarks “what a waste of good scotch.” Diminishing the gravity of such acts, even in fiction, normalizes violence against women and makes us disassociate with the fact that women constantly live under the threat of assault. Even the language we speak contains phrases that are laced with an attitude of aggression towards women and uses sexual violence as a metaphor in mainstream discourse—“The ATM raped me with a huge fee.”

Furthermore, silence provokes violence. The silence around the discrimination of women in national discourse, in homes, in schools, in streets, helps in promoting gender inequality. Aurat Foundation cites the failure to report cases of violence as a “lack of confidence” on the part of women, however this does not account for the fact that women have been taught not to speak, to repress their thoughts and desires, through the threat of admonishment. As we think of violence against women today and what we can do to prevent it, we need to focus on changing the culture as a whole, check ourselves when we speak, be critical about what we watch and conscious of how our society works.

“There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never

acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable.” — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

The writer is a staff member of Pakistan Today and holds a degree from Mount Holyoke College.