India Rape Crisis

[valko]

Over the last 6 months we have all seen and heard the terrible experiences and situations coming out of India about women being raped and the useless lack of effort on the part of goverment and law inforcment in curbing this nation wide crisis.

 

So i would like to hear opinions and each persons idea of how the situation could be resolved,is it a simple matter of killing all the men responsible or do we need to take a more understanding approach and teach men and boys alike that rape is wrong,is India progressive and modern enough that teaching is even an option,or does the entire government need to be replaced.

 

Where does a person begin to make changes when such a nation wide situation exists,1 poll estimated that 2 women every minute are being raped on average.

[Pinkie Pie]

Firstly, I think that teaching definitely is always an option. Everyone has to learn to speak, write, determine good from bad and do things like feed and clothe themselves, so the capacity to teach them not to rape is most definitely there.

Secondly, it would be so much harder than just changing the government. The culture itself has a big part in it too, which is sad but true. I'm not saying that it's bad, but just like any other culture, it does have a dark side.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I can't speak much for India because I'm not Indian nor very familiar with their culture. So I'll be drawing upon my knowledge steeped in American culture and societal values.

 

===

 

Although I can get behind the sentiment of killing one's rapist, I think it's a little more complicated than that. Asking whether India is progressive/modern enough to be taught that rape is wrong may not be the best way to phrase it. Any society can be taught.

 

One of the symptoms of rape culture is that people don't take rape seriously. They treat it as a joke, as a laughing matter.

 

But rape is often used as a tool to punish and control others. Rape is the punishment people think others deserve for not acting, dressing, speaking, or looking a certain way. Rape is something people think they can avoid by wearing the right clothes, by never going out at night, and by never getting drunk.

 

I have heard too many times from people that it's apparently this really huge thing where people just falsify rape reports. That's not the case at all. Most rapes actually go unreported. When those precious few actually manage to report it, they aren't always taken seriously. They're told they're lying, they're told it's not actually rape, and any number of things. Then they're belittled and demeaned. They're called slut and whore and idiot. How could you try to ruin someone's life like that?

 

Their body was violated and they may never feel safe again in their own skin, and people are more concerned about the fact that rape charges are "inconvenient" for rapists.

 

Rape isn't always the result of a stranger jumping from the bushes. It's far more likely to be someone known to the victim. This makes rape, and the way people treat rape, all the more abhorrent.

 

Rape culture is huge. It's overwhelming. I encounter it every day. One of the important things we can do is make sure people have their voice and that we don't minimise or marginalise their experiences by trying to put it on a sliding scale of awful ("but murder and genocide is still happening in the world, how can you worry about rape") or by telling them that they are overreacting or even lying. We need to teach people to take rape seriously and to stop treating rapists as victims. We need to teach people that they shouldn't rape--we shouldn't be teaching people how not to get raped. We need to teach people to look for enthusiastic consent, not to assume the answer is "yes" unless they say "no" eight thousand times.

 

We need to be able to look at everything around us and identify what is problematic, to identify what is contributing to rape culture.

 

Are the circumstances I'm familiar with also applicable to India? I don't know. But from what I've read, these attitudes are widespread and hardly unique to the United States.

 

Ultimately, I don't think reform is impossible. We're still working on racism. We're still working on homophobia. We're still working on sexism. If we've gone forward on those fronts, I don't think it's impossible to move forward with regards to rape culture, no matter the location.

[† Mute point]

I think, if men knew that getting caught would result in castration... Rape would virtually disappear from crime statistics very quickly.

 

 

Other than that, the only way you're going to make the culture learn is to start at the top, make the government start doing something about the problem instead of blaming the victim Yes, blaming the victim is easier. He or she is weaker, more easily intimidated. That's why they were chosen. Empower them by taking their claim seriously, and investigating every single one of them. It won't solve the problem overnight, but it will help.

[Digatu]

I think, if men knew that getting caught would result in castration... Rape would virtually disappear from crime statistics very quickly..

 

I agree. Not that big of a reply but nothing I could add to it.

[Bluenoser]

EO said:

 

"Rape isn't always the result of a stranger jumping from the bushes. It's far more likely to be someone known to the victim. This makes rape, and the way people treat rape, all the more abhorrent."

 

From the research I have encountered where violent rape is concerned it is something on the order of 80% or more not a stranger but someone that knows their victim.  This idea of the stranger out there in the night obscures the far more grim reality, that most violent rape victims (as opposed to date rape victims where I think that it should be self evident that they know their rapists) know their rapists from within their lives, stranger rape tends to be the exception than the norm, and the failure of the reality to still be widely understood shows just how sick we in the West are on this point and we have very little room for any moralizing about how bad India is on this one (not that this should be used to excuse India for their own failings either, just that people in glass houses and all that, because I hate those that think they are morally culturally superior when they and their culture truly are not).  Rape culture at the moment is a very touchy topic for me, I live in the city where the Rehtaeh Parson gang-rape, bulling, and suicide that hit the international news over the past couple of weeks occurred, and I am processing a lot of fury at some of the rape culture crap that is still going on from the attackers families and their inability to understand that from the stories they themselves said their attacker relatives told them they committed blatant forcible rape.  Not to mention the inability of local law enforcement and the justice system to have understood it either while she was still alive, instead of closing their investigation saying insufficient evidence of a crime, what utter garbage as the facts have actually shown especially in the wake of her suicide.  If you want to get a taste of this I can recommend a blog that is dealing with some of this, it is called Dance of Red, here is the link. 

 

So I have little to say regarding what is going on in India, even where that poor 5 year old rape victim is concerned except to say that all rapists should face real severe punishment after a proper trial for the very serious act of violence they have committed, because whatever else rape is the most basic thing it is is an act of violence.  Sex may be the tool by which the violence is expressed, but it is violence, not sex that it is, and one must *NEVER* *EVER* forget that!!!

[LordLi1]

I find it interesting That when any one talk about rape they only think of Women, especially in south east Asia and the far east. it is in fact fairly common for young boys to be raped by both men and women.

 

As far as the matter of change or reformation goes in term of attitude towards rape in India, you would first have to solve a more basic problem  the  societal value of human life. or even the simple value of human existence, India is country where slaver is still common place. living in America and Europe it is easy to forget since the face of slavery in America has been changed to indentured servitude and even that is very well hidden. in India in fact most of south east Asia slavery is common place. people are product only the rich have rights, and with over population the  worth of human life keeps dropping. it not uncommon for parent to self one their children to pay of there debts  so the other can survive especially since the other option is them getting killed and all there children being taken.

not mention that crime especially organized crime is fairly prevalent and enmeshed in Indian society

where very much like the nineteen 20's and 30's in America children hope to grow up to be  part of organized crime. which simple emphasize it as being system of poverty and impoverishment. in fact the indoctrination  process  is very  much  like that of child soldiers in Africa.

 

I ave a lot more to say but that all the time have right now.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I think a lot of people do understand that rape can happen to anyone, but it happens disproportionately to women as opposed to males, at least in the US.

 

That said, I don't know how it is in other countries and I won't even pretend to understand because I'll never have the depth of insight about India as I do the US unless I move there and proceed to live there for twenty years. Even then, though, it still would be less relevant than the insight of a person who was born and raised in the country.

 

I do agree that there are a lot of cultural aspects to consider and deal with, because it really isn't just a matter of telling people "don't rape" (well, we should tell people that more often, but you know), but rather challenging and trying to overthrow certain societal values that encourage and maintain rape culture. Again, I don't know anything about feminism in India, but I'd imagine that these basic concepts--that there's something deeply ingrained in the society and culture that needs to be changed--isn't much different.

 

There is a level of privilege in first world countries, which makes me uncomfortable when people denounce other countries as "backwards" or otherwise consider them below them without considering the cultural and societal milieu. It's not just something you can view and approach "academically" ONLY, because not everyone has the privilege of examining these issues academically when it's their life.

[LordLi1]

understandable but it's not quite academic for me since i grew up in the middle of that. living it like, when your concern is  kingmaker sure to  you live to see tomorrow. most people stop caring about  others  especially when  someone next you die every day...  thou i was lucky to get away from it all before i became  apathetic to it...

[† Emotional Outlet]

Ah, I didn't mean to imply that you, personally, were approaching it "academically", since you clearly lived it (and I did get that impression from your first post, to be clear), but that it's something people in first world countries do.

 

Rape culture in the US is different from rape culture in India is different from rape culture in France--there are a lot of deeply embedded cultural aspects to consider that makes "academic" approaches extremely insensitive and almost ignorant. But again, that's nothing to do with you personally, just me talking. ouo

[† RazorDan]

Not Indian but I am Pakistani and so a lot of the culture is similar. In these cases, men tend to be very sexually frustrated because in our culture sex before marriage is prohibited. Heck males and females are still pretty much segregated. As you can imagine this has led to a lot of sexually frustrated and thus aggressive men. They simply target younger girls or poorer girls because they are weaker than them. In India obviously there are the rape cases but even in the UK we hear stories about paedophile rings filled with young teen/pre-teen girls and run by sexually frustrated Pakistani or Indian men. It's firmly in my mind a cultural issue but it also comes from a lack of education.

 

These issues could be solved by government intervention but unfortunately the issues actually affect the government too. In that area of Asia women's right are way way way down the list of priorities and unless wide reaching reforms are implemented, it will remain that way. Pakistan itself has improved a lot in terms of women's rights recently, but my Indian friends tell me that the Indian attitude is basically the same. Mute's idea of castration is good but I'm afraid to say I doubt that would make a difference purely because of the cultural and educational issues. Unfortunately, unless the government's priorities change, we're gonna be hearing more of these disgusting events. However, there is strong sense of family in our culture and to be honest potential rapists would fear revenge from the families' of victims more than the police or government. It's just how things are in that part of the world.

 

Finally castration and the like as punishment will probably anger anti-Muslim groups and open up another can of worms about shariah law. A very complicated and ridiculous situation I'm afraid.

[† Emotional Outlet]

That and castration can only really prevent one method of sexual assault, not all the rest. You'd have to cut off their fingers and tongues and hands and at that point you might as well kill them.

 

A cultural revolution is more palatable than routine castrations or executions, I'd imagine, since first you'd have to get people to take sexual assault reports seriously before you can punish them for rape. Most rapists walk away free and most rapes go unreported.

 

Rape is rarely, if ever, about sex and sexual pleasure. It's about punishment and power. Rape threats are issued as punishment, not necessarily because they are sexually attracted to the person in question or because they're tired of masturbating. They do it because they want to put someone in their place, to tell them exactly where they stand.

 

And that's a very old idea. The idea of rape as a means of punishment, as a means of establishing dominance, can be found in the Bible, for example. Sodom and Gomorrah is a famous example.

 

I'm willing to bet that this--that rape is not about sex, but power--is the case everywhere, not just the US. I mean, if someone attacks you with a baseball bat, the assault likely has nothing to do with baseball itself. Same thing with rape--just because it involves genitals and intimate contact doesn't mean it's about sex.

[theNexus]

You do know girls as young as 5 are being raped over there yes?

 

One 5yo girl was kept locked up in an abandoned apartment for

3 days repeatedly raped by 2 men then left in there to die.

Someone heard the moans of pain coming from the little girl

and they saved her.

 

I'm a christian but I can't help saying this.. When it comes to a child

a little innocent being who cannot protect themselves. Then I can only

see these people as Monsters or Rabid Dogs. We put those kind of

animals to death. Send these child raping and killing monsters to hell

where they belong!

 

BTW... I know I'm not supposed to think like this, but....

 

I believe if you take a life, you automatically forfeit your own.

Not if you kill to protect your life or a life of another from imminent

death though. Then it's justified.

Edited August 21, 2014 by theNexus