Indian society is yet to acknowledge the existence of rape culture – a set of beliefs that condones aggression on women.
Perhaps no other event in India has received more international attention in the recent past than the brutal gang rape in Delhi and its tragic aftermath. The issue is widely covered in the Western media; the latest addition is the channel interview of the rape victim’s male friend — a clear illustration of the extent to which the public, the police, and the healthcare system was “ruthless” towards a dying, sexually assaulted woman.
Gang rapes do occur in most countries, regardless of stringent anti-rape laws. Like what happened in the Indian capital, most gang rapes are atrociously violent and traumatising: brutal torture during and after the sexual act is not quite uncommon. In the US, one such unspeakable crime was reported from Steubenville, a football-obsessed industrial city in Appalachia.
IN US AND BRITAIN
The heinous gang rape of a teenage girl occurred on August 11, 2012. According to news reports, the offenders dragged her from party to party. Two 16-year-old high school football players of the Big Red team were arrested about a week after the girl’s parents reported the case. An inquiry is still on, and more student players are suspected to be involved in the rape.
The issue is on fire since the New Year. An anonymous hackers group has come with the details about how the partygoers videotaped the incident and the high school administration and law enforcement agents tried to cover up the charges.
Rapes committed by teenage gangs are on the rise in Britain. In March 2012, Channel 4 News revealed that young girls are being sexually exploited by street gangs across the UK.
“From the conversations we’ve had with individual girls, some of the stories we get are quite heart-rending really in terms of girls being kidnapped, held at gun point, threatened with being what the public would understand as gang raped,” said Sue Berelowitz, who is leading the two-year official inquiry on the issue.
Many studies conducted in the Western societies have shown that gang rape has its roots in what is known in academic circles as ‘rape culture’.
RAPE CULTURE
Rape culture is a concept in feminist research, which explains the prevalent attitudes, norms and practices in a society that trivialises, excuses, tolerates, or even condones rape. It “is a complex set of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women”, as defined in the Encyclopedia of Rape.
The rapes committed by British teenage gangs and the American football team evidently spring from rape culture. In his book Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols (2005), Stanley Tietelbaum has argued that the male sports culture perpetuates the notion that women can be sexually exploited.
Those who stand accused in most Western gang rapes are boys in their late teens and early twenties trying to establish a gang identity.
In India, most gang rapes aren’t a ‘boyish’ thing; it is a particular form of domination based on social relationships of unequal power. Caste, class and gender — the key hierarchical social structures — are at play in the Indian context.
The suicide of a dalit rape victim in Punjab on December 26 is a typical example. Even at a time when the whole country is in anguish over the Delhi gang rape, the Patiala police harassed the victim to withdraw her complaint.
On top of that, she was under immense social pressure to compromise with the rapists, who belong to an influential caste.
Upendra Baxi, a well-known Indian legal scholar, pointed out in an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly (2002) that the political and governance systems of India deny as well as silence women’s sufferings, and thus support a rape culture. In this context, it would be relevant to look how differently India and the West handle the “rape crisis”.
RAPE CRISIS CENTERS
An anti-rape movement was on the rise in New York during the early 1970s. It spread throughout the US and later to Europe in the succeeding years. Ever since its beginning, Western anti-rape movements have attempted to set up an extensive network of rape crisis centres (RCCs), in order to provide direct support for rape victims and to address the ‘rape culture’.
Such RCCs work in unison with counties, communities, and different local institutions. Many universities and colleges even have their own RCC or sexual assault offices. Most of them have own buildings and well-maintained Web sites.
As of today, there are about 1,100 RCCs all around the US, which work hand in hand with the National Sexual Assault Helpline. Rape crisis centres in England and Wales received funding worth £10 million from the government for the 2011-13 period.
Though of recent origin, some Indian States have their own rape crisis centres. A prototype would be the Rape Crisis Cell working under the Delhi Commission for Women since September 2005, which is now handling around 900 cases.
It should be noted that Indian RCCs are nothing more than places where the assault victims can avail of psychological counselling and legal assistance. Besides being few, many of them are located at the congested corners of the Women Commission or some NGO headquarters.
SELF-REALISATION
In the West there is a sort of internal realisation of the existence of a rape culture, something that is not acknowledged by Indian society. Therefore, rape crisis centres in India are set up only with the intention of helping the victims in need.
They are not geared up to organise outreach programmes and social awareness campaigns, like their American and British counterparts do. Along with reforming the existing anti-rape laws in India, there has to be some kind of popular initiative to establish an effective and decentralised network of rape crisis centres in the length and breadth of the country.
But that requires an acknowledgement of a ‘rape culture’ that exists within our own society. Are we ready for this self-realisation?
(Sajan is a social anthropologist at University of Bergen, Norway. Idicula is a consultant neurologist and neuroscientist at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.)
Keywords: rape culture, aggression on women, women and society
Comments:
Oh, yes???? Trying to shift the blame and shame from motherrrrrrrrrr india, eh?
"Rape culture" is a reflection of the 1000's years old, nearly world-wide patriarchy.
As long as boys are raised by patriarchal cultures to think of themselves as "better"
than girls, as long as males are encouraged to think of themselves as "more
important" than females, rape culture will persist.
Males are no more valuable, no more important, no more inherently superior to
females than air is to water -- or vice versa. Only when we raise our sons and
daughters to respect one another as social, political and familial equals will the
culture of rape dissolve.
We are all human beings. We all deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.
Anyone who hurts and degrades another human being is harming all of human
kind, for that human being being victimized is our sister, brother, mother, father,
daughter, son, wife, husband, friend. This is why the state charges the criminal:
"the people versus the accused". Harming one of us is an affront to all of us.
I appreciated your thoughtful article, and only disliked the misleading headline. Your haunting final question -- "Are we ready for this self-realisation?" -- obviously needs to be answered by India (and indeed all human beings). I hope the answer is a resounding YES. Thank you, Mark (adult male citizen of the USA)
This is timely write up and will go to lift the veil of fog on the
issue of criminal rape not exclusive to India. What is happening in
India is horrible enough but amazing and shocking that American
society is plagued with this curse though it may be argued that there
is a progressive realization of it in the society. It is well
recognized that American rape epidemic is too terrifying for many of
its victims to publicly discuss, thanks to a culture that celebrates
sports personalities as demi Gods. What happened at New Delhi was as
horribly repeated at Ohio town of Steubenville on a very drunk 16-
year-old girl who was dragged from house to house by Aug. 11, some
High School players while taking liberties with her, using their
cellphones to snap photographs and shoot videos along the way. Only
difference is, unlike Delhi ruffians’ offenders were famous high
school footballers protected by the circle of admirers. Rape culture
that exists in India will take long time for recognition as unlike
Western society a woman victim faces unprecedented societal boycott
which include the close family members. Situation is unlikely to
change soon.
There most certainly is not a "rape culture" in the west. The writer is
attempting to justify his own culture's failings by trying to
dishonestly claim that the west is similar.....it's not.
To the person who has written this article Hats off....
From this I just want to say indians who are abroad...India is just
another country like USA or Australia. Western countries supress the
local news to make it like everything is good. But indian media doesn't
have that suppression. They are open and they talk about it until the
their media gets the rating.
So, guys stop treating india bad....
I don't think there is a rape culture in India.It is the fallacy of the writer.It is important to note we are a nation with more than Billion people and the life style of this billion people varies from abject poverty to very rich robber barons.In this type of disparity, the incidences of rape so far has been far fewer in comparison to west where there is high literacy,functioning justice system,fewer social ostracism of rape victims and also almost parity in wealth in major chunk of the population.Inspite of scoring low marks on all above issues where the west has progressed , incidences of rape has been far lower in india and that is only due to Hindu values which forebear aggressive behaviour.Now the need of the hour is how we build our cities, how we police public services like tourist taxis/buses/autorickshaws,how quick the police react to complaint calls and once the crime is committed, how ruthless and fast our criminal justice system function to punish the guilty
A good piece indeed. Could have looked more deeply at the Indian or
South Asian socio-economic, cultural and political dimensions of rape
and gang rape.
There are 'n' number of victims in this world who suffer and still
suffering just because they born in this dirty world.when human beings
behave like animals or worst than animals, things like this will
happen.Instead of suffering, its the people like you and me who need to
act to protect helpless women.whether " self-realisation" or "self-
control" matters more?
The article well written quoting facts and recent happenings in near past. To a great extent i don't take Indian society and west in parallel while performing analysis for the certain reason that India is much conservative, with great inequality of women to men ratio, caste\class disparities, gender inequality, illetracy. For many such reasons i don't find India to mitigate the same problem by replicating western measures adopted.
The problem existing in India is a cumulative of several reasons part of which don't exist in West so i believe India need to address the problem to reduce such happenings off-course in combination with providing a sound ecosystem to handle such case as they occur.
Mindset should change to start with First Politicians.
To call this rape "culture" is probably not appropriate. Yes it is a learned behaviour of a class of men (sex criminals or offenders) across countries. One would like to believe that it is confined to a much, much smaller subset of men. Possibly this trait manifests itself more in countries where crimes in general are dealt with in a slack manner. One can say the same thing about all other crimes - sex, political, white collar, economic, industrial.....Bottom line is the need for effective prevention, detection, prosecution and justice delivery.
Put your house in order before raising fingers on others.
Hope you also have a mother -a sister- a wife and a daughter.
If not anything at least a mother and i am sure you adore her with Love.
what is different in other women?
why are the male so chauvinistic?
are they heroes or consider themselves as machos.
Castration like bulls is the only way to go.
Followed by hanging-they have no fear of GOD in them or not taught.
In our society we do not need these animals.
In saudi arabia they simply behead them-in china they face the bullet -in iran they
are hanged in public and in India we still have 154 tainted politicians-all in the
name of democracy?
hey can get scot free by scratching the back of police and bureaucrats and other
depts.
such is the deep rooted corruption -in our system-DISGRACE! and Shame.
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