Rape Culture: A Social Stigma

Rape culture is a way of life in which sexual violence is accepted as normal and victims are held responsible for their own assaults. It's about cultural norms and institutions that protect rapists, promote impunity, blame victims, and demand that women make excessive sacrifices to avoid sexual assault.

Because it places the burden of safety on women's shoulders and blames them when they fail, rape culture compels women to give up their freedoms and possibilities in order to be safe.

Normalising a thing we should not:

You know, the things which happen regularly or which we see around us happening often is generally considered to be a normal thing. The things which happen rarely or happen out of the box is considered to be an abnormal thing. And somewhat it is correct also but not in every case. Just a thing happening regularly and very often shouldn't be considered as normal. Wait for minute, and think about rape. Well not rape now, rape and murder. Is rape and murder of a person so normal now, that many people aren't even concerned to talk about it? Forget about doing something.

When asked to think about something normal, no one would think about periods, as if it is not normal. A simple body function is not normal. Majority of the girls in the world cannot talk about periods openly. People still considering it to be a taboo, shopkeepers not giving sanitary pads without wrapping it in a newspaper and coming up with different names for periods like, "Time of the month" still shows that how are we not ready to normalize it. One one hand we have normalized rape and murder and on the other hand, we are struggling to normalize a thing which is already normal.

The recent Lucknow girl case, in which a girl was seen slapping a cab driver 20-22 times on the road in front of the entire public invited huge outrage and criticisms. And it even should, the girl's act cannot be justified in any way even if the driver was wrong because this is not the way how you deal with people. On every social media platform, posts, stories and tweets were seen that men want justice and arrest the Lucknow girl. And it is right also as it shows that how we have not normalized the offences against men. But the many of the same people who tweeted and posted regarding men's rights and equality didn't seem to show any interest in the recent horrific rape cases happening across the country. Though the graveness of rape and murder is much more than slapping a man. Well I'm not saying that people's posts about Lucknow girl was wrong, but you need show and maintain equality from both sides. Showing equality from one side would take our society in the same condition from which we are trying to get out since years.

Justifications given for rape:

Rapists employ a variety of justifications and excuses to justify their actions. The explanations given are so varied that generalising is practically impossible. Religious leaders, instructors, guardians, fathers, brothers, relatives, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers have all been accused of rape. Rape is a stigmatised crime in today's patriarchal and gendered environment, with aspersions put on the victim rather than the perpetrator. This encourages men who rely on a woman's quiet to protect her honor. It's also all too simple to blame a woman for bringing out the beast in a man. There is a case to be made for her being punished for provoking him. After all, who would males rape if there were no women? So perhaps the very existence of women is to blame for our holier-than-thou men turning into rapists. One crucial problem that has come up often is the size of a woman's dress. Do the outfits make you uncomfortable? Are saree and burqa-clad women not raped? There have been cases of men sexually abusing animals. Should we also dress animals? Makeup is another frequently mentioned explanation. Rapists claim that women use heavy cosmetics, particularly lipstick, to entice men. How do you justify rape against juveniles, infants, elderly women, women suffering from mental illness, ladies in coma, or those in hospitals with serious illnesses? What have they done to catch a rapist's attention?

There are certain rape myths: "No" means "yes," "a lady never says yes," "women prefer to be forced," "women who drink are an easy lay," "outgoing women like to experiment in all areas, including sex," and so on. Women have been robbed of their agency and voice as a result of the perpetuation of such misconceptions. Most of the time, the accused is completely unaware that they have committed rape. They acknowledge to having forced sex but refuse to call it rape.

Recent brutal cases of rape across the country:

Hathras gang-rape and murder

A 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and viciously assaulted by four males on September 14, 2020, when her family members were busy working in the fields. Four to five people attacked her from behind, gagged her with her dupatta, and brought her to a bajra field where they gang-raped her, according to her family.

Odisha rape

Police in Odisha's Kalahandi district have detained a 22-year-old man for reportedly raping his three-year-old niece. The accused lives in Maskapadar village, which is part of the Lanjigarh police station's jurisdiction. On Sunday, he enticed the girl with candy and toys and took her to the 'Jhami Yatra' (a local festival), according to a police official. He then allegedly raped her in a deserted location before dropping her off at her home. When the child's mother realised she was bleeding, she hurried her to a community health centre.

Banda rape case

An older guy allegedly raped an eight-year-old girl in a village in Uttar Pradesh. Later, the suspect, identified as Jagdish Pal, 70, was apprehended. The girl was playing near her residence in the Baberu neighborhood of the Banda district when the event occurred. The girl, according to the authorities, has a visual impairment and is unable to see clearly.

Bisanda rape

In a separate incident, a 14-year-old kid was sodomized by a teenager in the district's Bisanda region. The alleged person has been taken into custody.

Sukhpura rape

A man was arrested after reportedly rapping a 17-year-old girl and filming and posting the conduct on social media. Chandrama Rajbhar, 24, was arrested for rapping a juvenile girl multiple times over the course of a year. The conduct was also videotaped and uploaded on Facebook by the accused.

Pilibhit rape

A juvenile from Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit hamlet was detained in connection with the rape of a four-year-old girl. The unfortunate occurrence occurred while the girl was outside her house playing. On the pretence of giving her an object, the 16-year-old accused enticed the girl into an empty room and raped her.

This list however doesn't includes the recent rape cases of Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad.

Life after surviving Rape:

Because we have such a short history of dealing with sexual crimes, neither the survivor nor society knows how to respond or recover. Survivors are pressured to relocate, limit their mobility, and drop out of school. A  young contact centre executive who was raped by a stranger in Bengaluru, was warned by her landlord, that she would have to evacuate the flat because he didn't want to deal with cops at his door. When a survivor went to eat with her daughters in a restaurant in Kolkata, she was ordered to leave. After their daughter was raped, a Hyderabad family was barred from attending family functions. After being raped by a friend, a woman in Delhi was disowned by her husband. 

"Even today, there is little psychological support or validation of the survivor's feelings and experiences; her therapeutic needs are not met", points out Aarthi Chandrasekhar, research officer at Cehat, a Mumbai-based organization working to improve comprehensive healthcare response to survivors of violence. "Forensic biases such as comments on hymen, vaginal elasticity and the past history of the survivor persist. An insensitive response leaves the survivor feeling responsible for the act, preventing her from seeking further care and support," she says.

Yogesh Kumar, programme coordinator at Association for Development in Delhi says survivors often stop coming to them for counselling after six months. "Sometimes, when we land up at their homes to inquire why, neighbors say they left without leaving behind an address," he says. In their new environment they try to suppress memories and carry on with a mask of normalcy, but symptoms like depression, insomnia or panic attacks can afflict them for years.

The continuing stigmatisation of sexual offences, which shames the victim rather than the criminal, leads to a lack of empathy. People don't want to talk about it because it's so intense, says Vidya Reddy, executive director of Tulir, a Chennai NGO that fights child sexual abuse. "Even people writing about their own experiences of abuse online do it anonymously. Why don't we ever have a name or a face to a story, when it's no fault of theirs? Ironically, it's the perpetrators whose faces are masked when they come to court - why? 

The law states that a victim's name should be kept hidden to protect her dignity, but this is rendered useless by an inquisitive media and a lustful social media that circulates the victim's personal information, including now, footage of the assault. "Circulating such videos on social media further stigmatizes the survivor. It also creates a sense of despair which may result in suicidal thoughts and attempts as well", says Chandrasekhar.

Even a simple accident requires care and protection of the victim. Rape is something that would haunt the victim for whole of his/her lifetime. Recovering from the trauma not only requires physical care but to a greater extent mental care & wellbeing and most importantly love. If everyday they would be reminded of and taunted for the incident, they will not be able to forget and recover from that. Unfortunately this is the thing which happens in our society. As a result, the survivors are seen to be suffering from depression and anxiety for the rest of their life. Some of the people who show anger and grief on the death of the victims, are ones who don't let them live peacefully, if they survive.

Most of us don't want to live in a society where one gender is so oppressed that people aren't even interested in discussing their death or murder. The role of law and justice is important. However, the primary and most important goal should be to prevent such acts. And if such atrocities continue to occur, we must strive to bring them justice and make this society a better place for them to live freely and fearlessly. And also, make sure they aren't mocked on a daily basis by forcing them to answer improper questions and blaming them for the offence.

"For anybody whose once normal everyday life was suddenly shattered by an act of sexual violence– the trauma, the terror, can shatter you long after one horrible attack. It lingers. You don’t know where to go or who to turn to…and people are more suspicious of what you were wearing or what you were drinking, as if it’s your fault, not the fault of the person who assaulted you…We still don’t condemn sexual assault as loudly as we should. We make excuses, we look the other way…Laws won’t be enough unless we change the culture that allows assault to happen in the first place."

- President Barack Obama, September 2014

Don't know how to conclude this article. But whenever people tell their daughters or sisters to remain alert and safe when going out in late evenings or nights, then they should also tell their sons and brothers to stay alert and react to every crime they see happening against women.

~Sanjana Shikhar