By Patricia Mukhim
The Delhi gang rape has evoked emotive responses from across the genders. An article by Barnes Mawrie helps us introspect on the plight of the Indian woman and her horribly pathetic condition such as the absence of reproductive rights and even the right to life. Many foetuses of the female child are killed in the first trimester of life or as soon as the genitals can be identified. It’s such a horrific crime which this country has not been able to effectively tackle despite laws that make sex determination a crime. And, like Mawrie says, the killing of female foetuses is linked to dowry and it’s other manifestations such as lifelong harassment by the woman’s in-laws and sometimes her being burnt to death by her husband and parents in-law.
But we are speaking here about the larger Indian society. Let’s cast a glance at our own backyards. Meghalaya is known for its matrilineal traditions but does that make life for the girl child or the woman any easier? Nearly every single day we get reports about rape and molestation. A step-father raping his ten year old step-daughter in West Khasi Hills is the latest in the series of crimes against women in this State. But we are nowhere near solving any of the crimes. We hardly hear of any conviction of rapists in Meghalaya. In fact many of them are out on bail because the police fail to stitch together a fool proof case. Investigation into rape cases is shoddy and full of loopholes. And once an FIR is filed no one really has time to follow through the case except the raped victim’s own family members. We in Meghalaya never made a noise over the gang rape of a young woman in Williamnagar. It only became an issue after the death of the Delhi gang rape victim on October 29 when NGOs here got together to condemn the December 16 incident and the Williamnagar case was also highlighted.
Rape therefore is a universal evil and afflicts all societies where women are not respected. Women have struggled to live and conform to societal rules from time immemorial. It is only very recently that we have asserted our right to equality and equity. This has not gone too well with the inheritors of patriarchy who dominate and dictate how our lives ought to be lived. We can have humane laws under the Indian Constitution but many societies revert to their regressive customary laws when dealing with issues which involve power sharing arrangements. This is so evident in Nagaland or Meghalaya where women are asked to compromise with their rapists and marry him. How can any woman marry someone who has brutalized not just her body but her soul and spirit as well? But the patriarchs who sit in judgement believe that is the best way to settle the crime of rape. I don’t believe that even the Neanderthal man did this.
And then we have societal laws galore which restrict women’s mobility. Who says women should be home before dark? Our parents say so because that is a societal diktat. Our socialisation process is such that from the time we were children there were different sets of rules for girls and boys. The common belief is that girls should protect their virginity which they have to ‘gift’ the man they marry one fine day. In tribal societies, at least the one I come from, virginity is a big deal. It’s the unique selling point (USP) for any woman to get a good catch, never mind whether she has other qualities. I am surprised that this has not changed over the decades of modernisation, westernisation and civilisation. Boys, could of course sows their wild oats; the more the merrier. What hypocrisy indeed! And it is in this very unequal society that we are all born and brought up and learn our social moorings.
So why are girls asked to return home early? Who do they have to fear? And the answer clearly is that their fear is about being molested or raped and their virginity lost forever to someone’s son, brother, husband or male friend. Girls are almost forbidden to express their sexuality over which there is a conspiratorial silence in most societies. And, lest someone gets me wrong, sexuality is a very natural thing endowed by nature to both male and female so we can express our intrinsic emotions. We are also born naked. This means that our sex organs and the other endowments of mother nature are nothing to be ashamed of or to be viewed as ‘dirty’ or something to be disparagingly spoken about. It is true that civilisation gave us the idea of clothes but these are meant to cover us from the cold. Over time we have constructed the idea of modesty and morality and linked them to clothes and how much of them we wear and how we cover ourselves or don’t cover ourselves adequately. And lo and behold, whenever any of our daughters or sisters are raped and violated we are told it’s because they dressed indecently. It’s the most irrational logic and an infamous gender construct if ever there is one, for children of five or six or eight years old cannot be called indecently dressed. Yet they are raped!
It’s time therefore to introduce the meaning and metaphor of gender right from middle and high school. The young should know the different constructs of gender that have been handed out to us over the decades. It’s imperative to deconstruct the notion of man and woman (the biological aspect) from male and female (the social construct) because we often tend to mix up the two. When we talk of gender non-discrimination and that both man and woman are born equal we are not rejecting the biological role by virtue of which a woman gives birth and the man is the holder of the sperm. We are talking of gender equity in the context of gender division of labour and of the norms of behaviour which society imposes on male and female members of society. This societal expectation bears heavily on us women because we are expected to cede the night to the male of the species. Can we continue to do so when we are talking of equal wages for equal work?
Today the definition of work has changed. Gone are the days of 10 am to 5 pm schedules when women could come home and take on the role of a domestic help. Those working in the private and public sector no longer have timings to choose. Their work chooses them. Their work decides when they can leave the office. A working woman does equal work as a working man. Hence the domestic chores too should be shared. Is this possible? In the West, men and women share domestic responsibility but not in India. Times have changed radically but not our mindsets. This is pushing us into very incongruous circumstances. We are aggressively modern but our societal yardsticks are woefully anachronistic. I can imagine how difficult it is for young women to have to walk this tight-rope. Even where families are liberal and modern and come from the upper crust, the roads that children from such families walk on, the buses or trains they board and the pubs they frequent or the work places they spend the bulk of their time in are unfortunately not sanitised against gender biases and perverted notions of sex and sexuality. Respect for woman’s sexuality is minimal. She always has to be on the defensive either about why she is out at night or why she is wearing ‘provocative’ dresses.
Much has been spoken about mindset change on television channels. As a nation of chatterboxes we have said all there is to be said. Television stars have all echoed one common refrain – mindset change – is a long haul and therefore we should begin with stricter laws and their implementation. But why can’t both happen simultaneously? Mindsets will change when we begin gender sensitisation at home. Home is where we breed rapists, perverts and sex maniacs. It is also in the home where we bring up gender sensitive, caring, loving men who have stood up in huge numbers to protest against the gruesome rape of December 16. So what kind of home are we rearing our sons in? Are we trying to bring the mindset change in our sons, husbands, brothers, and male friends? Let’s do it the sooner the better and begin and begin with ourselves. The power of one is incredible!