Freedom at midnight
How long before women can enjoy safe spaces that men take for granted?
Share this with the men in your lives. They need to read this more than those of us identifying as women.
We have a problem with rape culture.
If you are a man in India reading this and the statement leaves you feeling shock or outrage, feel what you have to feel, my friend. But it ain't changing the truth.
As news of the heinous rape and murder of a resident doctor at RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata, broke in India on August 9, my first thought was 'Not again', accompanied by sheer exhaustion and numbness.
Shame crept in not long after.
I am ashamed about feeling this shame because it’s not mine (or any other woman’s) to bear. Reading about this rape and others triggers my shame about surviving. Shame about being among the women who are lucky to be spared this fate.
I think about another gruesome rape in New Delhi that shook the country over 12 years ago, and still another in Hathras just four years ago. There are hundreds more that go unreported every year because they don't outrage middle-class and caste sensibilities enough.
I am willing to bet every woman in India has a personal catalogue of horror stories of sexual assault. Women share these stories in whispers with other women, it’s a way of easing our shared trauma. But we also keep these horrible episodes from the men in our lives.
These experiences can no longer be contained among women for fear of shame. For far too long, our shame has festered in a culture of silence that goes hand in hand with sexual assault.
This shame needs to be methodically scooped up from our lives and tossed back to where it belongs - to the men who caused us that harm in the first place.
I deliberated a fair amount before posting this. There’s a good chance my voice will be lost in a swathe of whataboutery and bruised egos crying “not all men” diluting precious protests. But this has to be said.
I was 6 when I watched my mother whip out her shoe to hit a man who had made a crude pass at her at the railway station as we stood in queue to buy tickets. It was in broad daylight, and she was draped in a sari.
I was 7 or 8 when I first experienced sexual assault at the hands of a 20-something year old man. A child that young doesn’t have the language to begin to describe that experience to caregivers and parents. To this day, I dream of finding him so I can publicly shame him. That burden of shame isn't mine to bear.
I was 16 when I took matters in my own hands and punched a man square across the face for indecent exposure and sexual assault on a train platform. A punch was the defence mechanism of choice because a curled-up first meant minimum skin contact with the disgusting human. It was satisfying to watch the man shrink with shock.
There are dozens more incidents such as this that I can recount.
I still remember the outrage the ‘We have a problem with rape culture’ statement caused in a extended family group chat a few years ago.
‘Yes what happened [a rape] is horrific, but that doesn't mean we have rape culture’, I recall a male relative sharing with me in conversation not long after.
But we do, sadly.
I see many men and some women take the term literally and get lost in the weeds arguing the semantics of it.
Rape culture isn't that every other person around us is raped. It is when a society exhibits a range of behaviours, beliefs and actions that make rape and sexual assault normalised and acceptable.
Rapes do not happen in isolation. There are a range of problematic behaviours that are tolerated and normalised in our society (see the bottom of the rape culture pyramid) that support more violent acts such as rape at the top of the pyramid.
But this has to be said. We are a long way off before we will see a drop in reported rapes. But it’s up to us (men and women) to gradually reverse rape culture -
Name perpetrators of sexual assault. Even at home. Especially at home.
Shed the culture of silence and shame around sexual assault. Normalise dinner table conversations about sexism, sexual assault and gender discrimination.
Transfer the shame to the perpetrators, where it belongs. Women are not the vessels for their family’s izzat and honour. This is a very regressive, patriarchal tool to control women’s bodies. Men, please to hold their izzat in their own behaviours and actions, thankyouverymuch.
Do not blame or shame the victim. Consistently call out people who blame the victim. A victim’s sexual assault has nothing to do with what they were wearing, or the time of day they were outside home. They certainly weren’t asking for it.
Know when women need protection. Be an active bystander. Stepping in to help a woman if she is at the risk of or facing sexual assault is necessary. Bring the incident to public attention. Create a ruckus.
Policing women’s behaviour does not protect women. It’s not your business to police a woman’s dress, what time she leaves or arrives home, where she travels.
Police perpetrators of sexual assault instead. Focus your energy on policing men who commit sexual assault.
Don’t give into the ‘good woman’ ‘bad woman’ narrative, it only serves the patriarchy. We are just women, spare us the moral labels.
Raise boys and girls who understand consent and respect. Teaching young men to understand and accept when a woman says ‘No’ will go a long way.
Unpopular opinion - Abstinence-focused sex education in schools is problematic. While it’s not easy to talk about sex or sexuality in Indian culture, it’s time we start addressing it.
Young people need to know that it’s healthy to explore their sexual identity and interests, and safe, consensual sex is key (marital status no bar). Maybe the law will catch up eventually and marital rapes will be recognised as the crimes that they are and replace these headlines.
Most men need to hear this. If it’s not a clear yes, it’s a NO. You will survive it.
And finally, try and have an open, honest conversation with one woman in your life about her experience with sexual assault. It will be hard, but the least you can do is try and understand her trauma.
I am sorry women have to go through this because of us men.
I find myself nodding throughout this essay.
Regarding #10: When some 25 of us girls and boys were entering 11th grade, our school principal made a speech where he said, 'there is a time to eat breakfast, a time for lunch and a time to do dinner. Just like you don't eat dinner in the mornings, this is not the time for you to have sex.'
I have seen that girls and boys go in with very different notions of what dating is - thanks to their peer groups and the media they consume.
I feel it's necessary that parents and teachers talk to young people about dating. By not talking about it, we are not setting any expectations on what is good behaviour.
In an interview Virat Kohli credits Anushka Sharma for making him a better person. He tells the interviewer (Gaurav Kapur), 'You know how i was'. We all knew how he was and we got to witness his transformation.
It will do so much good for the young kids if someday Virat and Anushka can co-author a book or do a series of YouTube videos sharing how they got through this. Role modeling can be hugely impactful.
Organizations like Yuvaa is putting in efforts in this direction.
But then, it's not yet a national mission. For it to become a national mission, we will have to look into ourselves and identify the problem that is rape culture. Unless we identify this problem, we can't start working towards a remedy.
Thank you, Sai for articulating this so well. I've been wanting to write something similar but was so consumed with rage that I just couldn't muster even a sentence. This is so eloquently put and must be shared far and wide. I am going to send it to my family WhatsApp group too. I know it'll receive silence there because "hawww, sex!" but we must start somewhere.