Few days ago when the whole country was mourning over the Uber cab incident, when Shehnaz Treasurywala’s open letter to the biggest celebrities of our country over the issue of women safety was being shared all over the social media, when we were again planning for a candle march for all the rape victims, when we were going to witness the 2nd anniversary of 16th December, Nirbhaya incident without getting the right justice, I decided to research a little about all this. So, let’s talk about the reasons behind women getting raped every single day in our country.
Why do we get raped? Why do we face any violence against us for that matter? Is it because the way we dress up? Is it because we walk out alone at unsafe places? Is it because we dare to take a bus at 9 pm in a busy road with a friend? Or is it because we find ourselves brave enough to board a taxi alone in the daylight?
Shehnaz has appealed in her open letter to Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Amir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and even Narendra Modi to come forward and protect women. And how are they going to protect us. All the bollywood celebrities might talk about it more in their movies or in their TV shows. Salman might dedicate an episode of Big Boss on women safety, like Amir has already done in Satyamev Jayate. Amitabh might say a few lines while beginning the season of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ and our beloved PM might ban a few more things for women safety in our country. But is that the solution we are looking for?
We need a permanent solution for this. If we are getting raped then we are supposed to take the responsibility. You… the mother of the rape victim… why can’t you take the responsibility? You the father of the rapist… why can’t you take the responsibility. And you! Yes! You… the one who is reading this… why can’t you take the responsibility????
We write hate-status-messages for the system on our facebook page. We criticize our government for the rapes, the murders, the dowry deaths and female foticides. But what are we doing about all this? We talk about women safety, we talk about their freedom. But how are we upbringing our daughters? We talk about the bad effects of patriarchy, we talk about the possible punishments for the rapists. But how are we upbringing our Son’s? How many of you are okay with your daughter going for a late night party? How many of you have a problem when your son doesn’t tell you where he was last night? Our society never teaches the sons not to rape. But they definitely teach daughters not to get raped. We stop our daughter’s to step out of the house after 9 so that they don’t get raped. Why can’t we stop our sons to get out of the closed doors so that they don’t RAPE?????
Rape!!! Dowry!!! Physical violence!!! Big issues right? So we talk about them. We support the girls facing these major problems. But there’s a minor problem too. A grey shade!!!! The shade which is neither so white that we can look up to them, nor so black that we can hate them. And this grey shade is happily accepted by our society.
70% of women face some form of violence in their lifetime… whoa! That’s a huge number isn’t it? But why isn’t it bothering us? I asked this question several times in the past few years. Got a few answers, however was unable to tell it to the world. And that’s because of the following reasons:
The reasons I found were never discussed so I was afraid if they are even eligible of being the right reasons.
- My parents always taught me to ignore such reasons to live happily ever after.
- People around me might hate me after knowing that I feel these are the reasons strong enough to be discussed.
I read lot of heroic stories of women who came out of bad marriages. Again the marriages which are termed bad are the ones which have mostly physical violence involved for example:
- Your husband drinks and hits you.
- Your husband has an extra marital affair and hits you.
- Your in-laws hit you or torture you for dowry.
- Your in-laws + husband hit you for having a girl child.
Now these are quite strong reasons to be told to the world and walk out of a marriage. Though there were days when women were supposed to drag their marriages even with these reasons, these days society has started accepting them and you are free to come out of it. So for these women the violence ends here. But then how’s the figure going up to 70%? Who are the ones who are still facing the violence? Is the violence against them even considered as “violence”?
I hear about the NGOs and the women organizations working against the violence against women. And the following are considered to be violence:
- Acid attacks
- Murders
- Rapes
- Dowry deaths
- Female feticide
For us the world is always either black or white. The ones, who ask for dowry, who drink and hit women, who kill daughters, the rapists, the acid attackers and the murderers are all black and so we hate them, fight against them. And the ones who love their daughters, who are not dowry hungry, who don’t drink, who don’t hit their women, who has never gone to the extend of throwing acid on a women, never raped a girl are all whites and we love them. But why are we blind towards those gray shades of our society? The gray shades which include:
- Husbands who don’t hit but abuse verbally.
- In-laws who don’t ask for dowry but make their daughter-in-laws work like a maid, day and night
- Parents who love their daughters but not their freedom.
- Mother in laws who want you to follow each and every word she utters or makes your life hell emotionally.
- Boys on the street who don’t rape you physically but literally rape you verbally.
- So called lovers who don’t throw acid on you but make sure your life burns like an acid.
- People who don’t murder you for being a girl in your mother’s womb but make you die each day by implying hundreds of restrictions on you.
These gray shades in our society don’t let a woman live and the norms of our society doesn’t let the lady die. I mean you can’t give such reasons to walk out of a marriage because unlike the typical “bad” marriages, these marriages aren’t harming you physically. You can’t complain against those boys who tease you while going to the college because they are not raping you. You can’t dare to come out of the restrictions because those are made to protect you. But give it a thought people… these marriages, these restrictions and these minor problems are killing these women, trapped in it, mentally.
These examples can be seen mostly in the middle class families. These families find it a pride in the society to educate their daughters, so they do. But when it comes to their freedom… they have the same age old traditional beliefs. If your daughter complains about eve teasing, you are the one who finds out fault in her dress, her behavior or even in her character. If a girl wants to be independent without getting married, your loser mind and even more loser society starts coming out with speculations like she might be a lesbian or something.
On the other hand a middle class groom’s family is also proud to get an equally qualified bride for their boy. But the irony is that they want this girl who has worked day and night to get a similar degree that their son flaunts, to work like a maid for them, to stop using her brains the day she gets married, to agree to her mother in laws views without questioning. You know killing someone physically is a crime so you hate them. Then why is a woman supposed to love such people who are killing her individuality, killing her beliefs, her habits, and her whole existence? Why is she termed as a “home-breaker” or a “no – respect – for – in laws” and even a “valueless” women in our society? Why is she supposed to adopt the way her in laws sit, stand, eat and worship as soon as she gets married and just drop the way her parents taught her to be? Why does everything she has learnt from her parents so far become absolutely useless in just one day?
Why is this grey shade of violence not considered as violence? If hitting someone’s body is violence then so is hitting someone’s soul.
