Rape: mindset or society - whose fault?

How many more?
This is the question I ask myself every time I read or watch the news about violence against women, rape to be specific and in our country they don't seem to be stopping.

This was not an intended post, but the recent events were so disturbing that nothing else came to my mind when I started thinking what my next post should be. The recent rape + murder cases in India has me fuming, just like everyone else.


I don't know how many more innocent girls and women need to be sacrificed for the world to come to senses. How many more reasons will the world give; wrong place, wrong time, wrong clothes, whatever rest of the fuck excuses everyone comes up with. These men (who do such horrifying things) are probably psychos, mentally retarded, with a shitpot of a mindset, and I don't even know how anyone can do that to a fellow human being. The more I try to understand how can they do that, I fail, because I just don't and do not want to as well. Is it predatorial behavior, power hunger, sexual arousal, some mental disorder or plain assohlism. No matter the reason, there is nothing worse than this, when it comes to failed humanity. To add to this, there is a part of our great society and the world we live in, where some great people have different point of view, blame everything on the victim, torture the family or give great statements like a girl asked for it. Educated (some not) morons like them in power and privileged positions is what is wrong with this world in the first place.

Then there is a helpless part of the society, majority of them, get into the defensive/safety mode (tell our girls to not go out alone or in the nights) or do not bother about it much, thinking it did not happen to us or will not. Would you want to wait for something like that to happen to you or someone you know (god forbid)? I m sure the answer is no? We are all frustrated, agitated, angry, sick of it, but the point being it keeps happening and nothing seems to change. Also, lets not make it a gender or a religion issue for gods sake. We cannot place every man on the same platform, just like we can't blame a religion for any kind of violence. It is the people, specific people, who ruin it for all. I have a lot of guy friends, who are great (I am so proud to have them in my life) and who stand up for everything right and equal. But of course, since majority of cases happen against women and we cannot deny that I think in any part of the world the numbers speak for themselves, we have to look at reforming the whole societal mindsets.

All I want to know is how many more years of us having to hide our faces, fear going out alone at night, keep looking behind our backs to make sure no one's following, send our taxi numbers to our friends and family in case something happened, or dress in a certain way so that we don't grab unwanted attention? How many more? Isn't this what we have been asking since years and centuries? Even with such advancements in the so called modern world, we are still deprived of basic human rights, and these are as basic as it gets. As a woman I want to scream everyday for the patriarchy this world has put us through, for killing our dreams every time, for having to live in a certain way, for the ideas of oppression and regression. I want to scream that people think they own us, think we are the weaker sex and just shouldn't do a lot of things which we want.

Don't you think enough is enough? I, for sure am tired, exhausted and done with being a woman in this country and the world for that matter. Like for real, enough of it, if we can't even have the basic rights, equality is a far off reality honestly. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get and I actually did not want to write any thing gender specific as such and I hope it doesn't seem, coz I am sure any sensible man will agree as well.

Largely to an extent I also feel it is the society's fault, the way it works, where men are allowed to do any thing and women just bear everything and compromise. Patriarchy of the society, as I mentioned, allows it and thats how the world looks at it, which comes with a lot of rights being taken granted for. The problem is in the root cause so should the solution. The conditioning which needs to be changed since childhood, in schools, homes and your surroundings.

I know in the end we all talk about it and move on with our lives until the next big happens and that's how it works. But what about change? Is it the law makers, governments and politicians that have to make the change? Or is the society as a whole? I think it's the latter. The world we live in, not just in India, but all across the world, has been conditioned for centuries to be a certain way which I am sure won't be easy to come out of. It'll probably take us decades or even centuries more to build a society that we are proud of (don't even know if that is possible and definitely not living to see it). But the least, the least we can do is try to help, listen, extend a hand and please for heavens sake victim bashing needs to stop, no one goes wanting something as heinous as rape happen to them. Safety first but mindsets before that!

Hoping for a day we all can go out whenever we want without the fear of being oogled at, made comments on, stalked, raped and killed. Even if we aren't here to see it happen ourselves, never stop fighting, screaming or fighting against for our little girls who will walk the earth after us.

P.S. I don't know if it is just fancy to talk about these things and that is why it is happening, doing something is more important. A combined effort of creating awareness, raising boys that respect women and equality, as for the rest of the world that won't change, kick their asses coz that's how they'd understand it.

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