"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," he said.
That was the heading I woke up to on Monday morning. A
blatant statement from one of the convicted Delhi bus rapists
in the brutal attack of Jyoti Singh in 2012. Jyoti, after watching
Life of Pi with a friend at night, was brutally raped by 6 men in
a moving bus, tortured with an iron rod, eviscerated and
thrown into the street, naked and bleeding.
One of her attackers was interviewed by British filmmaker,
Leslee Udwin, who spent two years making a documentary,
called India’s Daughter, about Jyoti’s rape and murder and its
ensuing effect on the Indian community. What came to light
was “men's brutal attitudes” about women:
“A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night. A girl is
far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not
equal” – Mukesh Singh (Delhi case rapist)
Never so flagrantly has a rapist put the phenomenon into
words. It’s shocking isn’t it? But is it far from the global truth?
Not quite.
Globally, women are indeed held far more responsible for rape
than men. Women are questioned, shamed, scrutinised,
disbelieved, and in some cases, even punished for being
sexually assaulted. Even so-called "first world countries", who
tout the word “progressive”, seem to have a knack for believing
that girls are to blame. In fact, take a look just a few studies
done in these developed countries to gauge what the
population feels about accountability of rape:
- One in 12 people believe sexual assault and rape victims
are to blame if they are either drunk, under the influence of
drugs or flirtatious with the offender
- 40% subscribed to the view that women could be considered
culpable to some degree if they “put themselves in risky
situations”
- 8% of people think victims are responsible when they are
under the influence of drugs
- 20% of people in a Rape Crisis study believed that women
contribute to rape by wearing revealing clothing
- 40% of men thought that if a woman wears provocative
clothing, she’s putting herself at risk for rape
- 54% of women surveyed said victims were partially
responsible for their rapes
It appears that the Delhi rapist simply summarised what the
world quietly believes, and sometimes, not so quietly.
Progressive countries, like South Africa, have had our own
share of misogynists and ignorants who haven’t even
attempted to stop victim blaming. Unlike the Delhi rapist,
they’ve just found new ways of saying it:
What were you wearing? =
Where were you walking? = “A girl is far more
responsible for rape than a boy”
What were you drinking? =
That’s pretty straight forward, succinct summary of everything
every country asks its rape survivors.
It Takes Two Hands to Clap
You can't clap with one hand – it takes two hands," Mukesh
Singh continues in the interview. "… Housework and
housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at
night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per
cent of girls are good."
It’s a horrifying statement. But is it an original one? Not at all.
Many before him have eluded to precisely the same sentiment:
- “She has the sort of fashion sense on stage that surely
invites rape.” – Daily Mail columnist about Rihanna.
- “She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t
remember?” – Serena Williams’ comment about the
Steubenville rape victim who was unconscious, raped and
urinated on by two high school football players.
- “Child rape is okay when the victim seems ‘older than her
chronological age.’ – A judge in the United States of America.
- “To avoid getting raped, ‘…young ladies should not drink
too much.’” - Lai Tung-kwok, Hong Kong’s secretary for
security, talking about curbing the increase in rapes.
- “If you don’t want to be sexually violated online, don’t take
nude pics” –Half the internet (including Ricky Gervais ) when
Jennifer Lawrence’s nude pictures were leaked.
It looks like a lot of people believe that it does indeed take “two
hands to clap”. Of course, when clapping is a metaphor for
rape, the one hand would be the rapist and the other hand
would be the act of owning a vagina.
The Global Community
Mukesh Singh is a monster and a rapist. He’s the worst kind
I’ve read about. But he is also a man. He is not exceptional.
His words are not, in and of themselves, exceptional. What is
exceptional is India’s tolerance and denial of it. What’s truly
astounding is seeing someone embody the very thing that the
global community implicitly supports.
We stand around saying that “real men don’t rape”. Well. Real
men do rape. He is a real man. And these ‘real men’ were boys
who were raised in a society that taught them, in varying
degrees, that their needs and their lives and their human value
is greater than that of a woman. And we all act shocked when
these ‘real men’ go out and spike a drink, threaten women
with rape and death on social media, sexually assault an
unconscious girl, shoot and kill women because they felt
insecure, violently attack women who rejected them, gang rape
and disembowel a girl.
We act shocked when we hear that in South Africa, 46,253
rapes were reported in the last year with only 669 life
sentences - when only 1 in 9 victims actually report. We act
surprised when we read that 38% of all women who were
murdered were murdered by their intimate partners or ex
partners, and 42% of women who have experienced physical or
sexual violence do so at the hands of a partner. Mukesh Singh
is not the exception. He is the rule; he is a by-product of the
belief system that allows this kind of violent gender
discrimination to happen.
And yet, people will still take to the comment section to tell us
all about reverse-sexism while the Men’s Rights Activists
giddily splatter their literary excrement all over the internet.
Refusing to understand that feminism is evidently necessary.
That women who ask for rights really aren’t asking for much.
That when they read the heading of the Delhi rape, they’re
simply seeing the darker effects of gender inequality.
They’re simply seeing the darker effects of the prejudice they
already hold on to.
Those dangerous sentiments are what the world believes and
lives by, both legally and emotionally. And perhaps that’s why
it shocked you as much as it did. In a world where everyone
frosts their discrimination in politically correct terms and
“ethics in media”, it’s incredibly jarring to see a rapist, a man
raised on a steady diet of patriarchal societal beliefs,
regurgitate those beliefs verbatim. He is a direct product of
what that culture has taught him. So hang him. Jail him. We
don’t care.
Except we’re cutting the head off a headless snake. There are
more of him. Hundreds of thousands of boys raised to believe
that it’s ok to drug a woman, and rape a woman, and urinate
on her, and rip out her intestines, and, and, and.
It’s her fault, after all.
If you’re a somewhat socially aware human being, you’ll have
seen Mukesh’s sentiments mirrored in rape apologists, Men’s
Rights Activists and garden variety misogynists on Twitter. In
fact, the only difference between his comments and that of
Gamergate Bros is that he said it without using an avatar.

Say NO to RAPE!!!

Nobody, and I repeat, Nobody, deserves to be rap.ed

They know that's why they don't complain.

ok.... we don hear

You cannot justify rape no matter what. People should learn to control themselves.

nd u're expecting me to read all diz!!! No no!! I cnt do dat mehn!!! 1st to comment ni koekoe!!!

Say no to Violence!!!

......but I still wonder why I haven't been raped in my life.


God pls let yemi alade or seyi shay,tools, labi ,toto decay or waje rape me before this year come to an end.

No matter how u try to embellish rape, it's evil.......shikina

Sometimes nt always

I've said it before and I will say it again, RAPE has become a religion in India

aadanna24:
Sometimes nt always

Never! I repeat never! If a woman likes ket her walk completely n.aked in the streets she still doesn't deserve to be ra.ped.