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Do You Think The ‘Rape-Problem’ Is Just Indian?
More from Abhishek Jha
By Abhishek Jha:
While following the debates that started after India’s Daughter was banned by the Indian state, I found myself repeatedly being directed to a Quora question. It hit the news soon. A professor had denied an internship opportunity to an Indian student citing India’s rape problem. Although the professor has formally apologised, there is a need to look at this incident.
Students from the sub-continent do face a lot of racism abroad. There is a possibility that a person of colour, a Muslim, or a bearded person could be profiled, discriminated against, assaulted, or believed to be a potential terrorist. The assumption of the professor that rape is an Indian problem is a racist one. Leslee Udwin herself said repeatedly in her interviews that the reason why she was drawn towards making a documentary on this particular incident of rape was because of the students’ protests that followed it; and one may add, they required no popular ambassadors to draw the attention of the masses.
To just give you a perspective, a UN Women report from 2012, which compiled surveys across countries, shows that 40% women in Germany have faced physical and/or sexual violence from partners or non-partners in their lifetime as compared to 35.4% women in India. Without getting vengeful (for the surveys in the compilation also belong to a different year, and there could be other surveys too), we can admit, at the very least, that violence against women happens all across the globe. The difference of a few percentages between countries is neither a ground for jingoistic chest thumping nor for generalised discrimination.
Rapes and sexual assaults are rooted in patriarchy and patriarchal customs and practices that are deeply entrenched in societies across the globe.
This leads to another interesting observation. The professor’s generalised comments almost assumed the “rape-problem” to be an Indian problem, from which Germany and its society can protect itself by banishing Indians. This is not very different from how some people responded to ‘India’s Daughter’. Just like the professor, some people committed the mistake of assuming that the rapist and his lawyers are a monstrous ‘other’, because of their comments.
The truth is that these very comments are made or have been made inside homes all across the world, and by people in positions of power all over the world. What we probably need to do is shed our prejudices and re-examine our understanding of things.
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Ra’s al Ghul
Read the suicide note of a man
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/on-womens-day-read-the-suicide-note-of-a-man/532541-3-236.html
Ra’s al Ghul
Rape is made to look like a problem restricted to India because of the high rate of false rape cases
http://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/false-cases-behind-delhis-tag-of-rape-capital-court-529663
Ra’s al Ghul
Do you think men being treated like garbage is an Indian problem? Men are not seen as human beings in society, that is why we never talk about the biases that men face on a daily basis, how women usurp half of men’s properties during divorces, how courts give men stricter sentences for the same crimes that women commit, how juries give verdicts against men in domestic disputes, how men give alimony to women, misandry in the media, sexism against men, domestic violence against men, how men are locked up in false cases of rape, dowry, and domestic abuse, etc.
Millions of boys face male genital mutilation. Of course that doesn’t matter, because they are boys. Millions of boys are kidnapped for forced labour, drug peddling, sale of organs, illegal adoption, and begging. There is a silent epidemic against the blood, sweat, and tears of boys who work as labourers, cleaners, servants, in lock factories, as mechanics, in restaurants, as street-vendors, at tea stalls, as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, woodcutters, rickshaw pullers, etc. Many boys’ limbs are chopped off and then they are forced to beg for the rest of their lives.
More than 3 times as many men die due to dowry harassment at the hands of their wives.
According to NCRB data, there were 2,22,091 arrests related to 498A in 2013 alone, out of which 1,74,620 were men and 47,471 were women – A man is arrested every 3 minutes for dowry. Including both sexes, an arrest is made approximately every 2.3 minutes. 98% allegations are false.
When 133 boys were killed in a school in Peshawar, the media used the word ‘children’ to hide crimes against boys. When Boko Haram kills, mutilates, burns alive, and slits the throats of boys, no one raises an eyebrow, but when he kidnaps girls, the media and feminists wake up. There are numerous such incidents.
The biggest perpetrators of violence against women are women themselves i.e. mothers-in-law. And in households where mothers-in-law are kind, it is the daughters-in-law who wreak havoc and break families apart, by poisoning their husband’s minds against their parents and siblings. Sisters-in-law are not far behind, with their mind-boggling family politics.
Women love to beat their maids and servants black and blue, especially child servants, and take enormous pride in taunting and abusing their husbands, not to mention physical violence. Men do not report domestic violence because it is considered unmanly to do so. If you talk about the violence perpetrated by women, you can also be a victim of death threats from women, as in the case of Erin Pizzey (Google it).
Since courts and juries worldwide are biased in favour of women, and police are also more likely to believe women, women abuse the judicial system to their advantage.
According to the Canadian statistics on gender equality:
Women receive physical custody of 92% of all children of separation, and men only 4%, women are acquitted of spousal murder at a rate 9 times that of men, men are sentenced 2.8 times longer than women for spousal murder. Furthermore, men commit suicide at 4 times the rate of women, live an average of 7 years less than women, account for more than 95% of all workplace fatalities, and are murdered at a rate 5 times that of women.
The draconian Indian laws have led to an increase in the suicide rate among men, where a woman simply has to accuse a man of abusing her, physically or sexually, with little evidence, if any, and land him behind bars. Compared to women, twice as many men in India commit suicide.
Monistaf
So, I guess all the feminists in India (Men and Women) have been vindicated and declare it as a victory now that this documentary has effectively demonized all Indian men. This is not very different from Emma Watson’s UN speech where she mentions that feminism has become synonymous with man-hating. I guess you must now celebrate the fact that people around the world find one more reason to discriminate (As if they did not have enough already).
Nobody denies that the incident from December 2012 was repulsive, despicable and tragic to say the least. To make a documentary and project it as the prevailing norm for India’s daughters and son’s is ridiculous. The documentary did exactly that, to the vast majority of the people outside India, including this so called professor who watched it. This is because the film maker refused to talk about the millions of men (more men than women) all over India who took to the streets to express their outrage and protested until the law was changed, again by a majority male parliament in an attempt to deter such crimes in the future. The male judge who handed down the death sentence or the male hangman who will eventually prepare the noose. She chose, instead to focus on the views of the rapist and his defense team. One of the most common ways to tell a lie is to not tell the whole truth. It appears that this documentary is more a personal vendetta than holistic journalism trying to create awareness of an issue.
I guess the feminists can revel in the fact that the world hates Indian men, as much as the feminists in India do, but remember that if you have any men in your life that you care about, they are on that same list. Just so you know, this is not an isolated incident. At a major tech conference last week, one of the men was surprised how so many Indian women have escaped their fate (Of being India’s daughter) to become techies!!
Ra’s al Ghul
Innocent man lynched in Nagaland – medical reports show no rape. Another case of false rape where a man loses his life.
75% of rape comlaints are false.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Tougher-rape-law-leading-to-increase-in-false-cases/articleshow/30807940.cms