Victim blaming, Men and Rape culture.

 I

There is widespread notion that women on a normal basis get sexually assaulted cause they are promiscuous/wear specific clothing that’s deemed as “undignified”. Victim blaming is not new to the country of India. It never was. Countless amounts of sexual harassment will always be blamed on the women. Countless amounts of marital rape cases are always blamed on the woman. Countless amounts of rape victims are told to their face that it happened cause they were “wearing some clothes” or “she was asking for it”. Needless amounts of times it is never ever questioned whether men or boys are here blame for not respecting the fundamental notion of consent. This notion is seen also in victims of child rape, where they are told that its possible that the child might be wearing “revealing clothing”. It never occurs to them that a child cannot consent.

In a roundabout fashion everyone blames victims while media rakes in money for constantly focusing on it cause that type of news is deemed provocative. Throughout film, tv or whatever media it is there is always a catering the male audience. The catering is done in way through male gaze and tons of antiquated tropes. These tropes normalize the patriarchal ideals by feeding the male audience a medium through male gaze. Male gaze in media is to present women in a way to the male audience as a object of desire. Along with that they are also portrayed often helpless, weak/needing attention. More often than not most women characters are presented as someone who is yearning for the attention of the male counterpart in the movie. The damsel in distress trope is very frequently used all sorts media ranging from movies to videogames. In movies you would find the frequent usage of the women protagonist being saved from getting raped and later on being grateful to the hero of the story for the “noble” action. Following that you will often notice that the women protagonist will completely fall in love with the main character cause of the one action he did. Even though the protagonist will be stalking her and harassing her, almost assaults her. But I guess it makes a difference in the internal logic of such movies which is: “Oh he saved her from a rapist even though he himself was one”.

Anyway what these media normalizes are the following:

1) Women are only an object of desire

2) Women are weak and crave men’s help

3) You are entitled of intimacy from random people even if they don’t know you and that they are always ready to be intimate.

4) Stalking/ following random women you encounter is normal. Pestering/harassing is a part of flirting.

5) Women only expect sexual innuendo and sexual advances constantly from you and nothing else.

Apart from general media there is also consumption of porn. Porn also normalizes fetishizing of women and normalizing rape as a sexualized thing to the young men who consume this media. Films also do that where they depict rape and its often voyeuristic and through a male gaze.

Beyond this every sort of social media platform has a lot young men cycling through their fantasies filtered through such abhorrent media. And through this whenever these men run across a women they always look at them as an sexual object. Several forums/chatrooms reinforce this cycle of extreme fetishizing of women. Commonly this fetishizing is done with the movies and porn in which is prominent in pushing such view. These men share such media onto these places and discuss their often gross to violent fantasies. More often than not this needle of fetishizing moves from actresses in film/porn to random women online or in real life.

II

This overarching culture of fetishizing women and portraying women for a male gaze has lasting consequences. Younger girls are sexualized in media a lot. Most of our media does that. There is always a clear cut disparity in actresses who are chosen for their role cause of their younger age while the same isn’t applied for the actor. Enough actresses are denied chances if they are of a certain age. They are also denied roles if they are married or have kids.

You can see this in ads. Remember the santoor ad. Here let me break it down: A old man is gawking at a women assuming the lady is very young. And he is shocked when the lady is revealed to have a kid. He is flabbergasted that a woman who looks young to him has a kid. The lady turns around says the secret is the soap. Once again this stuff reinforces unnatural beauty standards on women and normalizes this fethishization of younger woman.

One of the more prominent examples of this I can recall is the actress from balika vadhu who went on to become film actress. This person was cast alongside in films where the men are older than her. She is portrayed in these films and tv shows where her character is heavily sexualized.  

As I said lasting consequences of such culture where rape and harassing are normalized and blame is put upon the victims. That paved a way for countless women who are victims of rape and other forms of sexual assault to not come out. Cause in a roundabout way the police and justice system more often deny any justice. Family and surroundings make it a specific notion if they come out about these issues they will be regarded as less of a person and would be often be blamed.

More and more workplace harassment or harassment from teachers or other men is just made to be the fault of the victim. They instill this notion that you should just bear it and move on.

Even such notions can be observed in military. One military journo posited that women shouldn’t join the military cause, Get this: The military cannot guarantee an environment that isn’t filled with harassment. What they mean is that: Men in military cannot control their urge to harass women and in no circumstance having women in military can avoid that. This person also says that women should adhere to having babies and being at home rather joining the army.

Several court cases make these views more apparent. When the court denied the victim of tarun tejpal cause the victim wasn’t acting as the judges perceive victims should act or cause she wasn’t denying his advances while he was violating her. Also the judiciary system time and again will deem marital rape as something consensual cause apparently to them “Husbands can’t rape their wives cause once married women indebted to provide sexual gratification even if they don’t consent”. Beyond the common justification there’s also some instances more recently during the elections a rape victim was denied any justice cause overarching media said it was made up by political opponents. 

III

Regardless of these instances of rape there never is a questioning of the perpetrators violating consent. But rather there is always an effort to shift the blame. The singular common blame is levied using the age old “Oh your dressing was the cause”. Even if that never comes into play in any of these incidents. Is that why a defence officer was raped and murdered by multiple men? Is that why a lone women was targeted by bunch of men, then raped and torched? Is it why the mass rape  in Gujarat 2002 happen to muslim women?.

NO. The answer’s NO.

Its just that lot of these people have the inability to understand that men or boys have this entitlement and think they are entitled to women’s bodies cause they only see women as objects of desire. Its their inability to comprehend that any women have agency and that there are boundaries. They also use rape as a form of terror (as happened during 2002 pogrom).

Essentially in their minds, to these people “IF A PERSON IS COMPLETELY NUDE ITS 100% FINE TO UNDERMINE THEIR AGENCY AND CONSENT DOESN’T MATTER”.

 

Its very stupid and moronic to think like that. Apparently if I get robbed its not cause that a person robbed me decided so, but cause I had money in hand. Apparently if someone burns my home down its cause some arsonist decided so, but rather the fault is that I got a home.

 

So get this into your head: Rape happens cause a rapist decides to rob a person of their consent and doesn’t care about agency the victim has but take over control of their agency.

NOT CAUSE OF A PERSON’S CLOTHING.