The dastardly action of a mob numbering around 50 men molesting a young girl outside a pub in Guwahati city has created outrage, and rightly so, across length and breadth of the country. Mere words are not enough to condemn such atrocity. Suddenly there seems to be one incident after another where acts of violence of different nature have been perpetuated against women folk here in the Northeast region, which, by the way, has been known to be quite safe for women unlike say in North India where we have been raising hue and cry about violence and discrimination against people especially girls from the northeast. The attempt to kill a senior women journalist in Arunachal Pradesh besides other recent act of violence against women in the region is clear proof that wherever they are, women are seen as soft targets, to be attacked, molested, raped and killed. It is usually the case that when such incidents happen, the focus shifts to the police investigation and while this is important to bring justice to the victim/s, yet we need to address the causes that leads to such kind of depravity on the part of the perpetrators (mostly men) and how women folk can also perhaps be trained to defend themselves. The sad truth is that one may never be able to completely eradicate violence (against both men and women) and therefore the only way is to be prepared to resort to self-defense. The answer to the question why men rape women is “Because they can.” So women can perhaps take up responsibility for their own protection as a safety measure. This does not mean that our society/community should not make effort to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women. We need to continue addressing concerns about the increasing vulnerability of our women folk to all forms of violence.
We must educate, create awareness and change mindset towards accepting, promoting and protecting the rights of women. And unless we are able to create this space within us—to educate, conform and respect the dignity of our women folk—such incidents of violence will continue to occur. Perhaps for us to find solutions, we need to also go a little deeper why men act indecently when it comes to the opposite sex. Is there a culture that sustains the belief in the right to rape and domination? It is a fact that historical, religious and cultural beliefs exist, propagating the right of men to dominate and control women and children. The culture that has been implanted in us teaches us or constructs what it is to be “feminine” or “masculine”. Toys, magazines and television, like many other parts of our culture today, overwhelmingly teach girls to be passive, submissive, caring and nurturing. They are also made to believe that beauty sustains their relationships with boys/men. Boys are taught to be different from girls. Being aggressive, competitive, dominant and to show no emotion are considered masculine traits. Gender conditioning has therefore created a power imbalance between men and women in our society. Thus rape and violence against women can be said to not only reflect but reinforce gender inequality. Many studies have shown that sexual assault is the soft underbelly of the patriarchal system. It is a tool -- perhaps ‘the’ tool -- to keep women out of the power system. If this is so perhaps society must challenge and change this culture.
