Share it with your sister!

Share it with your sister!


Societal conditioning and gender equality



Nirbhaya's family struggling to find justice

Six men, one chilly night 8 years ago, one girl, one bus. These factors came together at one point 8 years ago. The end result was a horrific act which still causes our country to hang its head in shame.

The girl was brutally raped, maligned and thrown on the road. Bystanders, traffic passing by, none came to the aid of this girl lying unconscious in the dark. The girl succumbed to her injuries.

After a long period of trial, appeal, mercy petitions and curative petitions, the supreme court has now confirmed the death penalty for the perpetrators of this act. However, the capital punishment still hangs (pun intended) in the balance.

It has been lost again in the legal ramblings of the court, leading to another travesty of justice, which has become far too common in our nation. With the judiciary creaking under its own weight, the devastated parents of the poor girl still await justice.

As was the standard response by the then government, stricter laws were framed, there was an outcry against the perennial legal delays and a few candles were burnt, wax was dropped on the streets and on the posters of the poor victim. We then forgot about the incident and moved forward with our lives. "What else are we supposed to do? I have a job to do, I have to attend classes or look after my family!". These are perfectly valid points for which, no protest or travesty of justice gets due attention, and the shoe heels of the family of the victim keep getting worn out.

We try to rationalize the attack - pin it on what we dislike about the society around us. "Its because of lack of education you see" or "These type of people have this mentality within them" or "Its because of unemployment" or sometimes a few classic ones " The girl should have called the rapist Bhaiyya (Brother)" or "She should have chanted gods name, that would have prevented the act".

We move ahead, rapes keep happening across the country - Unnao, Kathua, Hyderabad etc. With each incident - each of our assumption meets the dust. Sometimes, its a very educated man, sometimes its a public servant, sometimes its a very rich guy or its her chacha, mama, or bhai. Few other times, its done to an old lady well beyond her prime, even a baby (After all, why do babies roam naked??Its their fault for enticing the devil).

What then causes such acts?

What prompts men (sometimes women) to act the way they do? The answer, I believe, lies in most, if not all the homes in our country

With all my sympathy and respect for the victims, rape is a phenomenon that has been occurring for centuries, if not millennia. It has been committed by hordes of invaders into other parts, by kings who had an entire harem of concubines, by even members of the family. When human beings submit to their more base animal instincts - they resort to actions which then lead to the horrors we have seen.

Coming back to the main point - rape, molestation, sexual advances will keep occurring until and unless the mothers of this country treat all their children the same. When the son is not taught to behave, when the mother keeps gloating over the son as he is given precedence over his sister. When one glass of milk is shared among the siblings, and not given to the son alone telling the girl "Tujhe itna dudh pi ke karna kya hai" (Why do you want so much milk for?). It will stop when a 10 year old twit looks angrily at his elder sister asking her whereabouts. It will stop when ladies stop gloating over their son/brother and do all his chores for him.

Gender equality is a part of the SDG of the United Nations

The above leads to an air of entitlement. It leads to the kid believing he deserves what he has "because" he is a man. Mothers hand over their "man - child" to their wife (Whom they have picked out btw), and then he behaves in the exact same way with his wife, expected her to treat him the same way his mother did. This reinforces the psychology of "owning" the woman, which has been travelling through the centuries from the medieval ages as I have elaborated above.

Its not all bad

With the changes in civil society, this act of submission by the woman is coming to an end. We have a golden legacy of social reformers going back to the 11th Century who have sown the seeds of sociological transformation. With greater exposure to the world, with advancement in science, the Indian society is maturing. It has changed immensely - from when Savitribai Phule had to endure spit stains for wanting to read - to almost a universal enrollment in primary education, the society has changed. The culture of female submission in our homes is reducing. Considering the size, magnitude and diversity of our society, it will take generations more.

It is all up to the mothers and sisters of our nation to change this attitude. The next time you have one cookie, tell the kid - Share it with your sister!

गौतम पाटणकर