Preference, Protest, Resistance and Rape

“You know?? I want guy, who is tall, has bit longer hairs, well-trimmed mustache, basically guy with cavalier attributes….” A statement given by very learned friend of mine last week. This simple conversation actually gave me different dimension to think upon problem which was disquieting me since the incident of gang rape happened at Delhi and series of events associated with it. This kind of statement from girl who is aspiring to be specialized in gender issues provided me a vision whatever is being learned becomes unheard when we come down personal preferences about sexualities.

Cause of rapes and sexual assaults or harassments are widely studied and discussed from every aspect because these acts are considered as highly inhuman. The incident of gang rape in Delhi, series of protests and political events tailed after incident made me to think; why humans are prone to such acts? Why social control is getting weaker in country like India? Why such incidents are makes media hype?

As a social being we imbibe sense of gender in us. Our socialization process makes us man and woman. Once we think ourselves as man and women we are made to choose (rather prefer) things which attributes to our identity for instance, boys are not expected to play with Barbie dolls. We grow up with such given attributes, in this sense we are controlled by society we can’t choose something against our identity, if we do, we need to change our identity and not necessarily that identity gets acceptance in our society (Homosexuals are still struggling for acceptance in society). Thus, to get acceptances we are taught to ‘prefer’ opposite gender, it is so imbibed in our personality that we now think it as personal preference.

These preferences turns into desires in long run (preference for opposite gender is still desirable thing in our society). Society acts as constraining agency over these desires, we may desire to run nakedly on roads but society does not allow us to do so. Rapes are clear indication of weakening of social constraints. During last week of December 2012 I was watching review of Bollywood; I found strange thing that very few (almost NO) commercial Bollywood movies presented stories based on mother-son or sister-brother relationship. On other side, there was a considerable increase in number of ITEM Songs. These songs objectified women’s body and very well reflect the weakening juncture of social control. People are not interested in watching on mother-son or sister-brother relationship but they are interested in watching that ‘object’ like women who provide erotic sense.

India is country which is facing pendulum like situation in terms of development. Co-existence of traditional values in modern outfits is leading to great trouble in social development. One side we are expected to follow societal norms, standards and stick to traditional values on other side we are promoting individualistic and rational modern values. And females are most vulnerable to such middle stand point of development, they are neither able to follow traditional values nor they are secure and safe if they follow modern values because mindset major chunk of so called modern man are embedded in traditional values. Coming to males, they are also part of this transitive phase of development where they have to meet expectation of society and fulfill their desire in prescribed manner. Many of my male friends still gets irritated when girls call them ‘mama’s boy’, reason for their irritation is simple, they feel such statement is challenging their masculinity. This kind of provoking statement aggravates man to prove their masculine identity by any means. It is good till these ‘means’ are controlled but when the control is loosen or weak, it can lead to offending situations like molestation, harassment, sexual assaults or even in rape. Reason for these weakening of social control varies according to family, education, economic, political and communal orientation of an individual and that doesn’t mean that we can blame these institutions(remember? – “teach your sons to respect women” slogans). Problems like this won’t be solved by blaming these institutions rather it’ll promote more hatred among people.

Protests for punishing culprits have valid stand but this stand should not be based on hatred or biasness. I was disappointed when people who were protesting at India gate, started uploading their pictures and videos on facebook, I was not disappointed because they were sharing I was disappointed because they were sharing ‘just for facebook’ or ‘it was Sunday’ and they didn’t had any other things to do… 80% of protestors shouting for justice to rape victim on India Gate didn’t went just to protest. They went there to support their friends, they went there to take some snaps, and they went there to support their student unions or any other similar reasons. None of them were serious about the protest, my twitter and facebook account is evident to this. Of course we should to not tolerate injustice but we should also not create hatred among our fellow beings. We should make our family, education and political institutions loaded with moral values instead of depending technical values of law and order. Obviously, judiciary will do their work, if not, we can protest to pressurize them, to change them but we should pressurize to turn them into inhuman. In any case law and order comes after incidents or accidents takes place to ensure justice, as a social being we should strive to prevent such incidents.

We Indians are becoming smarter in politicizing any social cause and such things provide favorable market conditions for media of course.  I was shocked when Times of India, leading English daily announced Mobile APP for stopping rape and supporting justice claims. Why do we need to do business over such social accidents? By this we are turning ourselves into more ferocious than those rapists who did their cruel job (that too for no monetary interest). Media and politicians wants such issues to their run their business but as a citizen of this country and human being at large we should use our intellect to judge things which we prefer and resist. Our preferences and resistance should not be driven by ideas of others it should be our own. So we need check ourselves that why do we like six pack abs or 36-24-36 figure?? , if we can resist against such preference I am sure, we can resists against larger issues like rape.