Rape is not just a physical action. It is a mindset. No rapist wakes up one fine morning and decides to rape someone. It is a seed that grows; it is a seed watered by the mentality of the population in general.
Everytime you kill a girl fetus, everytime you decide that your son’s education is more important than you daughter’s, you water that seed. Everytime we allow a boy to hit a girl as an expression of his liking, pull her ponytails or push her books off the table, we normalise violence as an expression of all emotions. Everytime you ask a teenage girl to hide her bra strap, bodyshame her because of her growing breasts, force her to lengthen her skirt to not ‘distract’ boys, you make the female anatomy a prize one must conquer. Female body is sexualized from her birth to her deathbed.
It was her fault. She was wearing a skirt.
Then why do women in burkas get raped?
It was her fault. She was a teenager begging for attention.
Then why did an old aunty wearing a saree with her head covered get raped?
Why did a 8 months old baby girl get raped?
Did she invite it? Was she showing too much skin?
Rape. Rape is NEVER the victim’s fault. As much as we, the audience, love to comment from the sidelines, as much as we enjoy victim-shaming, it is NEVER the victim’s fault. Don’t shame a girl for being born with a vagina. It is NOT her dress, her religion, her age, her residence, her habits, HER fault.
Rape is a mindset. It is a mindset that fuels a heinous thought that a women’s body is a piece of flesh to be used at the leisure of a man’s raging hormones. It is a mindset that a woman is nothing more than a vagina made for a man’s pleasure.
Remember Nirbhaya? The outrage, the pure anger and disgust every single person in the country felt? Remember that anger? The protests, the candles, the march, the tears. It was the time that the country joined hands and decided to fight this evil. Now that the criminals have been punished, is that it? Does the anger fizzle away? Did we eradicate this disease, this flithy mindset from the country?
Remember the rage you felt when you read about Nirbhaya. Remember the disgust. And use this memory to find the strength to call out and stand against every roadside romeo who calls a girl ‘item’, ‘bomb’, ‘maal’, ‘pataka’. Stop any male AND female sexualising any human. Listen to what makes an individual comfortable and act accordingly. Understand the concept of ‘consent‘. It all starts here. Find the strength to cut it out at the root and maybe, maybe you’ll save someone’s innocence.
Mon idées 