CURSE OF PATRIARCHY

The curse of ‘December 16’ has come back and has blown away Akhilesh’s ‘Sheila Dikshit moment’. Rapes, molestations, domestic violence and other atrocities meted to the Indian women have been a universal phenomena in our society. Only recently in the past few years, the frequency and extent of such nefarious and gregarious incidents have compelled the media to highlight such heinous acts of cruelty. Earlier these incidents would go unreported, but ‘it’ has always been there. Yes we can talk about the various reforms, the role of State, the various legislations to be incorporated, but this would make this article a never ending process. Rapes, molestation, etc. are sensitive issues and people dealing with such issues need to be sensitive and compassionate enough before making any callous, impudent remarks. Tragically, the notion of what constitutes an ideal society, appear to be rooted in the very prejudices that have engendered a culture of violence against women. The Delhi incident, and now the recent incidents in Badaun and Meghalaya have reinforced the notion of a dominant patriarchal society ingrained in the Indian society. Such incidents portray women to be ‘dolls’ at the whims and fancies of diabolical men.

      

        But after the incident, it is always the insensitive, callous attitude of the society (the police, the government, and the insensitive remarks) that adds salt to the wound. The demonizing of the victim (“she asked for it”, “it’s all about money”, “they have made it a business”, “it is consensual all the time”) and the subsequent pariah reflects the retrogressive mentality of the people. When these incidents are viewed under the lens of a microscope, it magnifies the cultural, ideological bent of mind of the society. Cultural thought process that has been given a particular mode through aeon of traditional-inertial forces has fossilized the overall make up of a particular society. No amount of education and wealth, which are being regarded as the cornerstone of modern society, is successful in making a desired change within the gender sensitization domain. Let me point out some of the myriad insensitive comments made by own demagogues. Eminent political leaders such as Sharad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav have made comments such as “when one is young, one tends to slip up” and “boys make mistakes”. Even godmen like Aasaram Bapu’s statement that the 23 year old woman who died after being gang raped in Delhi was as much at fault as her offenders and that she would have sought refuge in prayer and begged her offenders to stop, would make you frown with grimace. This followed by Akhilesh’s ‘google comment’ that rapes occur throughout the country, reflects the lack of political will to deal with such issues. It is interesting to note that they are the same men who vehemently opposed the women reservation bill in the parliament. Why do these men make such irresponsible comments? Are they so naïve not to read between the lines? It is the other way round. The Yadavs (Lalu, Mulayam, Sharad) being grass root level mass leaders, understand the psychosis of the people in these areas, where male dominance is a norm. The portrayal of male chauvinism in states such as UP and Bihar (both rural and urban areas) has kept them in good heed. Hence their comments are in reality not irresponsible comments but a part of social engineering process. One such experience of the writer during his engineering days, where the topic of discussion was whether one should go for a housewife or a working woman, one Bihari guy replied “padhi likhi ko launga aur ghar main bithaunga” (I will marry an educated woman and make her a house wife)

         Do all men who whistle and wink at, grope, stalk, harass and molest women ever feel ashamed of what they do? The answer is NO. On the other hand, shame has been used as a double edged sword against women. They are easily tagged as shameless transgressors for acts such as marrying without the consent of the family, seeking a divorce, asking for a share in ancestral property or refusing to cover her face, hair or body. Since time immemorial, shame in the form of moral sanction has been an effective tool that the patriarchal society uses to control women, to limit their autonomy, their mobility and their choices. Shame is directly linked to the utmost necessity for a victim of sexual violation i.e. her rehabilitation in the society. The actual positive transformation in the life of the victim would take place only when the society is ready to embrace her with open arms.

          Police sensitization and accountability, judicial expediency, fast track courts and justice, civil defence mechanisms, better surveillance through CCTV cameras are some of the steps to bring about changes in the system. But one shouldn’t ignore the role played by one of the most important social institutions, which has a tremendous capacity to subvert the biased construct of social discrimination and stereotype, namely the ‘family’. It was not in vain when the famous sociologist Louis Althusser proclaimed ‘family’ to be the most prominent ideological state apparatuses. Thus families become repositories of exercising the functions of society and sustaining the power relations endorsed by it. The toys that the girls are given, the way the girls are encouraged to dress up, the way they are told to be docile and submissive are all part of the socialization process.

       Violence against women surges whenever the patriarchal status quo or the traditional mode is challenged. It strikes with a severe backlash to kick women back in the space ordained by patriarchy for her. A lot of debate ensued whether rapists are perverted, mentally sick individuals or whether it is about proving who the boss is. The important factor in the crime of rape is that it is all pervasive and is done across class, caste, religion, culture and countries. It is not just the sexual urge or lust but the will to subjugate and dominate the victim that leads to rape. It is an explicit manifestation of the power relations entrenched in our social fabric.

        Hence breaking the shackles of societal norms cannot be brought about through statutory laws; it has to evolve from the society itself, both collectively and individually. Only when parents make their sons realize the importance of respecting the other sex and treating it at par, when society stands up to support victims and ostracise the perpetrators, when society stops seeing women as belonging only to domestic realm, this battle will be holistically won.