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OPINION
Tuesday, January 15, 2013 | The Cavalier Daily
Breaking bad values
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The recent rape case in India must draw attention to the need for change in a neopatriarchal society
BOUT two weeks ago, a the ones protesting not only 23-year-old woman in the rape, but also the greater New Delhi, India boarded problem of India’s attitude a bus at night when she was toward rape. This attitude is raped by a group of men, beaten, not just an abstraction; it is a serious reflection and thrown onto DENISE TAYLOR of the traditional the side of the values that limit road. After days of OPINION COLUMNIST the sexual roles of struggling to stay alive, the woman, accompanied Indian women. Even the phrase by a male friend who tried to most commonly used for “rape” save her, finally passed away in in Hindi translates to “to steal the honor of” — a concept that, a nearby hospital. Since then, thousands have regardless of GDP, educational joined anti-rape protests across levels, or general development, India and have voiced the often- stays tactful within Indian socistifled concern of the attitude ety. For this reason, the protests toward rape in Indian society. And in addition to the protests seldom come without criticism themselves, official data has — even from the highest, most shown that rape cases in India educated officials. Indian Conhave increased a shocking 800 gressional Parliament member Abhijit Mukherjee went so far percent over the past 40 years. While it’s impossible to point as to call the rape protestors to an exact cause of this jump, “dented and painted women” there’s no doubt that in 2013, who “go to discos, have little more women walk the streets in connection with ground realiIndia than ever before. In fact, ties and are making candlelight in parting from the traditional vigils fashionable for the sake customs of staying at home, of being fashionable.” While one could even say that India’s Mukherjee has since apologized urban, more “modern” women for the comment, his attitude is a — the ones who dare to be out reflection of how rape is a probat 9 p.m. watching a movie with lem that is not only ignored, but a male friend — have made also trivialized. And it’s not just Parliament. themselves more vulnerable to public violence despite theoreti- The Indian police force has cally having the willpower and been accused of either ignoring rape cases or treating them education to combat it. So what’s stopping them? In with extreme insensitivity. Sta2013, these women are exactly tistics have shown that more
than 70 percent of India’s rape women could happen over and perpetrators in 2011 are crimi- over with no way to stop it — nals at large, and that excludes culturally or otherwise. And as much as we Westernthe thousands of cases that go unreported. Women who ers reprimand the neopatriarchy, it’s almost do choose to impossible to report cases of “And as much as we as attack the logic rape are met with demean- Westerners reprimand the behind it withing interroganeopatriarchy, it’s almost out attacking the fundamention, as was impossible to attack the tals of Indian the case with logic behind it without c u l t u r e . We the teenager raped a few attacking the fundamentals stress gender equality, yet days after the of Indian culture.” in a nation Delhi inciwhere Indira dent, who Ghandi and was forced to answer questions like “Did countless other females have they first open the jeans or the taken high positions, men and women already have the same shirt?” As seen with the police, rights on paper. We emphasize while millions can attest to “education,” yet education presthe fact that India is a progres- ents itself without the slightest sive, modern nation, the idea enforcement of societal equalthat women “invite trouble on ity. We encourage a secular govthemselves by being careless,” ernment, yet India has a history whether it be through the way of practicing this ever since its they dress or act, continues independence from Britain. This is not to say that the West to permeate Indian society. Regardless of the level of educa- is in a position to offer remedies. tion or formal “equality” they’ve The issue of rape is by no means been granted, Indian women specific to India, and is in fact — as in many Eastern societ- just as relevant in the rest of the ies — find themselves stuck in world — especially the United a neopatriarchy where formal States. A report by the Rape, crimes are trumped by a greater Abuse and Incest National Netsocietal mindset that is not work suggests that 54 percent quite as simple as constitutional of sexual assaults in the United change. In such a neopatriarchy, States are never reported to the rape and other violence against police, and worse, 97 percent
of rapists will not spend a day in prison. What differs, though, are not the statistics, but the local and regional attitudes toward them. As we see in the case of the 23-year-old Indian woman, the legal prevention of sexual assault and the cultural condemnation of it are two different issues — the latter of which is lacking in a neopatriarchy. Because of this, what India really needs is not a formal reform, but rather an informal one. While such reform, of course, is one of the most difficult types of change to implement in any society, the protests of recognition are a step in the right direction. The mere hope of having men abandon their traditional perspectives is not enough, as the only real change would come if India’s youth, and specifically young women, further localize the concern toward attitudes of rape as well as the victims themselves. As Indian rape victim and activist Sohaila Abdulali said, it must be known that rape is neither shameful nor disgraceful for a woman, because while “[she] was wounded, [her] honor wasn’t.” Denise Taylor’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at d.taylor@ cavalierdaily.com.
The fear factor
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The proper response to the recent shooting is one of precaution without paranoia
HE TRANQUILITY and edy is so politically efficacious homeliness of the holiday precisely because it inspires season this year has been such great fear. It is easy to see shattered by the brutal shoot- that Sandy Hook is but another ing at Sandy Hook Elementary episode that contributes to a greater culture of School in NewROLPH RECTO fear so painfully town, Connecticut, present today. leaving the counOPINION COLUMNIST One could pertry in a state of distress. The media has again, as haps argue that, in some sense, in previous shooting tragedies, fear is good — it makes us become a circus: the shooter, vigilant, prepared and able to whom I will not name here as respond effectively to calamitous he would have liked to be pub- situations in the future. But it is licized, has now been immor- also apparent that our paranoiac talized, with every nook and tendencies make us act irratiocranny of his life analyzed for nally. It is not a coincidence that possible motives. Some televi- a surge in Islamophobia followed sion programs offered a play-by- the September 11, 2001 attacks. play of the shooting as if it were Combined with the ignorance of a football game. Any tragedy of the general public concerning this proportion is bound to be Islamic culture and also conpoliticized, and indeed Sandy cerning the difference between Hook has reignited the gun con- violent religious extremists and trol debate as both pro-gun and ordinary believers, Muslims anti-gun advocates are using the — and Middle Easterners in incident to galvanize their sides. general — have been targets of President Obama called for discrimination in the post-9/11 a ban on private ownership United States. Hopefully I do of assault rifles; the NRA has not need to tell you that this responded to the incident by call- discrimination is unjustified. I ing for armed security around am worried that all the political schools — a “good guy with a energy inspired by Sandy Hook gun” to deter and neutralize will be used for similarly irratiopossible threats. That so much nal ends, whether it be discrimisound and fury can come from nating against a specific group the Sandy Hook shooting can be of people — like, for example, explained by a simple fact: trag- the mentally ill — or curtailing
the rights of citizens in general. fear.” Rather than focusing on And I am not just referencing the the “old verities and truths of Second Amendment — acts of the heart” — that of “love and terror, as we have experienced, honor and pity and pride and are used as excuses for greater compassion and sacrifice” — people, under measures of threat of a surveillance “Lament the death of the the nuclear arms and control. Sandy Hook American community, and race with the will undoubt- I will tell you exactly what Soviet Union, were edly be used did it — paralysis by fear, instead preoccupied as an excuse t o m i s t r u s t fear that the people around with the question: “when one’s neighyou are the next to be I be blown bors, one’s coimmortalized in infamy on will up?” Replace workers, one’s the 6 o’clock news.” “blown up” classmates; in with “shot short, anyone up,” and it and everyone. Already we are seeing the begin- becomes apparent that the ailning of this: some parents are ment of fear has not waned but taking their kids out of public rather persisted and intensified. schools to homeschool them “The basest of all things is to be instead. Lament the death of afraid,” Faulkner tells us, and the American community, and I indeed our response to Sandy will tell you exactly what did it Hook is full of baseness and — paralysis by fear, fear that the lacks any sense of nobility. Perhaps the hardest realizapeople around you are the next to be immortalized in infamy on tion we have to make is that, unless we live in a completely the 6 o’clock news. This culture of fear is by no proctored society, tragedies like means a recent development. In Sandy Hook are nearly inevitahis 1949 Nobel Prize acceptance ble. Yes, maybe they can happen speech, William Faulkner diag- less often and at a lesser magninosed the ailment of the society tude, but we must acknowledge of his time, which was then in the fact that our system is not the throes of the Cold War, as “a perfect — our hospitals will not general and universal physical help all those who are mentally
ill; the police do not have the power to patrol every inch of our neighborhoods. Put in this way, it only becomes a matter of statistics. Do not mistake this as an endorsement for quietism — we should be outraged and distraught anytime something like Sandy Hook happens. Tragedy should never become routine. But if we temper our response with the sense that tragedy is a fact of life, then perhaps we can respond with grace instead of being paralyzed by fear and acting irrationally. In the same speech where he decries the prevalence of fear, Faulkner also says that “man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” This he thinks because man possesses a spirit capable of nobility. By the same token, I believe that we will move forward as a society after Sandy Hook, and that the media circus and political vitriol at present will cease. Such can only be possible, however, if we refuse to accept a culture of fear and actively renounce the paralysis and irrationality that such a culture engenders. Rolph Recto’s column normally appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at r.recto@cavalierdaily.com.
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