This article is written by Garima Agrawal, a first year law student from NMIMS School of Law, Mumbai, who believes in speaking her mind. She believes that gender equality is something not just to be taught but should be actionable per se. She feels that education is the most powerful weapon a person can posses.
Sitting in my balcony and reading something random, there is this tiny little column that catches my attention: “Does the dress of a woman incite the sexual feelings of man? “ Felling terrible at the thought that we do have people with such narrow mentality I decide to write about this. Now, you might be Wondering why this title, right. Well clothes are according to many the initial things that incite the feeling of a man to rape a woman. Oh yes they are! There are more chances of a girl wearing short skirt being raped than a girl wearing jeans. Wonderful, isn’t it. This analogy !
Well this mentality is a dehumanizing discourse in our society and needs to change. People who think clothes can speak for women – are ludicrous and extremely damaging. Rape survivors are till date being asked things like “well, what were you wearing?” “Was your dress short? Was it appealing?”
Well such Conversations that look at crime against women through the prism of women’s responsibility are absurd and dangerous. Woman’s outfit is often used during a rape trial to discredit her reputation and suggest she is the “sort of woman” unlikely to refuse consent to sex. Moreover I feel sad when many politicians who keep on bragging about themselves and the fact that they are representing us say the most ridiculous things about rape. I don’t believe even 1% of the crap that they say. ‘If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in the wrong way,” words of a famous politician. And I am like: whattttt! .
When one of the four men sentenced to death for the high-profile gang rape of the woman in 2012 was quoted in a new documentary as saying “a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he was repeating something community and religious leaders in this nation of 1.2 billion routinely say. And allowing the documentary INDIAS DAUGHTER to be seen by all, letting people know of what happened, letting people know of the filthy mentality of the rapist was the least our government could do apart from giving condolence to the family on certain media channels.
Women are being raped in cabs, assaulted on new year’s eve, we need to find a solution to this problem and me changing my dress is not the solution people but you changing your filthy thoughts definitely is!
I know and believe in just one thing: There is NO excuse for RAPE and there never will be. And if society believes in some warped mindset that a woman is to blame, for some guys twisted perverted thoughts that gives him the red light to rape a woman, then society is sick, and that is what needs.
You know I can go on and on to debate on this topic, but for some reason I know that this change will be a herculean one. It’s going to take ages to change this mentality. So what do you till then? Suffer! Or just ignore things as many of them do. Well, I say NO.
The next time you see a person making such cheap comments go towards him and say
Oh boy! Why don’t you change your mentality!!!
Because once that changes, everything will change…
