Being a feminist I have always felt triggered by how trivial people think the rape culture is, that people only revolt once it is done. I see a few people working to prevent it and what aches me after this magnanimous pang is how insensitive people are to make everything passive. A man teases, people suggest things to girls. A man rapes, people talk about teaching girls.
'Mahaul' isn't right because of boys, alterations are made in girls' clothes and tone. No one ever talks about educating the epicenter of a problem. This seems unfair to me and more than unfair it seems irrational and insensitive. It is high time we understand that Rape or Threats to womanhood aren't women's problems, it is a national concern and it should be treated just like that.
Mere changes to the reaction would do. A slight understanding of passive and Prudence would do. Teaching boys, along with girls, would do because learning and suggestions are gender-neutral, we shouldn't force everything to women to alter. This havoc is because of the wrong men, the wrong system, wrong education for them.
Isn't it shameful already how a dress is a problem because men will be men? It saddens me every time
Wear a longer skirt.
Wear a dupatta
Come by time
Don't go on that road
Don't talk to a guy
Stop talking back
Protect yourself
Etc, etc, etc
No one talks about the real issues of why it happens. No one, literally and it is the need of an hour to not bifurcate education of sensitivity, right, pride and humanity to genders or define a national issue as a gender's problem. There needed to be a portal that addresses this on a broader note but everything that was said about was denunciation and suggestion.
Boys need to be educated and suggested before any locker room is made because it leads to rape on the ground level. Men need to be taught how to exercise their virility and aberrant Cool Squad-ness. There needs to be a solution to it and the length of the skirt isn't it. It is in building the circumstance where what one wears doesn't matter, where who looks at whom doesn't make anyone feel instigated and threatened. There needs to be a halt to words used to push anyone down.
Rape, Harassment, Molestation, and abuse go beyond one's way of thinking it, if you're not there, you wouldn't get and we need to understand that none should be there.
Boys and Men need to learn that "Men will be men" is not an honor, it is used in the most disheveled way and it can't be used as an excuse anymore. Men need to redefine things with grace and for that, they need to be taught. It is not time to tell women. It is to teach the beasts what it might cost if he tryna get on any innocent female or trans or gay or animal.
This is insensitive to romanticize suffering of this intensity. It is not fair to give out lessons to women and expect a woman who suffered to listen to all those and process, the post-trauma is imprisonment of a lifetime and many don't even have a lifetime after one accident.
People need to stop calling rape an incident. It has not happened by chance. People need to stop making passive statements and ponder the time, dress, situation for once, and think in the right way.
I'm done with people telling women to do something or to not do anything at all, this calls for education for each person. For men, for women, for adults, for kids, for everyone.
Consent comes as power and it should be accepted. Coexistence is real, we need to empower it. Gender neutralization is not a threat, we need to spread it. Feminism is not biased, we need to learn it. We, the men, women, and all slabs of our society.
By Cheshta Vashishtha
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