Rape Culture And Our Ideology Problem
What Conservatives and Liberals Get Wrong
The recent incidents within our rape culture and peoples’ reaction to it gives an mixed sign of the mentality of our citizens. On one hand, we see people of our generation protesting on the streets, on the social media and on the contrary, we also see people branding these signs as radical liberalism and shifting the blame on the victim herself. Personally I believe when people lean too much towards one side of ideology, often they see subjective reality rather than the world as it is. For when they debate the sensitive case of statutory rape, both parties, the conservatives and the liberals miss some points regarding the reasons, the culprit, the victim and the aftermath. The biggest problem in our culture is that, the society yet fail to understand the definition of rape. That is why, whenever an incident of such occurs, the nation becomes deeply divided on the question of who to blame.
So, before diving any further, I believe it is important to clear the definition of what constitutes or defines Rape. If you are expecting a complex definition, you have to be disappointed. Rape is when in the act of sex, one party involved does not give consent. It is a rather simple definition. Yet for many in society, this definition does not work out. And here lies the deep rooted problems of our rape culture. Which starts from the act itself to justifying it and shifting the blame, to destroying a woman’s life by the society which was supposed to protect her in the first place. The issue of consent is important so much because although many people understand the true reasons of rape, most of them roll their eyes in the issue of marital rape. This may not sound like a serious concern to many, but it has deeper implications. Marital rape sets the precedent that social institutions or binding laws legalize sex rather than the persons involved. When we are told that “justified reasons” have priority over consent or the fact that the concept of consent is only applicable for men, the definition of this particular crime may remain unclear to many. And if society does not even recognize the parameter of the crime, how can we expect it to solve it? When we do not understand what consent means, we forget that rape is merely an act without it. When we fail to comprehend that women have a choice not to engage in intercourse even if her male counterpart wants it, rape will always remain controversial to us. Women are discouraged to come out as victims when they know blame would be shifted upon them. I fear many incidents go unnoticed because of this mentality.
The reason given by the radical conservatives is that dress code is solely or mostly responsible for incidents of rape. I can see how many people do not like the fact that we are drifting away from our own traditions and embracing something that is not ours. It may anger many that many of ours lifestyle is not how it was instructed in our holy book. For the sake of debate, even if we were to blame the dress code for this case it does not stand in the constitutional sense. It is because the “dress code issue” is more of a religious debate rather than a social one. Islam sets some rules for appropriate dress for both men and women and as a Muslim I believe it is my right to think that they are right, to abide by them and encourage people to do the same. But when our nation was liberated and the new constitution was drafted, freedom of religion was the clause that was enacted as a pillar of the new nation. What this means is “Separation of religion and State” or that the State cannot make any laws with regard to any particular religion. According to this Article 12 of the Constitution, everyone has the right to practice his or her religion or faith and despite our right to preach someone our own, we cannot force anyone to submit to any particular practice of any religion; and to quote Thomas Jefferson, “…religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God.” and must be strictly out of interference of the society or the state. So just because some in the society cannot draw a line between right and wrong, we cannot let the debate drift from the loopholes in rapist ideology to a right protected in our constitution. I personally think we should encourage our people to be committed to our own culture within the society but the state cannot force them by any means. It is the utmost duty of the state to ensure that we can practice our freedom. Don’t get me wrong, I think dresses that portrait women as pure sexual objects are bad and the society should step forward to discourage them, but not the state itself as it falls under privacy invasion. But even if a woman does not follow the culture appropriate dresses, the society at most can frown upon it, but that’s it. As long as her actions do not interfere with the state laws, even if they go against her religious guidelines, the state cannot punish her or interfere in her life in any way. But whenever society identifies it as the cause of rape, we are normalizing rape in a way that if dress code of a woman is not right, there is a right of men to violate her.
Shifting the debate of the cause of rape is dangerous in many ways. Our own history teaches us that. In ’71, hundreds of thousands of women were raped by the Pakistani Military and even by their counterparts of this land. What is mostly astonishing is the fact that, many of them saw these heinous acts as patriotic duty. One of the Pakistani Soldier later stated that it was instructed by their Generals to impregnate as many Bangladeshi women as they could so that the next generation is born a purer breed. You can see the pattern here. The fact that sex must need consent was overlooked. I do not think it was too optimistic for us to hope that the society may learn the definition in the hard way, by something that our own nation suffered by. And yet, almost half a century after the war, when the society justifies it by the same reasons, the question may arise whether those who question it are ideologically any better than those who act upon it.
Another problem with rape cases is the aftermath. Even if justice is served, the woman’s life gets destroyed. First of all, the trauma haunts her. It constantly reminds her that she lives in a patriarchal society where no matter how higher she climbs in the social ladder , she is helpless towards the brute force of another man. She is reminded that no matter how far we have advanced as a civilized society, there are animalistic behavior among us which some of us could not left behind. Even though it was no fault of her own, a raped woman is treated unholy in our society even by the most progressives of ours. Often simple unverified libels are enough to destroy a woman’s life. The society does not verify whether it is true or not. It leaves a dark spot in her resume. People whisper behind her back, her marriage proposals get thrown away and she becomes an outcast.
But why does it happen? Why do we blame woman for a man’s most unreasonable actions? Well, the problem is with objectification of women. We don’t want our women to be intellectual. Our society treats women like we do in online shopping. We want the product to be “brand-new” and authentic. We scroll down the user review page before clicking the button. Even if there are hundreds of positive reviews, one negative one squints our eyes, gives us second thoughts whether we should make the purchase or not. Now replace online shopping with marriage, brand new with virginity (consensual or not) and reviews with libels. You get the idea.
The radical left ideology frequently brands objectification of women as feminism. Those who we label as the defenders against discrimination frequently forget where to draw the line between feminism and objectification. The latter one is sometimes confused as to be empowering for the line between the former and the latter is thin. And crossing this line sends a message that sexuality of women is more important over her intellectuality. I believe it is harder for women to be successful because a faction of her own league try constantly to pull her down. It almost feel hypocritical to me to be vocal about equality yet supporting mediums that demean women as solely sexual objects. What the feminist ideas get wrong about equality is that when it is said that men and women are created equal, the proposition is that the equality is not often in the physical senses, and to deny that would be outright hypocrisy. The equality lies in the intellectual capability. The world becomes more intellectual as everyday goes by. In past women faced an legitimate obstacles in the sectors which demanded physical superiority. But as these works are going to automation and more provisions of intellectual freedom is ensured, more women are working better jobs. To propose that society were discriminatory before needs context as it overlooks the fact that society had been more dependent on more physically demanding jobs in the past. And supporting intellectual equality should be the doctrine of feminism.
If we were to hope that rape would diminish from the society some day, it would be day-dreaming of an utopia. As long as the society exists, crimes will too. When it comes to any crime, the rational act is to introduce systems to reduce it, identifying the victim and the culprit and most importantly making sure that the society understand the distinction clearly and rehabilitating the victim. I believe it is possible to change those who possess an twisted idea of rape, but those who act upon it are far beyond any hope of rehabilitation and must serve appropriate punishment.
