The death of the Delhi rape victim and gender roles in India

The Delhi rape victim is dead. A young 23-year old medical student after a long and painful battle is now gone because she boarded a bus late at night in a city which is our political capital and yet houses some of the the most regressive mentalities and attitudes towards women. Six men took turns gang raping her and then shoved an iron rod inside her destroying her internal organs. We cite examples of female Presidents and political leaders as if they are a true reflection of the status of women in our country. But we know they are not, don't we? A majority of women in cities and rural areas alike live through gender discrimination, abusive and oppressive marriages. They are burdened by expectations and stringent patriarchal social ideologies. Whether it is an uneducated, illiterate village woman or an independent, highly educated career woman, their struggles are astonishingly similar when it comes to gender roles in our Indian society. Yet another rape victim committed suicide after police neglected to look into her case and instead tried assassinating her character. People think that the laws need to be changed. But look at the mentalities of our men--not just law enforcers but the general public. Even some men who have educational credentials have terrible ideas about gender roles and how women should be treated. I was in India for 3 months last year and a majority of the men even in a city as progressive as Mumbai look at women like we were all doing something terribly sleazy. Being a woman is treated like some sort of an inherent inferiority. The police leer at you almost as much as the regular roadside brute. They make up excuses for heinous rapes. A shocking video revealed the attitudes of police towards rapes and sexual crimes against women. These men all blamed the women for either instigating the rape or not preventing it. The well-used "She was wearing a mini skirt...and hence the guy raped her" argument is shockingly prevalent. When women protest the treatment of their gender and obvious delinquency on part of law enforcers in dealing with these cases, they too are attacked---and not just with tear gas and water canons, but with harsh words as well. Here is a comment from Abhijit Mukherjee, the son of our nation's President: “These pretty women, dented and painted, who come for protests are not students. I have seen them speak on television, usually women of this age are not students”. He added that students, who go to discotheques, think it is a fashion statement to hold candles and protest. Does it matter Mr. Mukherjee that they be students? Rape is every woman's nightmare---whether she be a student returning home from a late night film or a working mother on a train. Lets forget about crime against women for a second and take a look at the mentalities within general society that may manifest into this sort of behavior. Rapes have been classified as anger rapes, power rapes, sadistic rapes and gang rapes. All of these have one thing in common--the desire for feeling superior through sexual domination and violence. The men likely viewed this woman as superior or immoral in some way and were out to teach her a "lesson", put her in her "place" which begs the question what precisely is the place of women in Indian society? The role of a woman from a character in a television series to any given household is defined by some archaic patriarchal dictum. Women who wear jeans and go to discotheques are somehow immoral and deserve the leering and molestation. Yet it is surprisingly OK for our kids and teens to see vulgar dance moves and hear obscene song lyrics in Hindi film "item" numbers. Our television series and the irony and hypocrisy of its content recently made it to an article in NY Times. Interestingly and ironically, the person behind these exceedingly regressive TV series is a single, independent woman---Ms. Ekta Kapoor. I don't blame her; she needs TV series that can sell. And these days, as more and more girls are educated and command respect in the work environment, apparently what sells on TV is the subjugation of women through a daily soap opera. A lot of Indian men today want a wife who works but they also want her to be a very effective "maid". The mother-in-law led an oppressed life when she was young and now she makes sure it is her daughter-in-law's turn. Even now people say things like "We allow our daughters-in-law to wear jeans and have a career". Allow? So you view the woman as your personal property? Men want women who can look and dress like Katrina Kaif but only when they want her to. At other times she should be the epitome of sacrifice and servitude. The whole thing is a confusing medley of hypocrisy, close-mindedness and sexual repression. You can change legislation and make stricter laws. But how does one change such deep-rooted mentalities? Our media, television, films don't help. We have changed so much about our exterior with glitzy malls and better highways. We are the tech capital of the world and our cities now resemble those in the Western world. The middle class has moved out of small tenements and made its way to posh flats in the suburbs. Our schools are more savvy and our children have access to the internet. But our core mentalities have not evolved at the same pace. The subjugation and oppression of women is viewed as some sort of a tradition. Social progress and the essence of democracy is defined by how a nation treats their women, children and minorities. And by those standards India's progress is embarrassingly challenged. I don't know if the answer lies with our young men or with law enforcement. But I do think that a revolution is needed to change the current scheme of things with respect to the treatment of women in India. I hope that the protestors in India do not stop and more importantly do not forget the Delhi victim. She has galvanized the fight against rape and injustice towards women in our society. This fight might have been started by that one incident but this fight is about more than just that one victim. It is about the millions of women in India who have stayed stoic and strong in the face of abuse for way too long now.