Confronting the culture of violence against women

Is capital punishment, a real deterrent for gang rapes? There had been many discussions on this and still going on after the Supreme court's decision to give death penalty to all the remaining four accused in the Delhi gang rape case, suggesting that this case falls under the rarest of rare category.

      But, can we expect this judgement to reduce gang rapes in India? 

     Do these criminal minds fear the law in that moment of lechery?

     And if they fear, does that make them stop from doing it? Or does that make them do the more evil thing, so that no one knows a thing about what they had done? 

    These are the questions, to which, we can never be sure of the answers, no matter who give them. The thing that we can be sure of is that the death penalty alone can't deter this horrendous crime. 

    The recent Hyderabad episode is an other example that reveals that this problem is more complex to be solved by a law. What will we do if some products of a company are faulty? We surely throw the product into trash, but the top priority would be to make sure that the company makes them right from then on.

      These culprits are exactly the same faulty products that were manufactured by our faulty system. For this, more than thinking about the kind of trash box we want to put in the faulty products, we need to think about the repair works that are quickly needed to stop this faulty manufacturing. Thats what exactly the Justice Varma panel suggested. Repair the damn manufacturing system.

It has been a habit for the government to constitute committees on pressing issues, but only implementing the politically suitable sections of the report, rather than the important ones. The Justice JS Verma committee's report was no exception(government did bring some changes in the rape law) 

      Its true that the report is far reaching, and it should be, as it gives the whole picture of women's problems in the society, at various levels. But, it only shows the poor state of affairs relating to gender bias that are still prevailing in our nation in implementing what our constitution assures women, in particular.

     As the report clearly asserts, We are in urgent need of electoral, educational and police reforms, which are the causes of more social evils. with special emphasis on how to gender-sensitize the children and adults to reach a matured state.

Bargaining Death

              How many of us took/gave(or going to take/give) dowry and think that it harms no one as the givers are quite capable of giving and takers are not going to ask for more?

Do you know that one woman dies every hour due to dowry related reasons on an average in India? And the death rate had even been raising in the last 12 years? National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures state that 8,233 dowry deaths were reported in 2012.

Who are really responsible for these deaths? No. Not just the husband, or in-laws, or even the parents, It's a collective failure of every one of us, the society, that is still encouraging the dowry arrangement, despite the progress we made in various fields over the years.

  Why dowry is still being taken as a prestige issue, or a status symbol? By taking/giving dowry you are only encouraging a whole bunch of people around you, who can be a lot greedier than they seem to be. And greedy enough to the extent of causing death in one or the other way.

If you think its just the uneducated or rural people that are victims of this social evil, you are completely wrong(please watch the video below). These deaths include a number of working women in urban areas like Delhi in this case.

The only remedy is collective banishment of the dowry system from the society. You can't be irresponsible towards these social evils and get away with it all the time. It can eventually harm any one of your dear ones at a later time.

So, my modest appeal to each one of you, take the first step towards breaking the walls of this Gender-bias, say no to dowry, both givers and takers.

Common Nonsense - Gender Bias

"Common Nonsense" is the phrase that came to my mind, when i was pondering about most of the common practices we are still following in our long running patriarchal society. Like an average netizen I instantly googled the phrase "Common Non-sense," to know whether its used commonly or not. It came out that there is a book by that phrase about some guy's biography and a website, but otherwise not common.

I have only recently started putting my thoughts on paper or rather on a digital screen. I can't say whether I got any better or worse in anyway(may be you can). But I am not going to stop with all these thoughts circling in my head. This seems to be at the least a small temporary relief.

We are in modern era, equal opportunities for men and women. Women have already reached the most powerful posts in the country.We have women CEOs, Women entrepreneurs and even women Chief Ministers. We hear these comments daily about the all-round progress that was brought up in the lifestyle of women.

But, after reading this piece from NewsLaundry, which has no surprises for any body living in our self-inflicted society, about the common practices of discriminating women, each one of us will definitely be relating to our own part in this humiliation, knowingly or unknowingly. And they qualify to be termed as common non-sense.

As a society, are we i.e., both men and women, treating our women equal to men? Are we treating a baby boy same as a baby girl at birth? Or during their childhood? Adolescence? Or even after being an adult? During marriage? After marriage? No. Never. We show discrimination at each and every step.

We show discrimination in celebrating their birth, in buying them toys during childhood. We make girls accustomed to do household things while leaving boys to themselves during their teenage. There is an example of a grandmother who reacts contrastingly, when she sees her grand-son shaking his legs sitting in a chair and when her grand-daughter does the same. It's only a small example of how inferior women feel of themselves.  Bluntly put, it's a systematic brain wash that's still going on from generation to generation.

And we all know about the traditional act of male chauvinism that takes place during the marriage. Man tying a 'Mangal Sutra,' a supposedly sacred thread around the woman's neck, as a process of taking responsibility of her as in what? Is marriage still being seen as transferring responsibility of a woman to a man? If not, Why are we still going through this process? Will any man ever be comfortable with it, if the same is done to him?, including the acts like touching wife's feet, etc.

Isn't this kind of unequal treatment of society is what making women feel inferior to men and men, superior to women, causing the horrific crimes that are under scanner nationwide in the present times. Are we developing our social norms along with our development in other fields? Is it too early to expect such change? Do we need to wait till generations after generations to see that change? Can it be done in one generation if young people won't bow down to pressures to follow this common non-sense? I have nothing but hope.