Tuesday 18 December 2012

How to protect yourself!

Sushma Swaraj is demanding death penalty for rapists and everyone is signing the petition. I haven't signed it. I'm protesting against it and I will come to that later, but at least she has spoken and taken a stand. I'd like to hear from the rest of the women in parliament. Jaya Jaitly? Sonia Gandhi? Sheila Dixit? And these are just a few! What do all of you have to say? Can we hear from you? We'd like to hear you not just condemning the crime but also what you are going to do to protect us? And the men in parliament! You amass huge amounts of wealth, all of which comes from us, we live with it! Take it all I say, but do you damn jobs. Stop protecting your sorry lives and justify your existence! You wanted power? You have it. But with power comes responsibility and that responsibility seems to lie with us!

I personally know 3 women who have been raped! One was a victim of an uncle. When she complained to her mother, she was slapped and told to stop lying! I demand punishment for this mother who did not help her child and the man probably raped another little girl knowing his sister would protect him!

Another was raped by her college friends - 2 of them! She informed the police and his parents. The parents bribed the cops and protected their sons. I demand death for the cops and these parents who created these sociopaths who are secure in the knowledge that they are safe to do as they please!

I demand punishment for the authorities who want votes and power. Why should we vote you into power if you can do nothing. Get out of our lives and stay out! Why should our daughters have to protect themselves because the ones meant to be patrolling the streets are on VIP duty or napping in their chairs?

As a kid, when your son behaves badly or treats a girl "like a girl:, if you laugh, you need to be punished! Every time you tell your daughter to "behave like a girl," you need to be flogged. And every time you say derogatory things about a girl in front of your son or brother, you need to be chastised! Because by doing this, you are raising a criminal! Every time you see something happen and "mind your own business," you are a criminal.

And the ones who rape are sociopaths. What about those who walk amongst us? The ones who are educated, wear cool clothes and are in highly placed jobs, from good families? The ones who still objectify us and discuss our anatomies? The ones who think women are just meant to be nautches in their bed posts! I demand punishment for them!

I refuse to protect myself! It is the job of those who asked for this responsibility and they better do it because there is a storm coming! And if they can't do it, let it be legal for women to carry guns! We'll do your job then! Or admit defeat and legalize female foeticide. Let there be no women. We don't deserve them anyway!

I demand punishment for each one of us for keeping quiet and letting someone we know get away with small things which lead to big things!

I do a play called the vagina monologues. It's hilarious! But it talks of the plight of women. I wonder how many people get the underlying message. But as we say in the beginning of the play, "enjoy the show. Laugh, cry and have fun, but watch them with respect because the vagina is where each one of us has spent the first 9 months of or lives." Stop defiling it, because without it, you would not exist!

And the ones sending stupid jokes about Delhi station being renamed molestation, if you find rape funny, I demand punishment for you!!!

12 comments:

  1. I admire your passion and your writing skills. I also concur that we need to do something drastic to stop this rut. I fuly agree that crimes against women must be eliminated not only in the ground level but also in the minds. At the same time, however, let us not get carried away and extend this to line of thinking to prevent all kinds of normal behaviour which includes some leg pulling, some light hearted fun etc. Best wishes

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  2. Leg pulling and humour for a subject like rape? You need help anonymous

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  3. Leg pulling and humour for a subject like rape? You need help anonymous

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  4. It's sad. A woman's dignity and respect is in tatters and so many, so many of us contribute to it without even realizing it. Light - hearted fun? Objectification is never fun, sorry.

    Notice the statements of our politicians and police officers whose minds fail to grow our of their cherished patriarchy. Notice how the media unsuspectingly feeds us an impression of a woman who can be woo-ed by eve teasing. I loathe item songs, how could something so degrading be popular?

    And I agree to the idea of carrying an armed weapon myself. There's no one who can effectively ensure my safety today, except my own self. And I'm sure, I'd be gunning down a lot of people...

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  5. Dev: aceept everything that Varsha and others stated, just my thoughts are around this girl in hospital battling for her life and being degraded and if not enought the purpetrators bashed her up with iron rods! Insult to injury is dumping her naked on the roads. I wish her recovery and she will do so... I don't know long after this post dies out and candle light vigils are extinguished... Will she return to normal? Have a meaningful relationship with a man, regarless of the nature of association and enjoy experiences with it??
    Laws are there its the unwillingness to impLement and as rightly said society's lip service and no action worries me most... I fear for the daughters, wives, sisters and yes mothers too....

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  6. Alice Cooper once sang, Only Women Bleed.... Finding it so apt these days. May such plight end soon.

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  7. what about our constant reinforcement of gender roles? 'don't behave like a girl' to a sensitive boy who cries or 'don't behave like a man' to a girl who laughs freely?

    what about our media, that shows women in a certain light, in certain roles and in certain situations, and men in other? what about our movies? even our most basic primary text books: why does 'ram' always have to do physical tasks while 'sita', menial?

    but all that apart, this is what i feel very strongly about: a child will grow into a man or woman through what they see and experience and not what you say or command

    my own treatment of women is vastly due to how i saw my father treating women (and especially my mother) in my childhood, and not so much by what i was taught or saw in the media. it is also moulded by how my mother treated my father. fortunately for me, my mother was a tough marathi mulgi from pune, and took no s**t, while my dad was a young air force officer who was always a gentleman. so, it has moulded me, it has made me, and it reflects in my behaviour with other people

    is there a case to be made for all of us to start behaving differently with the other gender in order to change how future generations will behave? i mean, if children today see men being respectful to women (without the BS of 'mother', or 'daughter', or 'sister' or 'wife' and no other options) and women standing up for themselves, maybe in a generation or two, we can see the change, what say?

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    2. sorry to add to my already longish rant, but: is it time to stop calling ladies 'chicks'? is it time to joke about and sexualise every interaction between two people, just to tease them? is it time for women to stop the use of words like 'slut' to describe other women they don't like? is it time to get sex out of the closet and consider it just part of life, as is, say food, or going to the loo, or enjoying a good wine? is it time to sensitise ourselves to rape, molestation, murder, torture etc of women we see every day in the papers and now, have started to skim over? is it time for us to start being humans, now that we have evolved and all that?

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    3. I demand punishment for the people who makes adds like ''ladki kee shaadi ke liye sona jama karna hai''.
      These kind of things need to be changed and the mind set needs to be changed.
      Aur agar nahin kar sakte ho to ladkiyon ko janam mat do - then after a few generations, world will come it its end automatically.

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