The Pitiable Mentality

I am a Delhiite, we all are aware of that famous Delhi Rape Case. I don’t want to talk about it, but the crowd here makes me over think about it every single time I go out. Is it just Delhi where we have such crowd?  We all thought that after that case, maybe everyone will change, and the percentage of rape cases may decrease, but weren’t we all wrong? Instead it increased. 

I talked about women empowerment in my last post, but how women are going to achieve their goal when these cruel men won’t let them to? These men don’t even let a woman cross a street without a single dreadful comment. These men not only comment, but they even sometimes cross their limits.

How are women going to pass them?

According to men, women should not wear short clothes; their clothing shouldn’t be loud and shouldn’t provoke those cruel men, women should not walk alone on the streets at night, should carry a pepper spray, should go in a group, etc.

Do you think these measures would really stop those rapists? Actually they haven’t. We all have heard various rape cases and many of them constituted these measures and those victims had to suffer the brutality of those men.

Society says it’s those uneducated, illiterate men who do such stuff, but is this really true?

A week ago my sister, a cousin of mine, my bro and I had gone to Connaught Place. It was quite late at night but we yet hadn’t had our dinner, so we all started looking for Berco’s Restaurant. As we were walking on the pavement, an aged man, well dressed, was talking on phone in English, passed by me and then my sister, as he passed by my sister, he spanked my sister. He was too fast that we couldn’t even see his face. My sister was dressed up properly; we were in a group still my sister had to face such nasty act.

Later, that very same day, as we were boarding the metro, we three girls and my brother got on the general compartment. We four were standing together when the train stopped at some station and an aged man, who was returning back from work, entered through the door. I was standing quite near that door, as he saw a vacant seat; he rushed to it, passed by me, brushed himself by me and pinched me on my butt. I couldn’t even tell anyone, as they would’ve taken it as my fault that I had boarded the general compartment and not the women one. 

Cases like these happen every single day. And it’s not about what the girls are wearing or if men are educated or not, it’s all about the thinking. Those educated men are literate but unknowledgeable. And if our clothing provokes men then we should just break their face because their stupidity provokes us.

“Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.”

The other day when I was walking, I saw a beautiful butterfly fluttering in the sky. I was struck by how beautiful yet graceful and fragile it appeared to be. Then the thought occurred to me that although we may see a butterfly as having fragile wings and being this delicate creature, the butterfly is also very strong. For the butterfly had to have strength when it was a caterpillar to break through that cocoon and learn how to fly. Survivors are the same way. Yes, our hearts are fragile and delicate in some areas from the pain we went through. Yet at the same time, we have so much strength to us for breaking away from the life we once had and for shattering our silence as we create this new life for ourselves. We've moved on from that part of our lives and now we begin to embark on a new journey as we live a life free from abuse.

Wings won't take me. Heights don't faze me. So take a step but don't look down.