When women are Silenced to Shame, the shame is ours!
“I replaced myself
like the nothing
that happened.”
“ It was there when I felt a hand brushing my rear. I tried to ignore it, hoping it was accidental and started walking as fast as I could. But then, the hand boldly squeezed my behind. For that moment my entire existence crumbled under the weight of his hand.
P.S: I wear a Burka”
“I could feel him rubbing his private organs against my back, all the way, I was helpless and it was worse when the person sitting in front of me realised it and instead of helping me, giggled and passed on an encouraging smile to the beast”
He would morph my pics and send them to me on social media, I contemplated ending my life”
Men in closed Asian cultures like ours, enjoy an inherent position of being more accomplished, right from the birth, irrespective of the actual achievements they might or might not have made on social or moral grounds. Females are forced to accept the idea of, ‘supremacy of manhood’, irrespective of the many sane adjuncts that must have been attached to the idea of ‘supremacy’ of one person over the other.
They are asked to imbibe the dictum, “czoppe gayi rope sinz” (Silence is made of Silver), and accept that they are responsible for their honour and dignity. They are taught that the onus is on them to prevent rape, molestation and that the men are inherently belligerent and it is ‘in their nature’ to touch, grope or fondle a female if she is not very ‘careful’ with her dress, her way of speaking and her being feminine. Ironically, his has been internalised by women. They often think that THEY need to prevent their being sexually assaulted or even raped and as such if they are exploited they blame themselves. They think of ways in which they could have prevented the attack on them: Maybe they should have not gone out, maybe they should have done this or that and maybe they should have ceased being women.
The society, with all its valuable advices teach our women how to get molested and still remain silent. We have already found an alibi to exonerate the sexual predators of their depravity and granted an impunity to their sexual perversions, by making the victim responsible for whatever she was inflicted upon with and advising her strictly to shut her mouth up to however she was victimised. What a shame!!
All of this is a hideous cycle. The society while silencing the victim, knowingly or unknowingly encourages the decadence of the depraved. It gives them a hope that they thrive in such a spineless lot of humans that will nip every resentment and reaction to their hedonistic perversions.
The grotesque facade of the worthless civilisations, like our own, lies unsheltered when there are people from among us, who instead of stopping such acts, encourage the perpetrator with the admiration of his stenching excursions and castigation of the victim, blaming her, very shamelessly, for her way of carrying herself, for her dress, for the fact the she is out, travelling in a bus or for her speaking in a particular language. The mental faculties of such pundits can take an extremely nadir plunges with some even blaming the ‘Burka’ of being ‘erotic’ in that it invoked a sense of mysteriousness in its occupant and ‘invited’ harassment and bother.
How often do we hear or see such obnoxious pundits actually standing against the criminal, verbally or being a little more brave and taking swing at him?
Is it that we have become immune to the idea of dignity and honour of our females or is it that we lost the sense of association with other people and their emotions?
The answer is bitter, we have lost our shame. Yes, we as a delusional ‘proud patriarchal society’, have lost the values of that idea of ‘supremacy of manhood’, which if true, would definitely have stemmed from securing and protecting our women, having a sense of responsibility towards their being.
We need to get over our mis-manufactured interpretation of ‘Men being men’, since being a man comes with a sense of self awareness and courtesy towards the other members of society, especially women. Being a man isn’t a predicament of being an animal. A real man, because he is sure of it, wouldn’t need to enforce his manhood upon others in form of his degeneracy. The perversity comes with doubt of a person about his emotional and physical facets of ascribing to manhood.
It is, hence, often evident that people who indulge in such debaucheries have had history of events that had made them question those very facets. My dear perverts, groping a helpless female, touching at her back, rubbing yourselves against them, makes you no better than a filthy little insect which bites its own tail to feed itself and ends up dying a confusing death, your ego(if any) too, dies a confusing death when you impose your depravity on the weak.
The society needs to teach its young boys to respect women, their emotions and their bodies. They need to teach them to stop being predatory cavemen of bygone era.
It needs to teach its women to fight for their honour, for it is the the best thing to fight for and that ‘czopp’ in this case is not made of silver but of fire that will consume them all their lives.
Healing is not silence.
Healing is having compassion and understanding for yourself.
Healing is realising that carrying shame, silently, prolongs the power your perpetrator had over you – and getting angry about that.
That anger is healing!!
One of the versions of the write-up was published in Freepresskashmir
The author can me reached out at: