Juga di India perempuan ingin diperlakukan sebagai manusia..
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Misogyny in India: We are all guilty
By Leeza Mangaldas , Special to CNN
December 30, 2012 -- Updated 0953 GMT (1753 HKT)
CNN.com
Indian students in Amritsar on December 20 protest against the New Delhi rape
that ultimately resulted in a woman's death.
Indian students in Amritsar on December 20 protest against the New Delhi rape
that ultimately resulted in a woman's death.
Editor's note: Leeza Mangaldas is an actress based in Mumbai. She is also the
founder of Evoke India, a forum for idea-sharing and open dialogue in India.
Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Mumbai, India (CNN) -- Misogyny is so deeply rooted in India's collective
psychology that even the president's son -- in this case, Congress Parliament
member Abhijit Mukherjee -- could entangle himself with a remark against women
protesting gang rape.
He called them "dented and painted women" who go to discos, have little
connection with ground realities and are making candlelight vigils fashionable.
After an enormous backlash, he apologized and retracted his comments, but many
are not satisfied and want his resignation
Misogyny has long permeated our textbooks, our pedagogy and our parenting. In
fact, it runs so deep that it reflects itself even in our linguistics. The
Hindi phrase most commonly used to describe sexual violence or rape against
women is "izzat lootna," which means "to steal the honor of." Another Hindi
word used for rape, "balatkar" (or "bad act"), is considered so erudite and
technical that it's barely ever used. (Its English equivalent would be "coitus"
instead of "sex.")
So, for the most part, we're stuck with "izzat lootna" -- and the necessary
question: Why should a rapist be given so much credit? Rape is a criminal act
of force and perverse subjugation. When a woman is raped, her most fundamental
rights as a human being are violated.
Yet, she is just as honorable as she ever was. Honor cannot be stolen. It can
only be surrendered. Surely in the act of rape, it is the perpetrator, not the
victim, who surrenders honor.
The brave girl from Delhi died with her honor intact. Her rapists will live in
ignominy.
Indians protest after rape victim dies
Unfortunately, in India rape is inextricably linked by men -- and women -- to
shame: the ultimate desecration. Many victims are murdered by their rapists or
choose to commit suicide. It is also not uncommon for the parents of rape
victims to kill themselves. Thus, most victims don't speak up about what
happened to them, lest their families be ostracized, lest they never find a
husband or be shunned by their friends.
Heavy security for India rape protest
About 10 months ago, I was offered a role of a young, urban woman who gets gang
raped. The film explores how she chooses to deal with what happens to her. It
is a very powerful script, and most of me wanted to accept the role
immediately. But a gnawing part of me worried about how I'd be perceived by the
general public were I to perform this role.
Murder charges likely in India gang-rape
Female sexuality in Hindi cinema is extremely fraught, especially because
audiences seem unable to comprehend the distinction between what a role demands
from an actor and that person's conduct offscreen.
In the script the woman is attractive, confident and self aware; she'd had
several consensual relationships with men and enjoyed her sexuality. Truth be
told, her character is not far from me in real life. Still, in patriarchal,
judgmental, misogynistic Indian society, these are labels most women are afraid
to carry publicly. On top of this, the character gets raped.
I was afraid to accept the role. Afraid of whether audiences and the media
would think I was promiscuous, desecrated. Embarrassed at the prospect of
saying I'm doing a film in which I get raped, lest aspersions be cast on my
character.
There lay, in my own mind, the seeds of the same misogyny that makes Mr.
Mukherjee's remarks in the wake of the student's gang rape so deplorable. Seeds
I had to uproot at once. I accepted the role.
At the time I was offered the film, rape wasn't getting the sort of national
attention it is getting right now. It was still a topic that made most people
uncomfortable, a topic that women and men alike were not able to freely express
their opinions on.
That India's young public is today demanding so vocally the need to address the
way we view sexuality and gender equality is empowering. People are sharing
their own experiences of sexual violence on blogs and social media. Men and
women are collaborating to seek legal reform, to challenge the societal
perceptions they have been force-fed.
We now understand that to remain silent bystanders of a crime is to collude
with the criminal. It is clear to me that as actors, filmmakers, artists,
journalists, activists -- people who use a medium that has the potential to
reach so many minds -- it is our responsibility to educate and mobilize, while
we entertain.
For the last 10 months, as we have been rehearsing and shooting, the subject of
rape has been my foremost preoccupation. Two points have struck me in
particular: First, the director, who is also the scriptwriter, is male. His
co-writer, the music composer, is also male. These two artists, Tarun Chopra
and Daboo Malik, chose to champion a cause that almost always gets packaged as
a women's issue.
In India, sexual violence is perpetrated almost entirely by men. Rapists are
male. Should men not feel responsible then to prevent the occurrence of this
crime? Shouldn't men be disturbed that their mothers, sisters, wives and
daughters constantly feel unsafe or feel they have to dress and behave in a
particular way to avoid getting raped? Isn't it time men educated other men
about consent?
Secondly, and this point took me longer to acknowledge, women are as guilty as
men for the mindset that breeds the crime. We kill our own infant daughters, we
immolate our sons' wives if they bear female children, we disapprove of women
who make an effort to be attractive -- and doubt their character. We still look
at marriage as if it's the purpose for which we were born.
But misogyny is no longer misogyny when expressed by a woman. It's
self-loathing.
And while it is easy -- and justified -- for women to point fingers at men for
the chauvinism in our society, don't we owe it to ourselves to look within?
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Leeza Mangaldas.
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