RE RE: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty

[sanjay ghosh]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040822/3c996fa6/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
  


I think Rahul Asthana has raised a very important point - rape seems to be a grand male conspiracy. I believe this line of thought needs to be explored in true earnest. Notions of political correctness often deflect serious debate on contentious issues as almost all criticism of the Jewish right is drowned under howls of anti-semitism.

The very idea of feminine dignity is always linked to chastity and virginity - sexual prudence is virtue incarnated. A man who sleeps around is a stud, male virility is a virtue. A woman with similar attributes is a slut or worse - anything but positive. 

Based on this conditioning every rape defence argument attacks the victim's sexual discretion. The film DAHAN** had a reasonably thorough look at this issue. The original crime was only molestation and assault (may not have found a mention in newspapers these days), yet the trauma of the victim built up through social pressures is enormous (also disproportionately psychological). The incident also pointed to an interesting anomaly - the woman who comes forward to save the victim (her husband had been bashed unconscious by the goons) never mentions her own assault in the FIR. Without a sexual angle, physical assault loses significance. The defence argument is a classic case of character assassination based on that old conditioning, a woman of 'questionable sexual prudence' can't really be taken seriously.

Had this been a car accident (to take Rahul's example) the whole thing would have been forgotten in an hour. In this case it shatters three relationships leaving an emotional distress of a lifetime. 

In the early days of civilisation men must have realised that sexuality is loaded against them. If prostitution (the proverbial oldest profession) were to be stripped off socio-psycho paraphernalia and regarded as just work, men wouldn't last beyond 2 customers a day. Except brute muscular force the female human organism has superior physical, mental and emotional attributes. If a society is not at war, men by their natural attributes would be mere 'workers'. Over time, men have worked hard to reverse the situation. The basic reading of history as taught to the majority, is all wars and monuments - the 'praiseworthy' contribution of men. Civil society and household work (including child rearing) is a boring footnote. And yet which of these activities has actually nurtured civilisation ?

Now (for so long that it's historically difficult to pinpoint the breaking away) women have completely given in to the psychological conditioning rendering them victims. An appalling number of rape victims commit suicide. The issue of 'what others would think' has taken such a gigantic significance that it's worth more than life itself. 

It seems to escape our collective inquiry, how women (despite greater longevity, multiple orgasmic potential, multiple attention span and in a level playing field - better academic performance) have become natural victims in every society. Women's contribution to society has been constantly undermined. Faced with the spectre of 'race extinction', it is only now that governments in developed countries have started doling out cash for raising children. Until now this work wasn't even accounted for as an economic activity. No wonder even the cold gaze of economics comes a cropper having ignored such a gigantic loophole.
 
It's high time women rejected social conditioning which have rendered them 'natural victims' for centuries. It would require an enormous effort but I think it would be worthwhile. It's ridiculous to accept a sense of dignity based on sexuality (the least transparent of all human activity). 

regards,
Sanjay Ghosh

** Dahan (The Burning), Suchitra Bhattacharya, translated by Mahua Mitra, Srishti, 2001 
DAHAN /Dir: Rituparno Ghosh /145 Min (supposedly based on a true incident)