Rape is a reality for women across the world irrespective of race, religion or social status.

In Indian forums about sexual crime, we hear about the declining standards of women’s morality and dressing, and very often, the blame is laid at the erring woman’s feet because she deserves it for sleaze, non-conformist behaviour or promiscuity. In that vein, how will civil society punish wanton men?



Also, man is always the seduced and woman, the seducer. It is about time we realized that woman is not made of wood and she can be seduced by both word and action. If a woman’s way of life is immoral and dangerous, she needs discipline and a therapist, not a rape sentence.



Most rapes happen within spaces where the woman feels safe like her home or workplace and perpetrators are usually people close to her. Marital rape (which accounts for 25% of rapes worldwide), rape within relationships and abuse of minor girls and boys are barely reported or discussed.



In societies where women are voiceless, they suffer silently as in the Imrana case which hogged the headlines recently. In honour-and-shame societies, a woman’s sexual status is a proud possession of men and rape victims are often killed to safeguard family honour.



In upwardly mobile parts of urban India, women may wear transparent clothes or visit discothèques, but there is not much social progress in real terms when it comes to traditional concepts of gender relations. There is a cliché among girls that clothes are about their ‘_expression of freedom’. True, every person has the right to wear whatever facilitates movement, comfort and chic. But, think about why clothes for men are about style and individuality, their sex appeal at best a part of their overall personality. Media and popular culture have a role in portraying ‘sexiness’ as a self-worth barometer. It is an explosive Molotov cocktail of an obscurantist society, global media and beauty pageants.



By shedding clothes, a woman in show business becomes an object of male fantasy providing her with a euphoric sense of womanly power, but that cannot be peddled as a symbol of empowerment to the average girl. It confuses her and leaves her at the crossroads of tradition, bravado, vulnerability and anorexia nervosa.



The world as we know it is a perceptual construct defined in terms of man. Even women see themselves through man-coloured glasses. If Sania Mirza were a man, no cleric would be remotely interested in her attire. When dance bars were banned in Mumbai, the media hounded the bargirls who are the service providers, not the customers who are powerful men.



Even human language is proof of male preponderance. After all, God is a male who made ‘man’ in his image! ‘Manly’ is a positive, complimentary word whereas ‘womanish’ means pejorative weakness. Femininity is worshipped if gentle, virtuous, nurturing and desired if sexy. There are very few self-determining images of women like the Amazon or goddess Kali. But, Men are considered emasculated if they are not macho, self-sufficient and hormonal.



To say that men will be men and the gender equation will never change is akin to the clergy telling Copernicus that the sun revolved around the earth before chopping off his blasphemous head for thinking differently. There are slow and steady changes around the world cutting across language, faith and class. It is up to every woman to decide what sacrifices she is prepared to make and in what way she can contribute. After all, There’s no such thing as a free lunch, especially for a woman.