Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
While the global social media continues to swoon over the person of interest in the UnitedHealth Group CEO murder case and is going rampant over the New Jersey Drone sightings, back home the brain fog is soaring in AQI due to toxic air or year-end celebrity sightings.
While social media and people in general suffer from a short term memory related to topics of societal concern, with the new calendar year fast approaching, a yearly round up could serve as a good reminder of these to netizens who may otherwise be exhilarated at the yearly round up of reels on chartbuster hits alone.
This year we journeyed through ambitious Viksit Bharat agendas, one too many Ambani celebrations, election manifestos and toward the second half, the focus shifted on sexual assaults which is a conversational topic now. Several statistics including the 4,45,256 cases of crimes against women as registered in 2022 alone were reviewed and discussed. But what needs to be mapped now is where are we as a society lagging behind in securing our women and their wellbeing despite rampant case discussions and widespread awareness regarding these issues.
While the brutal rape and murder of the 31-year old R.G.Kar trainee doctor left everyone aghast, the year also saw the suicide case of the 25-year old Air India pilot, Srishti Tuli who was driven to ending her sustained partner induced harassment despite a successful career. These deaths surely have induced many cogitating on the safety and security issues related to educated women. This may have been unfathomable till a few years ago since the educated woman didn’t fit the bill. Meaning, while embodying the strong professional modern woman who breaks boundaries and advocates for equal pay and claims representation in the county’s growing GDP, it is unbecoming to realize that none of these achievements matter given her lack of societal evolution owing to her XX genetic imprint.
Not conforming to ideologies of feminism in the Indian context, it is safe to say that these are not issues limited to any country, but the global paternalistic society in general. In this context, this year also saw the shocking Mazan rape case of the 72-year old French woman Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband Dominique Pelicot subjected her to a sustained rape context by random men on the internet while having drugged her for over a decade.
With age, race or sect adding no filter towards subjecting women to acts of perversion and assault, be it a foeticide, work place harassment, intent to outrage modesty or rape, this no doubt indicates blaring signals to the still prevalent mindset in our society and the clear gender disparity between the biological Adam and Eve.
To approach this issue from a solutionistic point-of-view, there is a need to pitch ideas in the basket while first of all stomaching some realities.
Casual dismissal, disregard and expletive-dependent disrespect of women being at the helm of daily affairs even in the educated society is a reality. A daily dose of instilling a sense of inferiority among women which could eventually promote acceptance of bad paternal or spousal behavior is also a reality. If this combination of male infliction and female reception is segue to an act which encompasses the definition of sexual harassment comprising of the inflictor trained to play the part due to prior programming, we have a problem. So there is an undeniable need to invest in the qualitative and moral upbringing of our children who can be programmed not just though parental example setting but also through lived examples of what the penal system inflicts on rapists and assaulters.
Drawing upon the various encouraging strategies and positive steps taken to curb sexual harassment (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal; PoSH Act, 2013 in India) in schools, colleges, workplace, etc, while these are progressive and much needed, such programmes and policies should be excluded from being used as crowd-raising agendas or political manifestos.
There needs to be a social curb on the use profanity of the second degree, each ingeniously designed to capture the various shades of female vulnerability, modesty and pasted blasphemies. This should include curbs on glorified deliverance of these unfathomable terms through movies as well as songs.
At the end of the day, sustenance of legacies and species can only be successful through symbiosis, synchronicity and mutual respect. We owe that to each other.
Declaration: The views expressed in this piece are the author’s personal views and need not represent the views of the organization the author is associated with.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint