Its not about the dress…

This is a rejoinder to my last post…

Since the day I posted last, I have been making the rounds of blogs and news reports; looking at how fellow Indians are responding. And the inevitable has already started to poke its ugly head. As soon as the initial wave of angst passed over, the average Indian male and a sizeable portion of Indian females have started to talk again – about how it’s the females who invite the crime against themselves. They won’t come out in media or ‘on records’ in numbers (though you will always find a couple of them, pitching in with their comments on popular blogs), but you talk to them one on one or off the records, and you won’t be surprised (at least not me) how blatantly they will keep pointing to all the girls wearing a dress they feel fashionable.

Argue with them, with data and psychological analysis of offenders and they wont batter their eyelids to rubbish all reports, data, statistics and experts. Most of them are either ignorant about any such statistics and data, or would knowingly turn a blind eye to them.

For all those escapists I am trying to put across some information again (knowing that it might be futile – yet!).

Go through the data on “National Crime Record Bureau” , and the analysis of it made by Maps4Aid – and you would know that only 2.73% of rape and other sexual offences are made by complete strangers. Go through the list of 230 cases of violence against women reported in Media during 2011, and you will know the picture. If 97.27% or cases are committed by people known to victim, and as evident from reports – were premeditated, can there be any doubt that it’s not dress but the intension of the perpetrator that’s the cause?

Let’s talk about the miniscule 2.73% of cases that were committed by total strangers. A report on a section of the jailed accused brings forward 4 distinct categories of rapists. More than half of which are committed by one particular “Type” – “Power-assertive rapist”. And how and who does he target? –

“More often than not, this is the type who commits date rapes. He typically meets his victim in a bar or nightclub. Instead of targeting a specific victim, he looks for an opportunity to get a woman alone with him, perhaps with an offer of a ride home or an invitation back to his place. Or he may con his victim into trusting him or letting him into her home, perhaps by posing as a policeman or repairman.”

Does this look like the female invited these guys? A look at how they chose their targets shows, yes they may look at the dress and hairstyle (!!) of the victim; but not to see if its provocative, but to judge if its easy to remove and if the girl looks submissive enough. Submissive to the extent that she won’t fight back or report it to the authorities.

The statistics we can lay our hands on are on reported cases – where as we just saw that the very target of the offenders is to choose victims who won’t report! Isn’t it reasonable now to accept that the numbers we see are miniscule? As per IHM – “1 in 69” get reported ! Rubbing salt to injury – the data on NCRB site shows, though more than 96% of the cases get charge-sheeted, only 45.8% cases of sexual harassment and a dismal 27.7% cases of Molestation gets conviction. And we have not yet spoken about the time taken for conviction!

Why don’t they report? Because the people to whom they will go to report are from this same society which puts the blame of the girl – same people who blatantly puts it on clothes female wear, while their own statistics shows something very different. Thanks to the relentless activism I read the cabinet has passed the amendments, by which the victims past and character can no longer be questioned by either the police or the court !

So what happens to those “hapless poor guys” who gets convicted? Just 7-10 years of imprisonment for a injury caused for a lifetime! Government seems to have woken up to make some amends – but is that enough? Some of the suggestions like “Chemical Castration” by IHM and others mentioned by Bikramjit and “fightback” seem to quite just. My opinion is right where it was – to all Indian males – i

“f you do want your future generations (males) to be humiliated and tramped by female uprising, mend your ways and start learning how to respect the needs and wishes of the other gender!”

P.S. – I am sure the incidents of “Juhu Mumbai / Jan 2008” and (no so old) “Gurgaon / Jan 2012”  are fading from our collective memory and we have no idea what happened to the arrested offenders!