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“IF rape is inevitable, you may as well enjoy it.” You’ve heard this ‘joke’ before, usually from the mouths of men, and maybe even a few women. Then there’s always that guy who’ll go “Yaar West Indies ka to rape ho gaya hai!” This is said so often that it passes almost unremarked.
At this point, one can be forgiven for thinking this is a purely, or largely, Pakistani thing to do. After all, our record on women’s rights is abysmal, and patriarchal and misogynist views and customs still dominate large parts of society, even in so-called parha likha circles. But being insensitive and tasteless isn’t something we have a monopoly on.
After Brazil’s stunning 7-1 defeat at the hands (feet?) of Germany in the last World Cup, social media was flooded with comments like “Nazis rape Brazil.” Predictably, there was a backlash and then a backlash against the backlash, with the usual “lighten up, it’s just a joke”, refrain.
Recently in Pakistan there was a case where a girl in Faisalabad filed an FIR against the sons of PML-N MNA Mian Muhammad Farooq, alleging they had gang raped her. While the medical report confirmed the crime, the girl later retracted her accusation and refused to go for a DNA exam. Given how difficult it is for a victim to pluck up the courage to report rape, and that too against influential parties, the speculation is that she was coerced into withdrawing the accusation.
It is regrettable that the list of those condoning rape is extensive.
Soon after the news broke Rana Sanaullah, that poster boy of progressive views, speculated on a talk show that the sex was consensual, while also implying that the complainant was a sex worker who had filed the case after a payment dispute. This is a variation of the frighteningly common belief that sex workers (which is not to say that the lady in question was one) can somehow be assaulted at will, or that initially consenting to sex (if that was indeed the case) invalidates a subsequent assault.
But let’s not take this as a reason to bemoan attitudes in Pakistan alone. Let’s instead cast a wider net and see what attitudes are like in other parts of the world, starting with India. Here, various pundits and politicians have blamed rape on various causes, but let’s start with a true classic.
A few years back, after no less than 19 rapes occurred in 30 days in Haryana state, a khap panchayat decided to investigate. They ended up blaming the spike on hormonal imbalances caused by eating spicy chow mein and burgers. They also suggested lowering the age of marriage to 16 and preventing girls from wearing jeans or using mobile phones. Stupid backward village council, right? Except that their suggestions about lowering marriage age were endorsed by then Congress minister Om Prakash Chautala.
Around the same time, another Haryana Congress politician commented that most rapes in the state were ‘consensual’ while another called the rising number of cases a ‘conspiracy’ against the state government. But this was in the unenlightened times before the Delhi gang rape shocked India into realisation, right? Sure, but then just this year Binay Bihari, a minister from Bihar, once again blamed mobile phones and ‘dirty messages’ for rape statistics, along with non-vegetarian food.
The list goes on, with Mamata Bannerjee blaming rape on increased interaction between the sexes and the BJP’s Babulal Gaur’s remarking that rape is “sometimes right, sometimes wrong”, among many other instances.
By now you’re probably thinking what a regressive lot these South Asians are. Surely those in the enlightened West would never make such a comment?
Not so. While speaking out against abortion, Republican congressman Todd Akin actually said that it was very difficult for a woman to get pregnant from rape. His actual quote is “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”. That “whole thing” is of course the reproductive system, which must be news to all those women who have become pregnant with their rapists’ child.
There’s more; Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock said that pregnancy by rape is “something that God intended to happen”, and that victims could avoid their fate if they “prayed a little harder”.
Of course the difference is that when these views became public, there was an enormous backlash, with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney having to distance himself from Akin, and both Mourdock and others came under serious fire from their own parties.
Even in India, the various comments listed here prompted outrage and protest. The point is that while such views are disturbingly widespread, the pushback against them also needs to be sustained and uncompromising. Rape is not a political issue, it is certainly not a laughing matter, and those in Pakistan who only see obscenity in women dancing at political rallies are looking in the wrong places.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2014
