Of Rape Apologists, Good Advice & Good Intentions

Why is Azam Mahmood Butt a rape apologist?

Recently, the article “Of Rape Apologists, Whatever That Is…” published in Pakistan Today, by the Assistant News Editor, Azam Mahmood Butt (the article is being reviewed, since March 02, 2013 but you can read it here) unleashed a storm online that sent a few 'well-intentioned' tweeple into a tizzy. What’s the big deal about an article that judges women’s opinions based on the length of their heels, their ability to pronounce certain Western brands, describing rape as a ramification of ‘privacy’ & ‘my own choice(?!)’, blaming the raped women for getting into ‘dangerous situations’ like getting drunk, blaming ‘mental sicknesses’ for rape – all this while speaking of ‘depriving a rapist of his manhood and feeding it to him in order to set an example’, thus proving that he’s really on the women’s side here and hates rapists just as much. Then he managed to squeeze in some anti-homosexual comments too, because this was a relevant situation and made one ‘individuals should be on the lookout’ suggestion that’s painfully obvious even to a 5yr old and miles away from absolving him of anything on the checklist below.

Check List:

                Liberal Hater -> Check

                Rape Apologist -> Check

                Homosexual Basher -> Check

                Western Influence Blamer -> Check

                Victim Blamer -> Double Check

Good Advice & Good Intentions:

Whenever we give advice to someone we care about, we do it with good intentions. Good intentions, however, don’t necessarily lay the foundation for good advice. One such form of advice is the ‘cover up’ advice well meaning men and women give women when they step out in ‘dangerous areas’ dressed in ‘provocative clothing’. That seems like harmless, effective advice until we think it through.

“Cover Up” & “Provocative Clothing”- When I just got out of school, I went through a tom-boy-ish phase. I loved my neck-high t-shirts worn under long-sleeved, loose shirts, heavy metallic watch, cap on backwards and dirty worn sneakers. Make-up was for people who had time to iron their jeans, and so were earrings. I had time for neither. That didn’t stop men from getting sexually harassing me on the street. Forget dressing provocatively, I was dressed like a boy. All the times I’ve been subjected to street sexual harassment in the form of cat-calls, brushing past me, trying to lean on me in buses – I’ve been ‘covered up’, even after I started dressing like a ‘normal girl’, sometimes even wearing a dupatta over my head. None of these incidents happened after dark or in lonely areas. Every area was and is dangerous. Gang rapes in moving vehicles and in homes have made that obvious. Some areas may be lonelier than others, but a woman is rarely safe anywhere. If covering up hasn’t spared me from street sexual harassment, I doubt it would save me from getting raped if the rapist were presented with the opportunity. The idea of a properly covered up body differs from person to person, and thus from rapist to rapist unless they follow a code which we have no way of knowing, and the idea of such a code existing sounds ridiculous. When we ask a woman to ‘dress modestly’, we are imposing our idea of modesty on her. We’re doing it with good intentions, but it’s extremely unlikely that a rapist will share our idea of modest clothing. Suggesting that a woman wear appropriate clothing is a superficial way of ‘doing our bit to keep her safe’. Will a burqa be enough to protect a woman from a rapist?

Drilling the idea that ‘modest clothing’ will reduce a woman’s chances of getting raped may give women a false sense of security.

60yrs-70yrs ago, an Indian woman would think twice before stepping out in India in a pair of trousers and a shirt. She must have not even thought about it. Saris were inconvenient, so were salwars. Modesty has trumped comfort and common sense over the ages for women, while ‘showing skin’ is normal in the case of men, without questioning its necessity. Today we have women stepping out in jeans, skirts or whatever makes their life a little easier. This has been possible because at some point, a few women decided to throw the then 'unspoken laws of modesty' under the bus and put themselves and their happiness first. Had they been stopped by concerned relatives then, would any of us dare to go down the jeans' road? A pair of jeans once was the equivalent of today's mini-skirt. In some circles, a woman wearing a pair of jeans is still considered ‘indecent’, ‘bold’, ‘too modern’ and ‘immoral’. After decades, we haven’t been able to give women the basic freedom to choose comfort over modesty and we’re pushing women’s clothing trends backward in the name of safety, rather than pushing it forward in an attempt to make it the new ‘normal’.

Three cans of pepper spray, sharp nails/rings and a solid course in self-defense may save a woman from rape. Draping her in extra layers of clothing won’t. 

Criticism of a woman’s choice of clothing may not do anything to prevent rape, but it sure does mountains to hurt rape survivors. Surely, we won’t tell a rape survivor that the choice of clothing led to her being raped, but if we had, in the past mentioned it as a cause of rape, she will remember it for years to come. When we openly support theories that claim that ‘immodest’ attire is one of the causes of rape, we are not only blaming women who have already been raped, but are declaring that women who may be raped in the future are partly responsible. As well-wishers, victim blaming is not our intention for any of the women we care about. Being supportive is excellent. We need to try to be supportive without curbing a woman’s freedom of choosing her own clothing. We need to kill the idea that a woman asserting her freedom through her clothing (or her career, or her behavior) invites dire consequences. It won’t yield instant results, but if we see a small positive change in the right direction because of our efforts before we leave this planet, it’s worth it, isn’t it?

Change Must Begin at Home

But don’t touch my entertainment.

Ideal, chaste women,

Worshiped as goddesses,

Choking and suffocating,

In patriarchal bodices.

Misogyny dripping,

From statement after statement,

Change must begin at home,

But don’t touch my entertainment.

Slaps, taunts, insults,

Domestic violence,

Are social norms to be borne,

In complicit silence.

Respectable, good women,

Only wear Indian attire,

But don’t touch my entertainment,

Or the consequences will be dire.

Moral bullying,

‘Western-culture’ demonizing,

Stereotype reinforcing,

Victim re-victimizing.

Crime tutorials,

In the name of infotainment,

Change must begin at home,

But don’t touch my entertainment.

Dear Loser: If he could do it, so can YOU

On June 19, 2012, Dan Pearce wrote “In Which I Respond to Josh Weed’s Unicorn Club Post” about Josh Weed’s “Club Unicorn: In which I come out of the closet on our ten year anniversary”. You should read both posts. They’re worth your time even if you aren’t gay, don’t know anybody gay or don’t have any interest in any issue related to homosexuality. If you don’t read these two gems, you’re missing out on few of life's important lessons that each post teaches you beautifully.

Now back to the losers. Everyone knows at least ONE loser. That person could be a relative, a friend, a neighbor or an acquaintance. You might have tried to inspire them to pick up their lives and jump back into the fighting ring, a.s.a.p. to make up for lost time. I’ve been there, and I’ve done that to more people than I can think of at the moment. It’s one of those “OMG! I can’t believe I did that” sort of things. If you’re lucky, your worst would be getting drunk and dancing on a table at a party.  Of course, nobody listened or threw me onto a busy highway lane. It annoyed me, but it never discouraged me from trying and trying some more and trying harder … *screeching halt*

Hold your horsies! Stop galloping to that conclusion that I know you’re galloping toward – Oh, she’s a woman and every woman is fuelled with the perpetual desire to fix everything that seems broken and ‘agony aunt’ the living crocodile poop out of all things ‘life’ related – but no, I’m not THAT person. These were close people I genuinely cared about and couldn't bear to see throw their lives away. They didn't lack potential and them just dropping out of the rat race made ZERO sense to my hamster-powered brain. These were the "losers" of society, the people aunties would look at and exchange disappointed nods, the people teachers were tired of giving inspirational talks to, the almost-lost causes. These were the people who couldn't catch up with life for a variety of reasons we may have brushed to the sidelines as silly excuses. These were the people who slowed down to a crawl or just stopped. These were a group of people I never imagined I’d belong to, because I was always doing things by the approved time that society allotted to the ‘necessary milestones of life’ list. I was on a roll. Then my roll broke... and has stayed broken for the past 6years (roughly) if not broken more.

Being at the receiving end of inspirational talks sure made me want to slap myself. Justin Timberlake wasn’t kidding when he sang “What Goes Around, Comes Around”. Inspirational talks to our section of society usually boil down to one heart-warming, determination-fueling true story (which I'm not guilty of doing to any of my friends, since I wasn't old enough to know any success stories), especially from the ‘elders’, about how a ‘similar lost cause’ of society pulled up their socks, straightened up their act and that we should do the same, because somebody else managed to do it.

The following lines have been taken from page four of Dan Pearce’s article:
You offered a valuable perspective to the world and you opened up an outlet for civil discussion about religion and homosexuality. I only hope and pray that people take what you’ve written for what it is and what you intended it to be…
Your story.
Not THE story that should be used as a guiding force for all others.
It is the privilege and right of every human being to make their own story. And no person’s story can wholly depend on the truths that have surfaced for another. There will never be integrity in that.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not trying to say that you shouldn't try to inspire someone to change for the better. Everyone needs all the support and the inspiration they can get. However, implying that a person WILL find a solution to their problem by going down the same path someone else managed or that the said path is not impossible “IF ONLY YOU TRIED HARD ENOUGH” is unfair.

We try. We think about it more than you do. We struggle with it every day because we live through it every day. We may consider your solution or even act on it. What we need you to do, is not force it down our throats because life is not a game where one walkthrough works for everyone.

Why I Don't Vote

Politics has always been an interesting aspect of the national news – not just today, when being politically aware is considered attractive but way back when the Indian Express was still considered a good, English newspaper. While scams weren’t as frequent or perhaps not brought to light as easily as they are today, one uncomfortable fact had been engraved into every child’s mind at a very tender age – ‘politicians are corrupt’. I was at peace, however, trusting that if politicians posed a real threat to anyone, the entire country would get together and ‘take care of them’ because clearly, we outnumbered them. It was an age when we did not understand nor care to understand what ‘corruption’ or ‘politicians’ truly meant or the impact they have on our life and our death. Today, some 20years later, I understand and I’m glad that I didn’t understand it then. It would have been too young an age for the illusion of the current system of voting and its relevance to actual democracy to be shattered.

I’m not apathetic. I’m not against democracy. I’m not (that) lazy. I am not anti-Indian. Yet, I don’t vote. When I tell people that I don’t vote, most tend to go ‘ninja assassin’ on me, calling me everything from irresponsible, unpatriotic to a traitor. Few bother to ask me “why” I don’t vote.

People also tell me that I have no right to “complain” about the way things turn out and the “wrong” people came into power because I didn’t vote, which doesn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t vote. Had I voted, I would be responsible for bringing the wrong people into power. I did not create this indigestible mess, nor did I partake in it. The voter, on the other hand, has encouraged a new disaster into existence. We should be blaming voters for this fiasco of bad governance. If the party a few vote for, loses, then they accuse a majority of the nation of making the wrong decision with disastrous consequences for all. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, it’s a lose-lose situation.

Let me address the issue from the point of view of my shortcomings related to voting. I was once asked to interview a girl for the post of a ‘marketing executive’. I declined. I was a webdesigner. I had no clue as to what was expected of a ‘marketing executive’. I’m not qualified for this particular ‘duty’ of voting either. Hardly any of us are. I don’t know about the intricacies that go into making laws, amending the Constitution, making economic policies, taking security measures or whatever goes into governing a country efficiently. Hence, I’m not the right person to choose a fitting candidate for the job. Even if I were qualified to make that choice, I don’t have honest resumes of the candidates (an election manifesto is to honesty what Bill Gates is to poverty), let alone a chance to interview them ^[1]. Hate speeches against the opposition party don’t count.

Are elections manifestos legally binding or can they promise 

heavy rainfall of sliced bread and get away with it?

I believe elections are rigged. Where complicated scams aren’t discovered until all the money is well digested, rigging an election doesn’t seem all that herculean a task. Even if we were to consider that elections aren’t rigged (humor me just this once, fellow skeptics), the current voting system is nothing but a mirage that pretends to rely on good intentions like pretty much every other law, scheme or policy released into the environment by our government. In reality, it relies on our lack of interest in participating in the affairs of our country which enables us to wash our hands off everything from lawmaking, policymaking, and administration – and lays down a red carpet for unscrupulous, blood guzzling, money swindling scumbags to come into power, time after time.

“Not voting” is not irresponsible. “Voting” on the other hand, can be called irresponsible. When we vote, we put the burden of decision making onto the shoulders of a politician whose motives are governed by his agenda. Then, we complain.

The system is dysfunctional. Yes, the very system that the Middle East has been fighting for, for months is dysfunctional and I’d hate to see the look on their faces when they figure it out themselves. The only function it has religiously performed over the years is that of opening gateways to exploitation. It feeds powerful people with more power and throws accountability to the dogs. Replacing old wrongdoers with new wrongdoers (the lesser evil?) with "endless" power to abuse does not sound like a sensible solution, even in theory. Yet, it is being done over and over again, in the same manner with nothing to ensure a different result, other than hope. If only politicians gave a damn about our beloved “hope”.

Let alone doing something good, our ‘elected representatives’ aim at curbing the remainder of our rights and freedoms with every law passed, be it the freedom of speech, press, increasing invasion of privacy through surveillance or the basic right to live (remember the AFSPA?). We have no say in the matter, no matter how much we protest or whom we attempt to drag to court. Unless another (equally powerful, well established) political party has an agenda that profits from our demands, we can kiss our rights and our bank balance goodbye.

Elections today, are nothing but an ego war and a power struggle between politicians, not just in India but all across the world. If anything, they are a mockery of the true spirit of democracy. We are made to believe that we have some control over our lives, our resources and our ruthless rulers through elections, but all they need is our compliance and our tax money to oppress us. Supporting a system only makes it stronger.

The current voting system needs to be replaced but such a huge change needs ideas and ideas are born through reading and discussion. As long as we remain disillusioned about the electoral system being foolproof, we won’t bother to come up with better solutions, and we will continue to ‘vote for a better government’ as our politicians thrive on the remains of an all but decayed democracy and people.


^[1] I understand that it would be unreasonable to expect every candidate to be interviewed by every voter, but it only brings to the surface, another loophole in the system. The smallest and simplest jobs today require people to go through a hornets’ nest of interviews, yet our politicians get to rule over our lives, wallets and resources thanks to speeches and manifestos that are "probably" not even written by them.

Dear Author Impersonating A Spanish Tomato,

(in response to A Letter to All Indians from a Spanish Tomato & Second Letter to All Indians from a Spanish Tomato)

Please do not assume that you know what India and what every Indian is about. We are well aware of our situation regarding poverty, starvation, farmer suicides and the scores of problems that plague our nation and our people.

From your letter, it seems that you might be in dire need of a lesson or two when it comes to politeness. Your letter addresses an entire nation. Do show some respect. Writing as a 'mere tomato' is no excuse for being impolite and disrespectful to a people you barely know. A few Indians may be hell-bent on aping the west to jump onto the supposedly “cool” bandwagon, but don’t toss us all in with a few bad apples. Don’t you think you’ve crossed a line by questioning each and every Indian’s sanity, other than yourself (if you are an Indian, as I dared assume from some of your previous posts)?

Is it illegal for “us Indians” as you address us, to show any interest in Spain or do you consider Spain unworthy of any other nation’s interest, unless there are some “deals” involved. I’m sure most of Spain would beg to differ. Just so you know, Bollywood has shot movies in Greece, Australia, America and London too, without being accused of any underlying political deals.

“Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” is just one movie. Rather, it is an extremely long Spanish tourism commercial, as some would say. Many, however, have looked down upon the “La Tomatina” and the “bull run” scenes. Yes, some of “us Indians” have a problem with the bull-run too. Who’d have thought?

I don’t see what shopping malls and beggars have to do with the festival. Sure poverty is a problem, but that doesn’t mean that the “rich” have to forgo every pleasure until every Indian is in a position to celebrate to his heart’s content or sleep with a content belly. That day will never come, not for India, nor any other country. It’s plain, simple logic. Everyone has to make sacrifices to manage to live within their means.

It may come to you as a great surprise, but “quite a few” Indians are rich and we can afford to shop at malls. Yes, it’s true. The people who beg along the streets don’t hold it against the mall-goers, why do you? Frankly, you have no right to judge where the people of Bangalore, Delhi or any other Indian city, shop.

Do you know why Anna Hazare was fasting? Do you know how many hundreds, no not hundreds, thousands of Indians supported him? To make one point extremely clear, Anna Hazare was not fasting to drill sense into us. He did not need to drill sense into us. He led a movement against the government which conveniently turned a blind eye towards rampant corruption. He fasted so that a strong bill could be passed in the parliament that would help curb corruption all over the country. “We Indians” supported him wholeheartedly, including movie stars, some politicians (who might have had questionable agendas), activists and scores of regular people.

Your second letter takes the cake. First you insult Indians, later you congratulate the same Indians and then you insult us some more. You asked us why this idea interested us at all in the first place. It’s probably because “some” (please pay special attention to the word “some” as you tend to assume all Indians are crazy) wannabes thought it would be a good idea, just as “some” people in Spain thought that (quoting you) “throwing food at each other” is a fun idea.

I’m quite surprised that you have managed to come to a conclusion about an entire nation’s food wastage situation by attending a certain number of social gatherings. People who heap their plates with the sole intention of wasting the food that they have served themselves are mentally sick. Although, I doubt the ladies in question attended the wedding with such evil intentions, I can’t say anything for sure since you were the one present there, closely monitoring what they ate and what they didn’t, eavesdropping on their conversations, I’m sure, for research purposes.

We don’t have food to waste at festivals, lunches and dinners. I'm fortunate enough to have family, relatives, friends and neighbors who are as sensitive to the food wastage situation as any other responsible Indian citizen. We’re regular citizens of India, referred to as ‘the middle class’, ‘the lower middle class’ and ‘the poor’, who put together, form more than 70% of this nation. I can think of three reasons why you wouldn’t know this, about "us Indians" –

1.       You have bothered to interact only with a rare brand of pigheaded rich folk who seem to perform food wastage as a regular ritual,

2.       Your only experience with any Indian celebration has been the big, fat wedding that you have mentioned in your letter,

3.       You have the misfortune of having encountered only the negative side of India, which seems quite impossible.

You have a problem with us boycotting a “branded food fight festival” because we haven’t been able to solve the problem of food wastage in other situations. Are we not allowed to nip a problem in the bud before solving other related problems? Is there a particular chronological order in which the problems of a nation must be solved?

Activists do as much as they can. They may take up the issue about food wastage at weddings, or they may not. They may take up the issue regarding food being left to rot in government warehouses, or they may not. They may fight for the cause of our farmers, or they may not. None of them are answerable to you. They are doing enough for their country. You on the other hand, are busy pointing fingers at what they have not achieved. Isn’t that convenient!

You have the audacity to call us hypocrites. Not just a handful of Indians that you claim to know, nor a particular community that you have had a bad experience with, no - you have assumed that each and every Indian is a hypocrite, based on your in-depth research. It isn’t part of our culture to waste food. Just because some Indians are guilty of such an unforgivable crime, it doesn’t mean that it changes what we have been taught, what we believe in and what has been engraved into the very foundation of our culture you question. To the rest of “us Indians”, wastage of food is as big a crime as it might be to you, or even bigger. Indians who are eager enough to participate in the La Tomatina Festival will flock to Spain. There is no stopping them. Every Indian is not rushing to the airport as you pass judgment and hurl accusations.

I haven’t heard of any activist asking that the La Tomatina festival be banned over women running around in hot pants. We have water parks and beaches in India where women are free to walk around in bikinis. You can see a number of women going to discotheques and parties in much shorter and skimpier clothes than what Katrina Kaif wore in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. India will always suffer from a small bunch of lunatics who take moral policing into their own hands. I don’t see how that makes all of us hypocrites.

You have labeled an entire nation crazy and called every Indian a hypocrite based on a part of India that you have interacted with, before jumping to an extremely hurtful conclusion. We have successfully banned the La Tomatina festival in Delhi, Mysore, Bangalore and hopefully, in Mumbai too. Spain still celebrates the La Tomatina festival. We do not approve of it but we don’t judge Spain either.

An entire nation should not be judged based on the actions of a few, just as a blogger should not be judged by two unreasonable, impolite posts addressed to an entire nation, more than half of which the blogger has yet to meet.

- From,
Your Average Indian Citizen