LET’S TALK ABOUT RAPE

Disturbed, is an understatement.

I had the privilege of watching Delhi Crime on Netflix not too long ago and it jolted so many emotions in me that I forgot I could even feel. I’ve been reading articles on rape culture and the psychology behind rape ever since. It messed with my sleep and more importantly, the entire series left me questioning everything around me.

Delhi Crime aired on Netflix in March this year and it was thoroughly based on a gruesome true story that shook India as a nation. It happened on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, an urban village in South West Delhi where a couple was assaulted on a moving bus. The boy, Awindra Pratap was beaten to a pulp but thankfully suffered no major injuries. The girl, Jyoti Singh (also known as Nirbhaya, the fearless one) was brutally gang raped by six men who believed that they were teaching her a lesson as she was out with a boy that night. Not only was she gang raped, an iron rod was inserted into her vaginal and anal opening repeatedly before her intestines were pulled out. She survived long enough to give her statement but succumbed to her injuries two weeks after her attack.

If I’m brutally honest, it took me close to one whole day to type an entire paragraph detailing the heinous crime and that’s as far as I could get. My heart aches and my brain can’t seem to find the right words. It affected me so much that it started to affect the people around me too. I was bouncing off this hideous energy surrounding rape culture and it showed.

I found myself walking on the streets of my own town with fear. I found myself generalizing the entire male population. I kept questioning their thought process and constantly wondered if they had ulterior motives.

Before you judge me for being a crybaby and oblivious to the rape problems in my own country, allow me to defend myself. I’ve always known we (Malaysians) had an issue with rape. Of course, I only really dwelled in the matter when Canny Ong was brutally raped & murdered. Shortly thereafter was our little girl, Nurin Jazlin who was brutally raped, beaten, tortured & murdered. She was only eight when she was murdered. There are so many more rape cases in our country but these two stood out as being the worst crimes I’ve ever read about as a child.

According to the Women’s Centre for Change (WCC) of Penang, statistics show that a woman in Malaysia is raped every 35 minutes. That’s a disgusting figure. It irks me that even in this day and age, men still rape. Don’t get me wrong, men can be a victim of rape too. However, as far as my experience go, the mentality and taboo surrounding female sexual assault victims in Asia is horrifying to say the least.

This, in my opinion, is a result of the rape culture that is rampant amongst us Asians. The pyramid below describes, on a surface level, what rape culture is in a nutshell.

We forget that whoever and however we are, we will not be without a woman.

When I first looked at the 11th Principle: Consent pyramid, it angered me. I was appalled that everything that is in the degradation section, in my world, has in fact been normalised.

I walk down the street every single day and not once was I able to say that I wasn’t whistled or cat-called at. I’m angry at myself because I’ve allowed myself to normalised it. It happens to me (and I believe to a significant number of women) every day that I’ve learnt to adapt. I’ve learnt to ignore it. But baby girl, problems don’t disappear just because you chose to ignore them.

The reason I’ve chosen to normalise rape culture, although it infuriates and frustrates me, is that I’m terrified. Just like most women out there, I’m scared that if I retaliate and say/do anything to bruise their (men’s) ego, they might hurt me. I feel helpless but if that’s what it takes for me to survive, I have to do it.

I must admit, I don’t have the highest regard for life as I know it. However, I do believe that it’s a life worth living. I know that I’m not alone in this battle. I’m not the only one who takes the train and have weird men stare at my breasts and/or my entire body. If you feel the need to respond to this with an “appropriate clothing’’ argument, please save it and go back to your dungeon.

I don’t know what it would take to banish every trace of rape culture in our society but I do know that a little respect goes a long way. Awareness goes a long way. Let’s start talking about these things. It’s a real problem and it’s worth having a conversation about.

Instead of making “small talk” with a stranger, why not dive straight into things that actually matter? It starts with you. Change starts with you. Men or women, change starts when you start raising awareness and respecting each other as human beings of equal caliber.