Marital Rape--An Alarmingly common reality
Marriage is our society's most cherished and sacred relationship.Sex in marriage is not just a form of physical unioun,it is also held as spiritual union that has the potential to bring deep fulfillment and joys to the sexual partners.To talk of "marital rape" is therefore is shocking and contentious and create confusion--especially since rape is widely regarded as a sexual transgression and abuse by sheer force,while marriage is seen as involving socially sanctioned sex wherein both partners have agreed to cohabit.There are hundred of stories that expose women's real life experiences of sex in marriage.They show how sex can be nonconsensual,forced and painful for married women.What exactly is Marital Rape?Consent to sex is automatically assumed in marriage,yet we all know from personal experience how our sexuality is an aspect of our conciousness and is more than just an instinctive drive.Yet women are expected to be sexually available to their men irrespective of their personal desires,and people at large donot think of sex by coercion in marriage as rape.In reality,women's experiences in marriage of nonconsensual and coercive cover a spectrum of forms wherein the use of verbal threats,physical violence and injury and even the use of weapons is made by their own husbands in the privacy and legitimacy afforded by marriage,to thrust unwanted forms of sex .Much of sexual violence in marriage is rotine and made invisible through factors like the culture of silence,ideas of masculinity and feminity,and the sacred nature of the marital union.Loyalty to the family,fear,inability to leave the relationship due to dependencies,acceptance of sex even against one,s wish as a husband's right and a wife's duty,and other such restraints keep many women from talking of the violence in their bedrooms even to their close friends and relatives.There is an urget need to create institutional responses to this much hidden crime.Women need first of all,to break the silence surrounding this violence and see the possibility of defining a changed socio-cultural context.The criminal justice system,the healthcare system and especially the mental care system,shelters homes and counselling cells need to recognize ad respond to the sexual dimensions of violence against womens in homes.This endeveour can be positively impacted if we as women,refuses to be creatures of male lust and aggression.Admitting our own discomfort with being sexually abused and coerced by our own men is the first step to challenging social expectations that emphasise women,s sexual subordination as essential for social and familal stability.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Family,Relationship and Society
Women--Victims of blind beliefs
The Indian sub continent was partitioned on the basis of religion,but the division has not helped in reducing discrimination against women.The old orthodox community customs and beliefs remain both in india and pakistan.In pakistan,in a remote village in multan,an 18 year old girl was gang raped as a punishment decided by the village eldres for her brother courting a girl belonging to another tribe.In india too several cases of "community justice"inflicted on lovers of different castes are reported.The girl and boy are killed to save the "honour" of the families concerned.Such cases make a splash in newspapers,police register cases and the judicial process,in its long-winding way,dries up as no one cooperates with the prosecution because the whole community has colluded in commiting crime.The instance of an atrocity commited on a young woman in indore was of different nature.Sangeeta sode's crime was going on a pilgrimage to vaishnodevi with a friend without informing her family.How was one know she was not seduced during the pilgrimage?The community leaders organised an agnipariksha to prove her chastity.The ceremony required holding a heated iron rod in her hand.It is some consolation that after a furore was raised against the gang rape in multan,the pak authoroties prosecuted the criminals responsible for the crime, the village head man and the rapists.After a speedy trial,6 persons involved were given death punishment,a remarkable judgement in a case where community collusion was involved.In india,heinous crimes against women go practically unpunished because of the delay in courts.Women just go to courts for the justice and what they get are dates,another dates and some more dates.Situation differs only if you belong to some good and well-known family.If we take the case of sangeeta as an instance,would the same punishment be given ,if the same thing has been done by a boy.This is where question stops????
The Indian sub continent was partitioned on the basis of religion,but the division has not helped in reducing discrimination against women.The old orthodox community customs and beliefs remain both in india and pakistan.In pakistan,in a remote village in multan,an 18 year old girl was gang raped as a punishment decided by the village eldres for her brother courting a girl belonging to another tribe.In india too several cases of "community justice"inflicted on lovers of different castes are reported.The girl and boy are killed to save the "honour" of the families concerned.Such cases make a splash in newspapers,police register cases and the judicial process,in its long-winding way,dries up as no one cooperates with the prosecution because the whole community has colluded in commiting crime.The instance of an atrocity commited on a young woman in indore was of different nature.Sangeeta sode's crime was going on a pilgrimage to vaishnodevi with a friend without informing her family.How was one know she was not seduced during the pilgrimage?The community leaders organised an agnipariksha to prove her chastity.The ceremony required holding a heated iron rod in her hand.It is some consolation that after a furore was raised against the gang rape in multan,the pak authoroties prosecuted the criminals responsible for the crime, the village head man and the rapists.After a speedy trial,6 persons involved were given death punishment,a remarkable judgement in a case where community collusion was involved.In india,heinous crimes against women go practically unpunished because of the delay in courts.Women just go to courts for the justice and what they get are dates,another dates and some more dates.Situation differs only if you belong to some good and well-known family.If we take the case of sangeeta as an instance,would the same punishment be given ,if the same thing has been done by a boy.This is where question stops????
Family,Relationships and Society
Thank God For Little Girls
Women's who has ambtions for their daughters are simple homemakers,full time mothers.The kind whose universe revolves around their family and their children and who might have put their own ambitions on hold just to be there 24x7.They were selected by an MNC for writing award-winning essays on what they wished for the future of their daughters.They would have some very definite views on what they wanted their daughters to be ----everything that they themselves could not be.After all, psychologically ,most of us wish that for our kids.We want our children to be famous.We want our children to be the singers we never were.Or climb that mountain we only stared at from base camp.Or soar the heights of success that we felt too dizzy to fly.Ofcourse, they wanted their daughters to be achievers.But these women not once mentioned that they wanted their children to become doctors or engineers.What each mother wanted was to let her do what SHE,the child,wanted.Without coercion.Without restraint.Each mother seemed to have decided that no matter what her daughter's choice,the mother's role would be to be there at each step.Their wish list for their daughters was equally heart-warming.Some women would like their daughters to learn to be independent and confident.Some hoped that their daughters would learn from their faliurs.When asked one women put it very beautifully as she said--"I want her to know that success could also be tinged with failure,and that you may not learn much from success,but failure will teach you a lot.I am sure that there are thousands of mothers out there,who may not be as eloquent but nonetheless are spinning out equally pragmatic and sensible dreams for their daughters.Teaching them to sift truth from fiction.Showing them how to fly high with their feet firmly on the ground.What we know need is a similar exercise on what mothers are dreaming for their sons.To start with,we need women teaching their boys that their sisters have the right to the same ambitions they have.Then we will not need a woman's qouta in Parliament.And the glass ceiling will have been shattered once and for all.
Women's who has ambtions for their daughters are simple homemakers,full time mothers.The kind whose universe revolves around their family and their children and who might have put their own ambitions on hold just to be there 24x7.They were selected by an MNC for writing award-winning essays on what they wished for the future of their daughters.They would have some very definite views on what they wanted their daughters to be ----everything that they themselves could not be.After all, psychologically ,most of us wish that for our kids.We want our children to be famous.We want our children to be the singers we never were.Or climb that mountain we only stared at from base camp.Or soar the heights of success that we felt too dizzy to fly.Ofcourse, they wanted their daughters to be achievers.But these women not once mentioned that they wanted their children to become doctors or engineers.What each mother wanted was to let her do what SHE,the child,wanted.Without coercion.Without restraint.Each mother seemed to have decided that no matter what her daughter's choice,the mother's role would be to be there at each step.Their wish list for their daughters was equally heart-warming.Some women would like their daughters to learn to be independent and confident.Some hoped that their daughters would learn from their faliurs.When asked one women put it very beautifully as she said--"I want her to know that success could also be tinged with failure,and that you may not learn much from success,but failure will teach you a lot.I am sure that there are thousands of mothers out there,who may not be as eloquent but nonetheless are spinning out equally pragmatic and sensible dreams for their daughters.Teaching them to sift truth from fiction.Showing them how to fly high with their feet firmly on the ground.What we know need is a similar exercise on what mothers are dreaming for their sons.To start with,we need women teaching their boys that their sisters have the right to the same ambitions they have.Then we will not need a woman's qouta in Parliament.And the glass ceiling will have been shattered once and for all.
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