Growing up, I was treated just like my brothers. Well, almost. You see, I could not sit with my legs apart like my brothers even though I loved to sit like that. My mom, grandmom, mother, teachers, all would lovingly admonish me and ask me to sit with my legs closed.
I hardly paid attention until I was in the fourth grade and sat the way I liked to do. My teacher walked in, took one look at me and I stood the entire day in class. Lesson learnt. I didn't know why it was so wrong to sit that way but I could not bear an entire day of standing again and learn to sit like a lady.
It wasn't until I grew up that I figured out why girls are taught to sit that way, legs crossed or closed. No one ever told me, not even the teacher that punished me. And what would she have told me? I am making you sit this way because you are a girl? Sounds silly, no?
I was watching a series online where a character is raped. Barring the slow motion shots, the writers did not drag this matter. The conversation after the rape was between an earlier survivor of rape and the current survivor. The survivor is reminded that she is safe now, and alive. She will survive this just like her mother-in-law had survived hers. The men that try to rape you or rape you, for them it's about establishing their power over womens. And in this particular scenario, it was done to humiliate the queen by taking away her pride and dignity. But it was up to her if she let them take it away.
There was similar advice offered by a well known personality on his talk at our university. He asked us what happened to us when we met with an accident? Did we carry that around with us for life? If not, why did we not treat rape like an accident? Wait for the physical scars to heal and move on with our life? It was because we had been taught from childhood that the virtue of a woman lay between her legs and it was the most important part of her.
Does it? Does our purity define us? Is our virtue so important that we left it define us for the rest of our lives?
Please don't get me wrong. I've experienced enough incidents and had close ones experience enough of these to know what a person (yes, men can be raped to) goes through when they are raped. I understand the fear and the agony and the hurt. But I'm trying to say that the trauma of this incident increases as we begin to look at ourselves as different when we experience this. We begin to somehow think of the rape survivors as impure, damaged goods, as someone either to pity or someone who is delicate and can break any minute.
When will this mindset of placing a woman's virtue between her legs end? When will we stop judging them based on how many men she sleeps with? When will we understand that men can be raped to? And when will we stop treating them as rape victims and treat them as survivors? Of placing so much importance on that incident or seeing them as a changed person?
When will we stop defining them and treat them like they deserve to be treated. With the respect they deserved, as opposed to pity or sympathetic. They only need empathy.
I hardly paid attention until I was in the fourth grade and sat the way I liked to do. My teacher walked in, took one look at me and I stood the entire day in class. Lesson learnt. I didn't know why it was so wrong to sit that way but I could not bear an entire day of standing again and learn to sit like a lady.
It wasn't until I grew up that I figured out why girls are taught to sit that way, legs crossed or closed. No one ever told me, not even the teacher that punished me. And what would she have told me? I am making you sit this way because you are a girl? Sounds silly, no?
I was watching a series online where a character is raped. Barring the slow motion shots, the writers did not drag this matter. The conversation after the rape was between an earlier survivor of rape and the current survivor. The survivor is reminded that she is safe now, and alive. She will survive this just like her mother-in-law had survived hers. The men that try to rape you or rape you, for them it's about establishing their power over womens. And in this particular scenario, it was done to humiliate the queen by taking away her pride and dignity. But it was up to her if she let them take it away.
There was similar advice offered by a well known personality on his talk at our university. He asked us what happened to us when we met with an accident? Did we carry that around with us for life? If not, why did we not treat rape like an accident? Wait for the physical scars to heal and move on with our life? It was because we had been taught from childhood that the virtue of a woman lay between her legs and it was the most important part of her.
Does it? Does our purity define us? Is our virtue so important that we left it define us for the rest of our lives?
Please don't get me wrong. I've experienced enough incidents and had close ones experience enough of these to know what a person (yes, men can be raped to) goes through when they are raped. I understand the fear and the agony and the hurt. But I'm trying to say that the trauma of this incident increases as we begin to look at ourselves as different when we experience this. We begin to somehow think of the rape survivors as impure, damaged goods, as someone either to pity or someone who is delicate and can break any minute.
When will this mindset of placing a woman's virtue between her legs end? When will we stop judging them based on how many men she sleeps with? When will we understand that men can be raped to? And when will we stop treating them as rape victims and treat them as survivors? Of placing so much importance on that incident or seeing them as a changed person?
When will we stop defining them and treat them like they deserve to be treated. With the respect they deserved, as opposed to pity or sympathetic. They only need empathy.
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