The Darwinism of Rape
The enormity of the rapes in India, has led to many many discussions and expressions by artists, intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals all weighing in all the *quoi* and *pourquoi* of the matter.
People who till recently believed that a discussion of rapes was solely a subject in the feminist forums, have suddenly taken it upon themselves to voice themselves very vehemently. And so this passage, on a whim.
In India, the attitude of people about rape, is the attitude that evolution must have had about menstruation, "Hmm, I can certainly do something about it, but I did a cost benefit analysis, and it's just not worth it. It's not killing you, so it makes you stronger. Just deal with it, will you?" And it's kind of hard to stand in their shoes for the same reason that its easy to insert a key in a lock, but difficult to insert a lock into, perhaps, a gummy candy. A look at this video should give a picture of how the woman-as-an-object attitude has become entrenched in India.
Discussing with a friend, who had recently seen the movie *Nymphomaniac*, and was much concerned whether he was any different from the rapists, since some of the first thoughts that crossed his mind were about sleeping with a woman when he first met her. I came to realize all at once, the multitudes of logistics that has pushed a society into condoning this heinous act. It was like making a little hole in a tank that housed the Pacific Ocean.
A scientific study was conducted to see the effect of stereotypes on the actual behavior of society. The study was conducted by asking both men and women to complete a math test using either their real name or a fictitious name. Women who used a fictitious name, and thus had their self unlinked from the math test, showed significantly higher math performance and reported less self-threat and distraction, relative to those who used their real names. Men were unaffected by the manipulation.
My aim in quoting this example was to show the power of inception ( *"As if the movie hadn't established that." "Shut up, voice-in-my-head"*).
Premise 1: In response to a situation, our brain first consults the reflex "cache", for a response, thought or action.
Premise 2: Our reflexes are defined based on past experiences, or knowledge. e.g. a baby might want to touch a flame, because it has no registry of the corresponding experience. Or If I read Egypt has had civil unrest for a while, My first reaction in letting my kid go there would be negative.
Conclusion: If I don't have a corresponding past experience related to the subject, I will have a response that is unbiased by my reflex thinking or behavior.
Now I'm going to use this conclusion.
Someone said, the solution was educating women. This is a very dangerous statement. The whole problem arose from this statement. In fact the East India company actually utilized a similar theory to effectively divide India, fifty years before the actual Partition happened. The Indian Muslims were allotted reserved seats by the Indian Councils Act of 1909. In the words of Gurcharan Das, India Unbound, "The British gave us a hundred years of peace--the so-called Pax Britannica--but they also consciously pursued a divide-and-rule policy which made Hindus and Muslims conscious of their separate identities" This made the Muslims think that they were a faction. They were a part of "it", not "it". "Educating women", "empowering women" and dangerous phrases of the sort, pollute the mind of a child, who doesn't know the difference. The problem is not the conclusion, which states that you are empowering a part of the society. The problem is the premises of the conclusion:
Premise 1. There is a part of the society, women.
Premise 2. They, more than the other parts, need to be empowered. Premise 1, divides the society. (for something as primary as education.) Premise 2 establishes that this "part" is weaker, thus needs external empowerment.
Thus ever since the child is born, there's this background information that this is a woman, she's probably weak. She's separate from us. And the government loves them better! If she's applying for the same job as me, she has a better chance at getting it, really. ( Some Govt colleges and offices have upto 30% mandatory reservation). The solution, then, is education, period. As the study proves, and as the past has shown, don't divide them. Put them in a classroom, and teach them how to multiply, who was Alexander, what is factorial 24, why is promethium named promethium, and how to be better human beings. Not men, Not women. Just human beings. It's easier to understand someone's pain, when you just take it as pain. Not some stupid lock-and-key metaphor.
When this attitude comes in, attraction is just attraction. That's what my troubled-with-Nymphomania-friend (the movie, just to clarify) and I realized. The difference with education defines how you act on your feelings. If he's attracted to a woman, there are 2 possible Reflex responses:
1. I'm going to go talk to her. Maybe I'll ask her to sleep with me. Maybe I'll date her first. 2. I'm going to follow her to a dark street.
On further thought, the first response is a reflex, when you respect yourself. When you know you can go ask her, and she may say yes. Which comes from a certain equality, from awareness of another human being, and not a woman who's a separate species, who you think doesn't feel stuff the same way as you. In short, non-discriminatory education.
The second comes from absolute confidence that I will HAVE TO use force, and that is the only way she's going to talk to me. That comes from everything opposite to the things in the previous para. (I'm not lazy, I just didn't want to be repetitive.). This is Discriminatory education.
It all starts with, I think the terrible sex ratio. (Indian average sex ratio(2011)-1.08male/female. World average sex ratio(2006):1.01) See this pictograph. An Indian show, *Satyamev Jayate* (Truth alone conquers), did a show on how female foeticide and infanticide is rampant in the country. It was a heart-rendering one hour filled with stories of actual people, and the end of the show, everybody who was watching cried.
So now we're coming to a Darwinism point, how did it evolve? It seems to be a combination of terrible sex ratio and discriminatory education, women are treated, literally as separate species. Added to that is the whole the-son-will-earn-and-support while the daughter is nothing but liability to be married off with dowry. There are women and men, who have had no contact, quite literally, with the opposite sex, prior to marriage. I cannot ratify my point with a percentage, merely some meager experience.
And it also has something to do with how women are considered to be born with a flair for manipulation, and even by the gentlemen of the society, have referred to some subjects as slutty bitches for leading them on.
Let's examine an example from 3 perspectives. This has actually happened.
Situation: Contemporary India. A girl who's gone on a trip with 3 guys. They have gotten divided in two groups while walking, since the road wasn't broad enough, The girl with a guy, and the other two guys together.
The other two guys: She's interested in him. The slut. why did we come here if they had to form a couple and talk to each other.
The guy with the girl: She probably likes me. Why are these guys even here.
The girl: Why couldn't the road be wider/ I like this guy/ I like the guy walking behind me/ I like someone else. But the guy I'm walking with probably thinks I'm walking with him cause I like him. So i should make him feel so, but at the same time not make the others feel awkward/ i should try to lay him off so he realizes I'm not interested/ I should try to walk quietly.
In this case, one of the guy's walking behind, who was previously walking with her, felt like he had been cheated because of infidelity on the girl's part about her walking partners, which implies interest. No matter which option the girl chooses, she's ultimately, going to be called a bitch. When, everybody is watching your actions like a hawk for some scraps of interest, can you actually afford to be not "manipulative" (for the lack of a better word)? When you have been trained to listen to such nonsensical accusations from the moment you hit puberty, does manipulation not come by reflex? It's not the guys' fault, it's not done on purpose, it's a reflex. But where does the reflex come from?
In case there's a group of 4 guys, no one gives a fuck who is walking with whom. So effectively, a guy's trip is much more fun, not because there's no girl to throw the tantrums "her sex is so afflicted by", but because there's no continuous calculation of whom the girl would sleep with. Again, It's not the guys' fault.
People want women to be like a communist government, that too in Karl Marx's utopia. If something as minor as a smile is "awarded" without a reason to, both the granter and the receiver are at fault. No, either they declare fealty to a dictator, on whom they bestow all the resources of the province, or be absolutely fair in terms of fund dispersal. This is human beings we're speaking of. The mere metaphor makes me feel choked.
A simple example recently caught my attention. A friend's friend referred to his subject of conversation as a slut, because she made guys do things for her, stuff like getting tickets booked, or asking them to drop them to xyz. On some deeper digging, the matter was as simple as this, she asked them if they could book the tickets, they say yes, expecting that this was a favour she would exchange for, perhaps a date, or something else. They could say no, she's not exercising her charms on them, she happens to be pretty. But they do it. And then she says thanks, and expects that this was done for her as a regular friend, guy or girl, irrespective. She might reject this person's advances, and that, my muse, makes her a slut.
And I cannot conclude without a brief perspective on the "Friends" generation, the sitcom which has considerable effect on not just the coffee consumption and the dating culture of India, but it has forced a certain kind of promiscuity, which India was not accustomed to. India had always been a sexually open country, what with the literature and the architecture. But a prolonged Mughal and subsequently British rule made it something of a taboo. And then, once Star World started airing old episodes of English sitcoms in 1996, there was no coming back. This was a culture where people wear beautiful clothes, drink coffee or beer all day long, have enough money to do so, without apparently ever working, the extent of their existential problems was no dating life, and even then sex was like the occasional sip of water. There was no poverty, heat, hard work, religious constraints, societal pressures, parents' wishes or making a future for yourself, and of course lots and lots of sex, as if it was so obvious. If it was so easy and painless, why do they make such a fuss about it? And what's wrong in wanting to have it, even by force?