On Rape: How historical and societal views influence our response
On Rape: How historical and societal views influence our response
T/w: Rape and Sexual Assault
(Credit for header image: Jing Li for The Washington Post)
In India, a study conducted by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed that the country recorded 4,45,256 cases of crimes against women in the year 2022, which means 51 cases every hour. These crimes included the categories of rape, attempt to commit rape, murder with rape/gang rape, assault on a woman with an intent to outrage her modesty, and insult to the modesty of a woman.
Rape, as defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is an unlawful sexual activity, most often involving sexual intercourse, against the will of the victim through force or the threat of force or with an individual who is incapable of giving legal consent because of minor status, mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.
When it comes to the question of rape, its depiction as a sexual crime as opposed to an act of violence often erases its true meaning. Whether the victim identifies as a woman, a man, or any entity lying outside the gender binary, they face issues that somehow escape the simple underlying fact that it was not their fault. Why does rape impact the modesty of the victim more than it questions the entitlement of the perpetrator?
Rape is heavily impacted by the patriarchal structures, which makes the woman a victim by her own anatomy, indicating that somehow just by existing she was “asking for it.” Further, male victims are seen as weak, and their struggle is invalidated due to social stigmas. Lastly, sexual violence against trans and non-binary communities often goes ignored because of the vulnerability of these groups. It is seen as a struggle that comes with their identity, rather than an actual heightening social issue that plays into further gender dynamics.
Historically (before rape arose as a widespread socio-political issue instead of a crime only against cisgender, heterosexual women), if an unmarried, virgin woman was raped, the crime committed was considered a crime against her father, to whom the woman may now remain an economic liability if she could not marry (Donat & D’Emilio, 1992). Similarly, if someone raped a married woman, the rape was considered a property crime against her husband. This often allowed for marital rape to go unquestioned since a woman was seen as her husband’s property, and the husband could not commit a property crime against himself.
Although in today’s society rape is seen as an act committed to the victim rather than from the perspective of those around the victim while treating the victim as an object, rape victims and survivors are still subjected to an ugly lens of social stigma and gender politics. Rape victims are often questioned on their behaviour, clothing, lifestyle, etc., and their modesty is treated as the martyr of their actions. Rape is not seen as an act committed by the offender(s); rather, it is seen as something that damages the identity of victims. These stigmas inevitably play into the increasing statistics of suicides committed by rape victims, as they feel that this crime committed against them has tarnished their identities. This idea is not only untrue but also completely irrational when compared to how other crimes are treated in society.
Rape, in essence, is an act of violence that helps the perpetrator feel more powerful with the force that they hold over their victim. It exists as a subset of a larger, more harmful idea of social domination and power control, especially when against vulnerable and weaker social groups, that grants the offender a sense of authority and control resulting from the forceful harassment of the victim. The forceful snatching of power and the victim's struggle, combined, give the perpetrator a sense of reassurance in their own authority, and the stigma of them having all control over the so-called "modesty" of the victim only makes matters worse. Therefore, the idea of rape changing anything about the victim's identity should be rejected, and it should be assessed as a socio-political issue rather than just acts of sexual aggression against individual victims.
Author: Karmanyaa Sankhe