Rape and Mainstream Malayalam Women Magazines

Rape is a tool of patriarchy, but also of racism, colonialism, nationalism, and other pernicious hierarchies. These and other power relationships in turn make women and girls even more vulnerable to rape. In virtually, any situation where women and girls belonging to especially, desperate or powerless populations are at the mercy of men in authority. Some of those men use their authority to force or extort sexual access. The rape trend is irresistibly increasing in our society. Soumya murder and Delhi gang rape were two of the shocking examples of this increasing rape culture. Even as the nation was protesting against the Delhi gang rape, more and more cases of sexual assault began to find column space in media. The utter failure of the law enforcement to curb such crimes is reflected in the very low conviction rates. The record has gone from bad to worse in the past decades.

Rape is a violent form of oppression and is a mechanism by which individuals or groups gain, express, and maintain their dominance and power over others. This is evident when rape is used as a tool of war, when men are raped in jail, or when rape occurs on the basis of someone's race, age, ability, or sexuality. Rape is about the use and abuse of power to intimidate, degrade, or control others with less status. The fact that women and children are raped more often than men is a manifestation of their lesser power and inferior status in society.

Structural and institutional powers and social beliefs maintain a culture where women have less power and status. Also Power imbalance is practiced on the race, class, sexuality, age, and ability. Sexual violence for women then, is not only an extension of sexism, but often exists in conjunction with the other forms of oppression.

Rape is not inevitable, but rather rape and other forms of oppression done by men are the result of learned attitude and behavior which are forced by a society that defines and prompts manhood masculinity through domination. Too many men use sexual violence to exert power over others. The attitude of many men who rape is that, they have the right to own, dominate, and punish women and use rape as a tool to control. Here two important questions arise. That is: 1- where would such an attitude or rape culture come from? 2- How does it show itself in everyday life?

Researches shows that approximately one third of young men believe that it is Okay to force a young woman to have sex if she has led him on. Also they believe they have the right to use violence to make a girl to do what they want.

The belief in their right to rape and dominate as boys or men will continue to occur unless we challenge and change the rape culture that sustains it. Despite some changes in  last century, when we look at who has power in society and who makes the major decisions, we see that men still dominate our institutions - government, legal, media, religious, educational and the family. This male power is connected to historical, religious and cultural faiths that it is suitable for men to dominate and control women and children.  Men are the heads of the household; his word is law; men lead in dancing; women take male family names when they marry etc.

Everyone concede that the reason is connected with socio-political context in our country, which usually reinforce the message that it is natural for men to dominate and control women and children, even violently if they choose. Another reason of this attitude is gender inequality. Different types of oppressions leads to the rape.

Those are:

Systemic Oppression

Control over women maintains the structures of gender oppression; it would be carried out by individuals in private or by institutional forces in the public sphere. Families, communities, and social, legal, and civic institutions may secretly and openly support it. Even as violence commands greater attention and fear; sexism and misogyny do their share to shape inequality, by defining and continuation of restrictive gender norms.

Power

Power as factor of control over women, it sets the agenda for patriarchy. But, conflating it with misuse or masculinity is problematic and need a more complex analysis of the typical power and control explanations. Feminism, which is about women claiming their rights to self-determination and equality, confronts gender conformity and aims at replacing relationships of power with relationships of meaning.

Culture

Culture is used to justify gender inequality and violence by evoking traditional cultural beliefs about how women should be treated. The defense of the culture of a place, country, religion, etc., is in fact a defense of the culture of patriarchy in that country, religion, identity; and the culture of violence everywhere. The culture of patriarchy is not static. It is different from one place to another.

Racial Oppression

Analyses of violence by men of colour against women of color tend to over-emphasize how racial oppression contributes to men’s use of violence. But, within communities of color, women and non-abusive men who are exposed to similar social histories of oppression do not resort to battering to cope with racism. While oppressions based on race, class, gender, heterosexuality, etc., are undeniable; explanations relying on oppression are inadequate. Because the intersection of race and gender are complicated, race is all too often privileged over gender. Holding this and other intersectional ties together offers a more effective route to accountability and transformation.

Kerala awaits (Kerelam kathirikkunnu)

Grihalakshmi, published on March 2011 carried an article about Soumya murder in their ‘society’ category. The story is written by Reeshma Damodar. The article starts with few dialogues by different people from different part of the Kerala. But it does not assume any serious thought or solution for this rape culture.

The dialogues are given below.

-         A young male person says that Govinda Chami would not do all this things without Soumyas consent.

-         A family man shares his anger that he would kill Govinda Chami if he gets him.

-         Article Basic expanses aims at collecting the opinion of about the Soumya incident women’s from different part of the Kerala.

In this article the reporter pointed out the carelessness stand of Railway Guard. When one of the passenger asked to pull the chain to stop train as he saw two persons were fell down from the train. General said that: please don’t care that would some Tamils or gypsies. Another important facts written in the article is   even though through different options, some women express their worry about the future journeys, the pathetic condition of the society etc.

In the article there is column about Sister Filo George. Here she explains her experience  that,  when  she saw a  girl being  beaten and  hit by a  handicapped man in the  train; She hit the man  and  helped that girl to escape by pulling chain and took her to the  hospital.

This is what the article says about. There are no comments of writer, no serious discussion about the severity of the issue. Magazine did not carry the details of issue. Therefore they couldn’t analyze or find the real problem inside the problem.

Everlasting anger (Anayaatha rosham)

In December edition of vanita carried two reports of Soumya murder. This was just after the disclosing verdict of Soumya case. The column headed in “anayatha rosham” Written by Monsy Joseph. In which she shortly analyzes the socio-cultural situation of our country, the limitations of the law and emotional pain of the family etc. and explains the pathetic condition of Kerala. There are no more descriptions of the facts in it. Even after such a shocking incident vanita gave only a space of one page. Here itself clear the importance of this issue according to vanita as a women’s magazine.

Hang the rapists

Just after the shock of Delhi gang rape, VANITA published an article in January 2013 by the staff reporter. The question in this article is: is death sentence is an enough punishment for rape? The reporter asks opinion to different types of people and collects answers. When we analyses the content article mainly says that, it was the largest mass protest incident in independent India that house wives and students were together protested, for 23 year old paramedical student, who was brutally raped by a wicked group on 16  December 2012.

This gang rape ignited public anger; the mass protest demanded capital punishment for rape. Delayed justice is denied justice, human justice for human beings. How could we call dirty creatures who torn a girl without any mercy as human?

The young women died after fighting 12 days. The brave, bold girl wept only once, for her mother when she opened her eyes. Her words were heartbreaking: mem... mem... jeena chahte hum... (I would like to live). With her injured head, body and internal organs, she manifest her desire to live.

The article arise a question that who will answer for her sobbing words? The mass protest was an evidence for the fact that Indian people are not ready to wait the killers hands come to their life. The politicians who insult the protesters never know the pain of Indian mother who have a girl child.

There is a statistics given in the article about the rape cases in India. That is; among the total rape cases in India there are only 25% culprits were punished. In 2011 itself 26436 cases were registered in our country. But only 5274 defendants were punished. It is a shell-shocked fact from India, the largest democratic country in the world.

The article suggests some directions at the end. Those are: every district should have fast track court and should assure privacy on enquiry and trial. Then only we could maintain maximum disciplinary action to the accused one. Otherwise the mentally depressed girl and her family could not stand on the case. Authority and judiciary should ensure time bound on the rape cases. These are the suggestions.

What we do now?

In February 2013 Grihalakshmi carried a report related with Delhi gang rape written by its staff reporter. The story starts like: ‘the girl who tattered by some cruel hands passed away from this dirty world’.   The story tries to catch readers by describing emotional details. Writer arises some questions those are: after the endless discussion of media why our society doesn’t try to change? What would be the situation of the remaining women? Etc.

Also reporter mentions that the world is still exist because of the women, so everyone should respect them. Article advises the mothers that they must keep equality on their son and daughter, and it ends with giving an optimism that everything will ok.

 But here also the reporter fails to reveal the real problem of our society. Both vanita and grihalakshmi wouldn’t dare to look at the problem in its root level. They always try to satisfy the readers not only women but also the patriarchy. So they select a safe zone to stand.

Under the manipulation of so called “women‘s issue”, these mainstream magazines carry stories which are satisfying the upper-middle class families. The subtracting women’s issue as women’s own issue and deducting its discussion only to the opinion of some women are not that much fair. Both VANITA and GRIHALAKSHMI carry stories without make any attempt to study its psycho-socio-cultural  and political aspects, always they writes collection of opinion. The serious less approach of these magazines are clear, because they do not reveal any insightful idea or thought of people who express their words.

Another fact is all of these mainstream magazines shrink the duration of discussions related to a serious issue to the few days or weeks. And they would not make follow up of the issue. By detail analyzing, the researcher found that most of these magazines used to increase their circulation by creating publicity in the name of women.

When we observes the leaders and editors of VANITA and GRIHALAKSHMI she found that all of them are male-centered and market oriented people. It is not a negative fact that a male editor for a women’s magazine, but they never try to make a change for this social system, and stories are being male centered in deeper level. Magazines always choose a safe zone in serious issues. Therefore, they are unable to put an idea or solution for this threatening issue in front of the wide range of readers.

According to many lawyers suggestion; the government must constitute Fast Track Courts in every districts and there should be a psychological expert in judging panel.

These two mainstream magazines frequently try to make women as a better house keeper. They always go through the thoughts of elite-pseudo males and follows capitalized market trend. For their preplanned agenda they just sell the word ‘women’. Also there is a tendency of tiding women with few words like ‘so called’ love, house making, emotions etc.

At the end of this analysis, we can find that the magazines tend to

   1.  Systematically enwrap women within the private sphere of home, by connecting them to the institution of marriage, domesticity, familial values, etc.

   2.  On the surface, in these magazines, males are doing the agential position like editors, managers etc. they think, and write only in patriarchal level of thought.

3. Every opinion they selected from women or men clears that the men rape women only because of his sexual need. But it is a system of establishing ‘there is no other politics for rape’.

4. Model of femininity is constructed over certain parameters which are based on gender, class, and caste which defined by a patriarchal society.

5. At the outset, these magazines make claims on the social positioning and capabilities of women which posit them as nowhere inferior to men; nevertheless, we can also see that associate women with love, matrimony and motherhood, house-making, housekeeping, etc.