And then you get us pissed off:
According to women’s rights activists in the area (Nagpur, India), men who rape are frequently let off by the courts, and helped by police. This weekend, 50 women — led by a rape victim — burnt down the houses of three rapists who had been attacking women for months with no consequences.
"We have all waited for police to act, but nothing happens. The molestations and rapes go on and nobody does anything," said Madam Chandra, a women's rights activist in Nagpur.
This renegade rape punishment began several months ago when a gang leader who had raped multiple women was stabbed and stoned by a mob of women.
Though I cannot, in good conscience, endorse killing people or burning down their houses, I will say this: People are going to be a lot less likely to fuck around with women if more of us start fighting back.
There's your thought for the day.
via feministing
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Getting Pissed Off
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2 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
What a bloody shame!
Posted by Bent Fabric
Because I'm reading a lot of child-rearing books at the moment, I've had an interesting look at some interesting stuff. One piece talked about a mother who went through bad experiences (muggings, etc.) because, even when she knew that something bad was happening, she was scared and frozen and had this instinctive pause that let the bad guys get away with whatever they were trying to do.
When her daughter, at 2 years old, wanted to watch TV, she would ask for it, and then ask for it again, and then she would yell for it at the top of her lungs. And the mom's first reaction was to turn and sharply say, "No! No yelling! Nice girls don't yell!"
And then she thought about how hard that had been drilled into her, and how well not-yelling worked for her in life, and instead, she said, "I'm very proud that you have such a good loud voice, sweetie, and I want you to hold onto that for the times when you need it. But this is not the right time for you to use your loud voice."
More applicable to the assaults themselves than to the retaliation, but... yeah. Fighting back is good.
And possibly I'm optimistic, but my first thought, upon reading that article, was surprise that it happened the way it happened. If you'd asked me, I'd have put 10-to-1 odds on it being a bunch of cops who casually let the entire cellblock know that the guy they were bringing in was a serial rapist before tossing him into a holding cell with a bunch of the biggest, nastiest guys in town. Not that that's the kind of society I'm aiming for, but I'd thought we were much closer to that than this.
Posted by Patrick Weekes
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