The Blame Game.

Why should victim shaming happen? My heart ached. I was around 14 years old when Nirbhaya happened. It shook me to the core like all of you. I was deeply impacted by that incident. I think that was the first time I’ve been made aware of victim blaming. I heard things like, “What’s the point of going out to movie with a guy at night?” , “Girls should not be given ‘too much’ freedom.”, “This is what happens to such kind of girls.”

I wondered what has this to do with the gruesome pain that she was subjected to! I used to talk to my father about this a lot. But I only consciously started observing the way society views girls and boys once when I went to college. LSR helped me learn and unlearn a lot of things. We live in a society where girls are judged by the clothes they wear and guys by the salary they get. How unidimensional is this process! How unfair! 

In this article I want to talk about the nonsense that girl victims face. The culture of blame is profound all around us. Let me try giving an appropriate example. If a girl speaks up that a guy misbehaved with her, she gets to hear all sorts of nonsense. People say things like, “Why should she wear jeans when she went out?” , “ This girl consciously draws attention of men.” , “Have you seen her Instagram? She is so outgoing. This is bound to happen.” “Such a drama queen.”, “She must have led the guy to behave that way and is now creating an issue out of it for attention.”, “She always roams with that guy. So why is she pointing fingers at him?”, “She should have slapped him. Why crying now?!”
Oh my God!!!! There’s so much noise around us all the time that we fail to look at the issue at hand-the guy touched the girl without her consent. 

I’m not here to give any lecture on morality. Morality is subjective anyways. Each and everyone of us has the right to live a life with dignity. We are entitled to that irrespective of the length of the dress we wear or the job we do. Everyone has a right over their own lives and the way they live it. That does not give the right to anyone to exploit others. But exploitation happens everywhere. It happens irrespective of gender. So, when a victim speaks up it is essential that they should be heard. We should have the guts to look at the issue objectively. We are judgmental because we either don’t have guts or we take pleasure in moral policing others. This needs to change.

In the hope of a better tomorrow, 
Spurthy