MEDIA PROMOTES SEXUALLY AGGRESSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE WOMEN

On 11th April, 2008, news channels showed the story of how a "victim of rape" was beaten by chappals by female neighbours in east Delhi's Mandawali area. The media was crying foul and totally supported the woman. It was yet another moment for the powerful forces of heterosexualisation to advance itself in the name of "heterosexualisation".

Noone care to ask why the female neighbourers "enmob" were beating an "innocent woman". Are Indians unsympathetic to victims of rape? At one time, the society considered it better to keep such things under wraps, but more for the woman and her honour (something westerners will never understand), than for saving the man. If so many women were against a woman, who was playing a "victim of rape", there must be more to it.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the woman looked and behaved quite like one who would not only use men sexually but would use her position as a woman to exploit men. there have been thousands of such cases all over India, eversince the society has been forced by the media to give such powers to women. She was the typical Heterosexual woman that the media wants to promote -- the sexually aggressive, dominant kind. And they make the man absolutely helpless to defend himself against anykind of exploitation at the hands of these women -- whether its sexual exploitation or false cases of sexual exploitation.

Why was the media not highlighting what the neighbours were saying -- that she was a 'bad character' woman and that she had lodged a false complaint against her landlord. Why did the media choose to stick to one woman's account over scores of others?

The woman claimed to be attacked with knives, but then women like her will put just any blame. The police themselves said that she was in an inebriated state. What kind of an 'innocent' girl lives alone in a lower-middle class locality and drinks alcohol? It is now being enforced by the forces of heterosexualisation upon upper-middle class societies which have been westernised, but not in traditional Indian spaces. A man does all these things too, but then he faces the harsh world out there. If he is beaten by people for coming home drunk, he is not protected by the media. The media will in fact lash out at the man. And, a man does not have the empowerment to complain even if he is genuinely exploited sexually by women. He has to take it all without complaining. If he were to complain, he would only get jeers. How can Western partial notions of 'feminism' be enforced upon Indian cultures without even discussing them first?



I agree, that it is not right to take law into one's own hands. But, what are ordinary, illiterate people to do when they find themselves helpless against oppressive laws, against powerful forces of Westernisation/ heterosexualisation that often hides itself behind distorted ideas of female 'liberty', and a powerful media bent on creating space for the sexually aggressive woman, at all costs, in all circumstances.

The media would have been right to raise the issue of her being beaten, because, all said and done, people have no right to take law into their hands. However, to completely side with her shows that media has unwarranted motives.

Here's the news (the newspaper version is slightly more balanced than the TV news):

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=1c689bff-31ee-44a0-91c5-83e4552b63d6&MatchID1=4680&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=3&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1179&PrimaryID=4680&Headline=Mob+attacks+rape+victim+in+east+Delhi

Note that the paper assumes that she is a rape victim, even when nothing has been proved, and it is only based on the complaint of the woman, and women have been given absolute powers by the heterosexual society to implicate any man without evidence.