I wrote my novel Lemon Girl to raise my voice against the mentality of victim-blaming. At the time the ‘Nirbhaya’ case happened, I felt disgusted to see people giving out bites that almost seemed to excuse the culprit and accuse the victim for the incident. Many protests were held after that, and much debate. But seems like the victim-blaming mentality of our society is not going anywhere. The blames and excuses may change, but the target remains the same. it’s always, always, the women who are at fault.
Just yesterday, I tweeted a sentence from my novel Lemon Girl (as shown in the picture above). Imagine my surprise when I found myself the target of angry men protesting that women make fake accusations and women also victimize men. But only crimes against women get highlighted, crimes against men go unnoticed.
I suppose it’s the fault of women too that men don’t hold protests for crimes committed against them.
And the punishment of that would be, as a gentleman tweeted to me, all Indian men will go into prison because of false charges. And then women of India would have to go to other countries to look for men!
I understand that not all women are innocent and true. I accept that not all abuse cases filed by women are honest. And it’s sick to accuse anyone wrongly. In Lemon Girl, I have tried to show the effect of just such false accusations. It is wrong to blame a victim for ‘encouraging’ a crime committed against her. And it is equally wrong to implicate someone in false charges.
But does that mean women have no right to protest against such inhuman crimes as rape? And who is stopping men from raising a protest against abuses suffered by them? By all means, such cases too should be brought to light and treated fairly.
But if you shout out to me the cases of abuse of men and boys, that will NOT make me stop protesting against the abuse of women. Because even if many abuse cases filed by women are wrong, many are true too. Dowry deaths, female infanticide, gang rapes are happening and happening every day. Parents today are scared of sending their little girls alone to even playgrounds now.
And still, again and again, it’s the woman who gets the blame for her own injuries.
Girls are wearing short skirts and spoiling our culture. They tempt men by wearing provocative clothes.
Women are going to pubs and discos. If they go to such bad places, they can’t expect to stay safe.
And now, women abuse too. So why raise a hue and cry when they get abused? Nobody cares when men get abused.
Well, for one, short dresses are not the CAUSE of culture change. They are the EFFECT of culture change. And as for temptation, if I go out wearing a diamond necklace, I’m sure many would be tempted to snatch it. Does that give them the right to cut my throat and rob me and then excuse their crime by saying they got tempted?
If pubs and discos are bad places, may I ask who makes them bad?
And if women are doing wrong, bring it to light. But don’t use this to cast aspersions on all other women. Just as all men aren’t rapist, similarly all women aren’t abusers. And no one, NO ONE, deserves to become a victim of such a crime as rape.
Don’t forget, Rape is a CRIME. Stop excusing it.
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“Girls are wearing short skirts and spoiling our culture. They tempt men by wearing provocative clothes”.
When the likes of Salman Khan remove their shirts in public, do women rape / molest these men ?
Obviously not.
The fact is, when Darwin said “we have evolved”, he was only ‘half right’. Yes women have evolved into sensible well behaved ‘beings’. Men ( most of them) are still what they were – ferocious animals. The moment they spot a helpless girl alone, ‘the ferocious animal’ comes out !!
Hi, thanks for your message.
It’s really getting to be a scary scenario, especially for girls and parents of young girls.