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When will the dam break?

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The New Delhi rape case: what will it take for UK women to say enough is enough?

Trigger warning for description of violent sexual attack.

We have all watched appalled as the horrific events that led to a young Indian woman’s death unfolded in the international media.

The woman, now named as Jyoti Singh Pandey, was raped repeatedly by 6 men on a moving bus in Delhi, had an iron bar inserted into her body causing severe internal injuries, and was then thrown off the bus and left to die, alongside her badly beaten male companion.

The sheer scale of this tragedy is hard to contemplate and has triggered global condemnation of the perpetrators and also of India’s rape culture.

It has also triggered an outcry in India, with thousands of women and men protesting on the streets about a culture that does not take the rape and sexual assault of women seriously.

As the Oculus blog outlines in nauseating detail: “I don’t want to recount the hundreds of times I’ve been groped in crowds in Delhi.

“Hands moving over you, pinching your bottom, rubbing your breasts as you desperately try to find some inch of ground that will be safe.

“Women routinely carry sharp objects like needles and drawing instruments to dissuade such attacks but there are too many incidents to deal with.”

However, the current Western media focus on ‘othering’ this attack is not helpful, as this article so clearly outlines:

“Those poor women suffering at the hands of those horrible men [who live in ‘patriarchal “Eastern” cultures’].

“We must loudly proclaim our empathy for those people, who either know no better or are unable to live by our enlightened social standards.

“This narrative is racist, homophobic, sexist, heteronormative and imperialist; [a] reductive and disempowering narrative that allows…no local, national or global context.”

Meanwhile, as Suzanne Moore points out: “something is happening [in India], anger is overtaking fear. The dam has burst.”

What I am interested in is when will the dam burst in the UK?

Every woman and girl in this country knows that she is not safe on the streets on her own, particularly at night.

And figures show that 80,000 women are raped and 400,000 are sexually assaulted every year in this country.

Why are we not protesting en mass?

Why do we not converge outside Number 10 demanding that this government takes steps to end this war on women?

Is it because the ‘othering’ that we see in the media reporting on the Indian rape case also happens here?

Certainly, I immediately turn to the feminist blogosphere for a more nuanced view of rape and sexual assault reports, to not only get an acknowledgement that we are actually living in a rape culture, but also to engage with the conversation and support the protests against the misogyny that underpins it – for example this Virgin advert, the Page 3 campaign and the EverydaySexism blog.

That acknowledgement of rape culture is shamefully absent in the majority of news reporting of sexual attacks on women in UK is astounding.

We need only look at the Savile reporting to see this; much hand wringing about ‘well it was just how it was back then’ and no acknowledgement that IT IS STILL HAPPENING NOW.

But the lack of acknowledgement of our rape culture continues, evidenced by not only ignorant mainstream press reporting, but also the unforgivable low conviction rate for rape in this country, all underpinned by a culture that persists in victim blaming.

The latest example can be found in a campaign by Thames Valley Police who have produced this poster.

In the meantime, rapists continue to rape and non- (or not yet) rapists, routinely catcall, grope, harass and otherwise keep women in a perpetual state of fear: witness this account of a woman standing alone on New Year’s Eve at Aldgate East train station.

And this harassment is often carried out under the guise of ‘it is just a compliment’: a compliment?  Really?

What is it about us, as a nation of women, that stops us demanding our right to safety from sexual assault and rape in our own country?

As it stands we have numerous voluntary agencies, such as Rape Crisis, which struggle from month to month desperately in need of funding to keep going, who magnificently pick up survivors, counsel them, stand shoulder to shoulder with them in court, and offer ongoing support to help them get their lives back together.

Why do they have to struggle for funding?

Similarly, on the same continuum of violence against women, the domestic abuse agencies, such as Refuge, again voluntary and always in need of funding, help women every year flee their abusers, through a helpline and provision of refuges, psychological support and legal advice.

It seems that our superstructure – the government, judiciary and media – consistently denies rape culture exists, conveniently allowing them to not deal with the problem: meanwhile in the real world we have a patchwork of voluntary agencies that are struggling to deal with the tragic fallout of this denial.

So again, why are we not on the steps of Number 10 demanding that rape and sexual assault against women be taken seriously?

Is it because the superstructure is too strong?

When we look at protests that have taken place since the failure of the Miners’ Strike in 1984, the only one that had any effect was the Poll Tax riot in 1990.

Even then it took the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, months to resign.

Since then we have had student protests against fees, we have had protests against the austerity measures, we have had protests against the attack on disability benefits  – to what end?

None of these marches and protests have made one iota of difference to this government of millionaires who run this country to benefit their mates in big business.

Even the riots in August 2011 were portrayed as a few poor people nicking trainers, rather than an uprising of feeling from the dispossessed.

Is it this, plus the eons of social conditioning that keeps women quiet and compliant and reluctant to make a fuss that stops us taking to the streets?

Or stops our female politicians naming misogyny in parliament as clearly as the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilliard did in 2012?

Surely we do not want to wait for an appalling rape case similar to Jyoti Singh Pandey’s before we say ‘enough is enough’?

There are enough women in this country who are fed up with living in fear and having that fear denied – let us take some action now, so we don’t need to riot to protest the death of one of our sisters.

The superstructure has GOT to listen. Listen and act.

Contact the editor@womensviewsonnews.org if you are interested in continuing this conversation.

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