Naomi Wolf examines the inspiring struggle against rampant sexual harassment and rape. - Project Syndicate
Naomi Wolf examines the inspiring struggle against rampant sexual harassment and rape. - Project Syndicate
CHENNAI – Sometimes
countries suddenly take a mighty leap forward, forcing everyone else to
take notice. On one critical issue – sexual harassment and rape – India
has moved far into the lead. Following a number of brutal rapes that
became notorious worldwide, Indian women are pushing back in radical,
innovative, and transformational ways.
The
attacks have been ceaseless and indiscriminate. A 51-year-old Danish
tourist and an 18-year-old German aid worker are among the most recent
non-Indians to be raped. But so is the coverage of them by India’s media. On January 14, The Weekreported on the case of Suzette Jordan,
a 39-year-old Anglo-Indian mother of two in Kolkata, who survived what
has become a numbingly familiar story. In 2012, she had a drink in a bar
and agreed to a ride home with a man she had met; when she entered the
car, four other men piled in. They put a gun in her mouth, beat her
savagely, raped her, and dumped her on the roadside.
Her
reporting of the crime brought new recriminations: the member of
Parliament for her constituency, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, called the rape
“a deal gone wrong”; another minister called her experience “a concocted
story.” But Jordan fought on, and a trial is underway; she has also
started a group to support rape survivors.
The
level of sexual violence directed against women in India is not
unusual; what is unusual is that the country’s media are now covering
the issue as a burning social problem, rather than sweeping it under the
rug. And women themselves are politicizing the issue, rather than
blaming themselves for being too friendly, not careful enough, or in the
wrong place at the wrong time. They – and the men who support them –
are standing up to rape in ways that should be a model for the rest of
the world.
Indian
rape laws were changed in the wake of the rape and murder in 2011 of
Bhanwari Devi, a 36-year-old midwife whose accusations of sexual
misconduct implicated senior political figures. But Indian activists
often refer to the case of another Bhanwari Devi, a social worker who
was gang-raped in 1992, as an early turning point, for it resulted in
1997 in the Indian Supreme Court’s Vishaka judgment,
which proposed guidelines to prevent sexual harassment in the
workplace. With pressure mounting for legislative action, India last
year finally adopted a law banning workplace sexual harassment.
