Reporting Kills #WhyIDidntReport
The threat of further violence - the threat of death as a punishment - is very clearly an effective deterrent when it comes to women reporting rape as a crime in India.
Content warning: Rape, gendered violence
They say the death penalty isn't an effective deterrent. I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
Not because there are statistics correlating the existence of the death penalty with a reduction in capital crimes. There aren't any, not really.
Not because society is talking about dialing down on its commission of capital crimes in response to the existence of capital punishment. It isn't.
But because the threat of further violence - the threat of death as a punishment - is very clearly an effective deterrent when it comes to women reporting rape as a crime in India.
Make no mistake - rape is a capital crime in India. That didn't prevent my rape or that of any of the women I know who have gone through something like this. It doesn't even register in the consciences of the men who did this to us. Most of them don't even know - don't need to know - what they did. They go on with their lives. Some of them don't even remember our names.
It's curious to see these facts laid side by side. Frustrating, but also curious.
If it isn't a deterrent, then why didn't I report? Why doesn't anybody report?
Coincidentally, these are also the questions asked by each and every man I've mentioned my experiences with sexual violence to.
Right out of the gate. No hesitation. No doubts about whether they might be about to utter some of the stupidest words to ever be strung together.
In such moments, I am often caught unawares. I am often at a loss for words. Because not only do you need to find a way to recover from the trauma you just underwent, but now you have to do the equivalent of explaining calculus to a moron who doesn't know how to count from 1 to 10.
And his ignorance doesn't stem from a cognitive difficulty, or a lack of education. It stems from the fact that he doesn't fucking want to know. He has never cared and he isn't about to start caring now. He isn't asking you why you didn't report because he cares about you, or about what happened to you. He's asking it because he wants to shift the responsibility of listening to your story to someone else. To the cops.
He's telling you, "Tell it to someone who cares." And it's not his problem that nobody else cares either. Regardless of who he is to you - father, brother, friend, colleague, boyfriend, friend-with-benefits - he doesn't want the burden of hearing your story.
"Why didn't you report?"
It's a rhetorical question, the answer to which is ingrained in the primal consciousness of each and every person who is a potential victim to such violence.
And the answer to that rhetorical question was repeated, ad nauseam, on Friday night when a woman who had undergone numerous such acts of violence finally died.
I say "finally" because her attackers have been trying to get the job done for a while now. They were able to seriously injure her on a previous occasion, and killed multiple family members in their quest to silence her.
Because she reported.
Because, after reporting, she pursued the case.
Because, after an attempt on her life, she continued to pursue the case.
Because she didn't give up even when it was clear to the whole damn world that she had been marked for death.
Half the world didn't care. They didn't even want the responsibility of hearing her story.
The rest of us are too busy fighting off and hiding from our own rapists, abusers and would-be murderers. Literally. Right this minute, this is what we're doing. I do not exaggerate.
We are too busy trying not to fold under the weight of what's been done to us.
And now the responsibility of mourning her has come down to us as well. Because you can't mourn her or pay respects to her memory without acknowledging, and trying to change the ways of the world that led to the destruction of her life. She was a minor at the time of the attack, a child, and she spent her whole adult life trying to keep the murderers at bay. Trying to bring them to justice.
Hers was true bravery, because she fought past the fear that keeps the rest of us silent. Because she kept fighting in the literal face of death.
She reported, and she died for it. What happened to her proved to the rest of us that we were right to keep silent.
It is, simply put, entitlement. The entitlement of an entire demographic that knows that they will face absolutely no consequences for their actions. A demographic that knows that they are merely exercising their natural rights over someone else's body, mind and life. A demographic that has this knowledge ingrained into their primal consciousness - the knowledge that they literally own everybody and everything else.
Until we utterly destroy that entitlement, until we grasp it by the roots and rip it out, there is no question of justice, of peace, of "good men", or forgiveness.
They say the death penalty isn't an effective deterrent. I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
Not because there are statistics correlating the existence of the death penalty with a reduction in capital crimes. There aren't any, not really.
Not because society is talking about dialing down on its commission of capital crimes in response to the existence of capital punishment. It isn't.
But because the threat of further violence - the threat of death as a punishment - is very clearly an effective deterrent when it comes to women reporting rape as a crime in India.
Make no mistake - rape is a capital crime in India. That didn't prevent my rape or that of any of the women I know who have gone through something like this. It doesn't even register in the consciences of the men who did this to us. Most of them don't even know - don't need to know - what they did. They go on with their lives. Some of them don't even remember our names.
It's curious to see these facts laid side by side. Frustrating, but also curious.
If it isn't a deterrent, then why didn't I report? Why doesn't anybody report?
Coincidentally, these are also the questions asked by each and every man I've mentioned my experiences with sexual violence to.
Right out of the gate. No hesitation. No doubts about whether they might be about to utter some of the stupidest words to ever be strung together.
In such moments, I am often caught unawares. I am often at a loss for words. Because not only do you need to find a way to recover from the trauma you just underwent, but now you have to do the equivalent of explaining calculus to a moron who doesn't know how to count from 1 to 10.
And his ignorance doesn't stem from a cognitive difficulty, or a lack of education. It stems from the fact that he doesn't fucking want to know. He has never cared and he isn't about to start caring now. He isn't asking you why you didn't report because he cares about you, or about what happened to you. He's asking it because he wants to shift the responsibility of listening to your story to someone else. To the cops.
He's telling you, "Tell it to someone who cares." And it's not his problem that nobody else cares either. Regardless of who he is to you - father, brother, friend, colleague, boyfriend, friend-with-benefits - he doesn't want the burden of hearing your story.
"Why didn't you report?"
It's a rhetorical question, the answer to which is ingrained in the primal consciousness of each and every person who is a potential victim to such violence.
And the answer to that rhetorical question was repeated, ad nauseam, on Friday night when a woman who had undergone numerous such acts of violence finally died.
I say "finally" because her attackers have been trying to get the job done for a while now. They were able to seriously injure her on a previous occasion, and killed multiple family members in their quest to silence her.
Because she reported.
Because, after reporting, she pursued the case.
Because, after an attempt on her life, she continued to pursue the case.
Because she didn't give up even when it was clear to the whole damn world that she had been marked for death.
Half the world didn't care. They didn't even want the responsibility of hearing her story.
The rest of us are too busy fighting off and hiding from our own rapists, abusers and would-be murderers. Literally. Right this minute, this is what we're doing. I do not exaggerate.
We are too busy trying not to fold under the weight of what's been done to us.
And now the responsibility of mourning her has come down to us as well. Because you can't mourn her or pay respects to her memory without acknowledging, and trying to change the ways of the world that led to the destruction of her life. She was a minor at the time of the attack, a child, and she spent her whole adult life trying to keep the murderers at bay. Trying to bring them to justice.
Hers was true bravery, because she fought past the fear that keeps the rest of us silent. Because she kept fighting in the literal face of death.
She reported, and she died for it. What happened to her proved to the rest of us that we were right to keep silent.
Since the threat of death has proved such an impressive deterrent, what's keeping the capital crimes up?
It is, simply put, entitlement. The entitlement of an entire demographic that knows that they will face absolutely no consequences for their actions. A demographic that knows that they are merely exercising their natural rights over someone else's body, mind and life. A demographic that has this knowledge ingrained into their primal consciousness - the knowledge that they literally own everybody and everything else.
Until we utterly destroy that entitlement, until we grasp it by the roots and rip it out, there is no question of justice, of peace, of "good men", or forgiveness.
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