‘I am not your wife, sister or daughter”, this phrase intrigued me to read the article by Annie Thériault on rape and violence against women. After reading the article, I found my self in a foreign space of mind, because until now regarding rape cases all i read and saw were people using phrases -like ‘what if somebody were to do that to you sister or mother?’ or ‘she must be someone’s wife, sister or daughter’- to guilt trip people into confessing and apologizing their shameless act of rape. But Plath shed light on the flip side of this phrase. Her words made me ponder how we as women, also aid the false perception, that a female only holds value if in association with a man, whether the relation is of a wife, sister or daughter. It has become a phrase to evoke empathy in the sinner, but now that I read the phrase again from Plath’s perspective, it seems that we have come to terms with our relational and inferior position in this society.
Reading this article reminded me of the documentary; ‘India’s Daughter’, which investigates the rape case of a 23 year old Medicine student, who was raped on a bus by six men, when she was going back home with her male friend.The girl ‘Nirbhaya’s rapists refuse to acknowledge the status of women as as and independent and equal individual of the society, but rather believe that if a woman is worthy of protection she should stay at home and if she roams around outside she is deriving of rape. They provide justifications of their heinous act by saying things like,
“ A decent girl won’t roam around 9’o clock at night”
“Women who go out at night bring trouble for themselves by attracting the attention of molesters. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”.
I would not rant here about how hearing these words makes me feel ashamed of living in the same society as such men but rather stress on the bigger picture here. Nirbhaya’s rapist’s statements also implied that if she was out with her father things would have been different. This statement revises Plath’s argument, that it is perceived that a girl’s body is valuable as long as it is in association with a relation to a man, which is acceptable in the eyes of the society.Because as justified by the rapist and his defence lawyer, that in their society, it is not acceptable for the girl to be out with a boy at night. The defence lawyers words fuelled many debates on social media and many women took to the streets to ask for justice and as shown by the picture on the right many women took a step to change the dominant mindset of the patriarchal society that, girls should be asked to come home early.
Another statement by one of the rapist is worth mentioning here-
“Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 percent of girls are good.”
– because it implies that only “decent” or “good” women are worthy of protection. This can be linked back to Yasmin Jiwani’s and Mary Lynn Young’s article ‘Missing and Murdered Women’. In the article Jiwani and Young trace the portrayal of the hegemonic media which casts the impression that “Mothers,wives and daughters- or traditionally “virtuous” women-are worth saving” (900), where as sex workers and women who are “runaways and throwaways of society are not worth saving”(900). This seems to be the mindset of Nirbhaya’s rapists who said in the documentary, that if women are not “good” men have a right to “teach them a lesson” by raping them. Amanda Taub in her article “She should just be silent”: the real roots of India’s rape culture” explains how the rapist’s words reflect the opinion of the dominant men in some conservative societies, who think actions carried out by women such as “dating, delaying marriage, pursuing careers” are unacceptable and make them “deserving” of rape.
It is partially the media and partly us who have reduced the status of women to something that is inferior to a man. The thought process that virtuous women deserve to be saved, enforced primarily by the media and secondarily by people in our society, seems to be embedded in the corrupted minds of our society.Hence the use of such relationships to guilt trip rapists into confession. But what we fail to understand and ultimately teach the rapists is that a woman should not be raped because she is someone’s mother, sister or daughter but because she is a person, whether good or bad like the good or bad men out there, she is also a “PERSON”.Thériault refers to herself as a “Person” and urges that, this is how our society should perceive women as and how we should teach others that a woman should be valued for who she is, not in relation with a man or as something inferior to a man!
Citations
Jiwani, Yasmin and Young, Mary Lynn. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917. Web. 3. Feb. 2016
Taub, Amanda. “She Should Just Be Silent”: The Real Roots of India’s Rape Culture.” Vox. Vox Media, 05 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
Plath, Sylvia. “I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter.” The Belle Jar. N.p., 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
India’s Daughter. Dir. Leslee Udwin. Berta Film, 2015. DVD.