Society
Safety of Girls in India
It’s always better to view a situation in its totality. Many times when we look at a situation, we tend to view only a part of it because we are already biased in our approach. Safety of girls and women in India is a grave issue. To tackle the problem, a multi-thronged tactics is required. Skewed sex-ratio, ‘commodification’ of the female body through media and other popular means, patriarchal mind-set, lax justice system etc are some of the reasons why there is apparently an increase in incidents of assault on girls and women.
First and foremost, exemplary punishment would be the best method of sending the correct message throughout the society. Potential criminals will be deterred once they see that justice is done and it is done within a time framework.
Secondly, skewed sex ratio is bound to bring crimes into picture. India needs to be educated that girls should be allowed to live. Killing girls in the womb must be stopped. Again, exemplary punishment to the offenders will go a long way in improving the situation.
Advertisements, films, television serials need to portray women as human beings and not just as sex-agents. Women and girls, like all other human beings, exist for many things apart from satisfying and fulfilling needs of the body. Presently, female element is being used for ‘peppering’ the show, the advertisement or the film. It settles the female with the concept of ‘masala’ in our minds. These along with patriarchal brining up give a kind of licence to the criminal’s mind to venture into the territory of violence.
The entire ‘contractor ship’ of feminism in India is also doing great disservice to the cause of women in this regard. The entire feminist strata must understand that safety of an individual is primarily the responsibility of the individual herself. The state agencies have a role but that role comes after the role of the individual. In their pro-feminist paranoia, they start claiming that girls will go out at any time in the night, will definitely go for consensual sex, will put on all revealing dresses and will venture out as and when their instincts desire.
Theoretically, we should have a society that allows and respect such kind of behaviour equally for both the genders but in reality it is not so.
If an experienced Chief Minister says that the journalist should not have gone out all alone at two in the night or a fatherly figure from Haryana says that cellular phones should be used by girls with discretion, the feminist brigade is all claws out. They fail to see the simple common sense of a well-meaning remark. Why only girls, even boys and men should avoid going out all alone in the dead of the night. If a girl agrees to consensual sex to her boy friend on phone and goes out in anticipation of the adventure, there are possibilities that the so called ‘boy friend’ will turn up with two or three extras. This is exactly what has happened in many recent cases. But our discourse tragically remains lop-sided.
All elderly men of Haryana are not villains. Most of them want girls and women to be safe.
Education, correct representation of women in media, transparency in social interaction of the two genders, liberal and accepting attitudes, and most importantly a speedy and strong justice system will go a long way in ensuring safety of girls in our country.
29-Oct-2012
More by :
Prof. Shubha Tiwari
Top | Society
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very rightly said |
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it is very for essay and elocution |
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its very much true
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it helped me a lot in my exam |
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