Trigger Warning: Mention of Rape, Victim-Blaming
We are done, and we have had it. With males running our households trying to control our bodies, with males running on the roads violating our bodies. With males running the state machinery telling us it was our fault, our clothes, and we are here to say IT WAS NOT!
Recently, in a viral statement we all heard something no rape victim or woman deserved to hear.
Like so many other rape apologists, we once again heard the senseless reasoning that many men do not have the “willpower” or the “power” to control themselves. Because many girls and women in our women wear immodest clothing nowadays, men become “tempted” to sin. All men do not have the same level of self-control and the ones who are lower down on the scale, often end up committing such acts. Owing to this, if one keeps increasing “immodesty” in a society, rape cases will continue to be on the rise.
However, Pakistani women have something to add here- And yet it is these same rapist men who DO know how to control themselves if they are out in the market, in public spaces, and in the presence of witnesses.
If it really was about an inability of men to control themselves, then Why do rapists only commit the act of rape when they know that there are no witnesses around, the woman is in a vulnerable position, or when they are certain that no one will be able to catch them doing the act…
Also, what percentage of Pakistani women actually wear jeans and shirts or the type of “tempting” clothing all these men use as a reason for rape? At maximum, only 3-4 percent of our population, who are privileged enough to somewhat provide for a different lifestyle for themselves. Meanwhile, it is women from the poverty-stricken masses and the middle class of our society; the women travelling by bus on the everyday, working in people’s homes and stuck in abusive marriages who are most affected by the menace of rape.
You yourselves do justice then, is it about a sick game of power play, or an innocent lack of will-power and self-control!
