Buoyed with the chocolate ice-cream/fudge (and faced with a weekend of starvation) I decided to put my incomplete grocery shopping to use. I cooked me some treats.
Lined up in the kitchen we present: I bowl of stinky, crispy, dried shrimp thingie. I bowl of kasuri methi flavoured dal.1 bowl of kasuri methi flavoured potatoes. 1 more bowl of potatoes, flavoured with egg (and kasuri methi. What can I say...I'm in love.)
Justice Katju (ex-Justice? Former Justice?) makes a regular appearance these days in the newspapers. The last I heard of him, he was referring to rape as the outrage of a woman's modesty (Times of India. Last few days. Look it up).
I hate it when sexual violence is termed outraging a woman's modesty. What on earth is a 'woman's modesty'? It's worse than 'eve-teasing'.
On that note, Mamata Bannerjee has gone completely insane. She refuses to acknowledge rape these days. All women who are being raped in her constituency are CPM plants who are lying in order to defame her government. For a person who was herself victim of sexual violence by the CPM in the earlier days, her attitude reveals just how much work feminists have to do in Sonar Bangla. Which is not to say that Ms. Bannerjee is the only CM to make abhorrent comments about rape victims. It's a malaise that prevades the country and the world.
Everytime I hear the word 'provoke' or 'provocative' in the context of victims of sexual crime, I think of the story Sultana's Dream (click here to read it). The author, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, creates a world in which all the men are locked up since, like wild animals, they are so easily provoked into violence.
No, I'm sorry. There is no such thing as being provoked to rape, provoked to leer, provoked to murder. Provocation is just a collective excuse to indulge in behaviour that is inhuman and inexcusable. We need to strengthen the idea of personhood of a woman. As women are not the only targets of 'provocation' stimulated hate crime, I would say we need to strengthen the idea of personhood, full stop. If that is a liberal position to take, so be it I say.
Lined up in the kitchen we present: I bowl of stinky, crispy, dried shrimp thingie. I bowl of kasuri methi flavoured dal.1 bowl of kasuri methi flavoured potatoes. 1 more bowl of potatoes, flavoured with egg (and kasuri methi. What can I say...I'm in love.)
Justice Katju (ex-Justice? Former Justice?) makes a regular appearance these days in the newspapers. The last I heard of him, he was referring to rape as the outrage of a woman's modesty (Times of India. Last few days. Look it up).
I hate it when sexual violence is termed outraging a woman's modesty. What on earth is a 'woman's modesty'? It's worse than 'eve-teasing'.
On that note, Mamata Bannerjee has gone completely insane. She refuses to acknowledge rape these days. All women who are being raped in her constituency are CPM plants who are lying in order to defame her government. For a person who was herself victim of sexual violence by the CPM in the earlier days, her attitude reveals just how much work feminists have to do in Sonar Bangla. Which is not to say that Ms. Bannerjee is the only CM to make abhorrent comments about rape victims. It's a malaise that prevades the country and the world.
Everytime I hear the word 'provoke' or 'provocative' in the context of victims of sexual crime, I think of the story Sultana's Dream (click here to read it). The author, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, creates a world in which all the men are locked up since, like wild animals, they are so easily provoked into violence.
No, I'm sorry. There is no such thing as being provoked to rape, provoked to leer, provoked to murder. Provocation is just a collective excuse to indulge in behaviour that is inhuman and inexcusable. We need to strengthen the idea of personhood of a woman. As women are not the only targets of 'provocation' stimulated hate crime, I would say we need to strengthen the idea of personhood, full stop. If that is a liberal position to take, so be it I say.
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