Western media sensationalizing rapes in India

[Vic]

Fuck off.

 

[Sulaco]

I can almost hear My Chemical Romance playing every time raildogg posts on these forums...

🙄

 

[shira]

Teenage Sisters Allegedly Gang-Raped, Murdered In India



http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...isters-allegedly-gang-raped-murdered-in-india


http://www.npr.org/

And that case was clearly just "fanatacism:"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27647435

Police in India say they have now arrested all suspects in connection with the gang rape and murder of two teenage cousins.

Three suspected attackers have been detained, along with two policemen accused of dereliction of duty and criminal conspiracy.

The girls, who belonged to a low caste, were found hanged from a tree in Uttar Pradesh state earlier in the week.

Alleged police inaction has sparked outrage.

The father of one victim told the BBC he was ridiculed by police when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.

He said that when policemen found out he was from a lower caste, they "refused to look for my girl".

The government has pledged to set up a fast-track court to deal with the case.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that two more gang rapes of minors occurred in Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, this week.

So the police refused to investigate because the raped/murdered girls were lower caste. Clearly just another case of "fanatacism."

 

[shira]

Teenage Sisters Allegedly Gang-Raped, Murdered In India



http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...isters-allegedly-gang-raped-murdered-in-india


http://www.npr.org/

And this follow-up story on the case is particularly revealing about the mind-set in India toward rape:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/31/fifth-arrest-gang-rape-murder-two-cousins-india

A fifth person has been arrested in relation to the gang-rape and murder of two cousins in northern India, police have said.

Officers made the latest arrest on Saturday amid growing criticism over a series of rapes. A police spokesman said three of the other arrested men were cousins in their 20s from an extended family, and had been charged with murder and rape, crimes punishable by death.

There have been protests against the perceived police inaction and two officers have been arrested, with two more having been fired for failing to investigate when the father of one of the murdered girls reported them missing.

But in a country with a long history of tolerance for sexual violence, the Uttar Pradesh state's top official mocked journalists for asking about the attack.

"Aren't you safe? You're not facing any danger, are you? Then why are you worried? What's it to you?" the state's chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, said.

The gang-rape was the main story on Friday on India's relentless 24-hour news stations, and included video footage of the girls' bodies swaying from a mango tree where they were found hanged. But in the past few days, Uttar Pradesh has also been the scene of a brutal attack on the mother of a rape victim and the gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl by four men.

Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state, with nearly 200 million people. Official statistics say about 25,000 rapes are committed every year in India, a nation of 1.2 billion people. But activists say that the true figure is likely to be higher, as family or police often pressure women to keep quiet about sexual assaults.

This week, the Indian government said it was going to set up a "rape crisis cell" after the series of brutal sexual attacks on women.

Indian police and politicians, who for decades had done little about sexual violence, have faced growing public anger since the December 2012 gang-rape and murder of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus, an attack that sparked national outrage.

On Friday, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh lashed out at the ruling government.

"There is no law and order in the state," said Mayawati, who uses only one name. "It is the law of the jungle."

Hours later, his successor ordered that the suspects in the killing of the cousins be tried in special fast track courts, to get around India's notoriously slow judicial system.

The girls, who were 14 and 15, were raped in the tiny village of Katra, about 180 miles (300km) from Luck-now.

Police say they disappeared on Tuesday night after going into fields near their home to relieve themselves, because their house has no toilet.

The father of one girl went to police that night to report them missing, but he said they refused to help.

When the bodies were discovered the next day, angry villagers mounted a silent protest against the police inaction by refusing to allow the bodies to be cut down from the tree.

The reason there are so many "fanatics" in India who commit these atrocities is that the government and police don't want to do anything about them. Kind of like a welcome mat that reads "See that cute young thing. Do you want her? Then by all means rape and murder her. We promise we won't arrest you afterward."

 

[Fern]

Western media sensationalizing (insert anything)

What?

The above is true? OMG.

Next you'll be claiming that water is wet.

Fern

 

[Fern]

-snip-
The media is there to generate hits and generate buzz, so they print the most outrageous, brutal, and horrible stuff they can find. India is no different.

Winner!

Fern

 

[PieIsAwesome]

The media doesn't need to make India look bad, they do just fine all on their own.

 

[Fern]

I don't think the media is out to make India look bad. Rather it seems the media is currently focused on "women", specifically their mistreatment. We have the "War on Women", honor killings, genital mutilation, the woman in Sudan sentenced for adopting her husband's religion etc. IDK but would guess that there are no more rapes etc in India today than a few years ago. It's just the media looking stories that fit its current obsession. They'll move on to something else soon and India will once again drop out of coverage.

Fern

 

[MongGrel]

Focusing on assinine crap like this is not a bad thing in it's own right to begin with, though.

 

[shira]

This post by an American college student, Michaela Cross, about her experience with extreme sexual harassment while visiting India for three months says volumes about the attitudes of Indian men toward women.

India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

When people ask me about my experience studying abroad in India, I always face the same dilemma. How does one convey the contradiction that over the past few months has torn my life apart, and convey it in a single succinct sentence?

“India was wonderful," I go with, "but extremely dangerous for women.” Part of me dreads the follow-up questions, and part of me hopes for more. I'm torn between believing in the efficacy of truth, and being wary of how much truth people want.

Because, how do I describe my three months in the University of Chicago Indian civilizations program when it was half dream, half nightmare? Which half do I give

Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?

Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?

When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for forty-five minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd?

Do I describe the lovely hotel in Goa when my strongest memory of it was lying hunched in a fetal position, holding a pair of scissors with the door bolted shut, while the staff member of the hotel who had tried to rape my roommate called me over and over, and breathing into the phone?

How, I ask, was I supposed to tell these stories at a Christmas party? But how could I talk about anything else when the image of the smiling man who masturbated at me on a bus was more real to me than my friends, my family, or our Christmas tree? All those nice people were asking the questions that demanded answers for which they just weren't prepared.

When I went to India, nearly a year ago, I thought I was prepared. I had been to India before; I was a South Asian Studies major; I spoke some Hindi. I knew that as a white woman I would be seen as a promiscuous being and a sexual prize. I was prepared to follow the University of Chicago’s advice to women, to dress conservatively, to not smile in the streets. And I was prepared for the curiosity my red hair, fair skin and blue eyes would arouse.

But I wasn't prepared.

There was no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day stared with such entitlement at my body, with no change of expression whether I met their gaze or not. Walking to the fruit seller's or the tailer's I got stares so sharp that they sliced away bits of me piece by piece. I was prepared for my actions to be taken as sex signals; I was not prepared to understand that there were no sex signals, only women's bodies to be taken, or hidden away.

I covered up, but I did not hide. And so I was taken, by eye after eye, picture after picture. Who knows how many photos there are of me in India, or on the internet: photos of me walking, cursing, flipping people off. Who knows how many strangers have used my image as pornography, and those of my friends. I deleted my fair share, but it was a drop in the ocean-- I had no chance of taking back everything they took

For three months I lived this way, in a traveler's heaven and a woman's hell. I was stalked, groped, masturbated at; and yet I had adventures beyond my imagination. I hoped that my nightmare would end at the tarmac, but that was just the beginning. Back home Christmas red seemed faded after vermillion, and food tasted spiceless and bland. Friends, and family, and classes, and therapy, and everything at all was so much less real than the pain, the rage that was coursing through my blood, screaming so loud it deafened me to all other sounds. And after months of elation at living in freedom, months of running from the memories breathing down my neck, I woke up on April Fool's Day and found I wanted to be dead.

The student counselors diagnosed me with a personality disorder and prescribed me pills I wouldn't take. After a public breakdown I ended up in a psych ward for two days held against my will, and was released on the condition that I took a "mental leave of absence" from school and went to live with my mother. I thought I had lost my mind; I didn't connect any of it to India-- I had moved on. But then a therapist diagnosed me with PTSD and I realized I hadn't moved a single inch. I had frozen in time. And I’d fallen. And I’d shattered.

But I wasn't the only one, the only woman from my trip to be diagnosed with PTSD, to be forced into a psych ward, to wake up wanting to be dead. And I am not the only woman who is on a mental leave of absence from the University of Chicago for reasons of sexual assault and is unable to take classes.

Understanding my pain has helped me own it, if not relieve it. PTSD strikes me as a euphemism, because a syndrome implies a cure. What, may I ask, is the cure for seeing reality, of feeling for three months what its like for one's humanity to be taken away? But I thank God for my experiences in India, and for my disillusionment. Truth is a gift, a burden, and a responsibility. And I mean to share it.

This is the story you don't want to hear when you ask me about India. But this is the story you need.

So raildogg can insist that India is "no worse than other countries" when it comes to rape, but Cross's experience is a pretty damning piece of evidence that any young woman who goes unescorted in India faces a high probability of being raped.

 

[nehalem256]

I don't think the media is out to make India look bad. Rather it seems the media is currently focused on "women", specifically their mistreatment. We have the "War on Women", honor killings, genital mutilation, the woman in Sudan sentenced for adopting her husband's religion etc. IDK but would guess that there are no more rapes etc in India today than a few years ago. It's just the media looking stories that fit its current obsession.

Pretty much this.

I remember the big India rape story last year where a woman and her bf were assaulted by some group of men. Apparently a woman and a man being assaulted shows a problem with violence against women. 🙄

Judging by recent events in the US this is a common theme.

They'll move on to something else soon and India will once again drop out of coverage.

I find this to be unlikely. It seems to me that the purpose behind pushing these stories is to remake gender relations worldwide.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Pretty much this.

I remember the big India rape story last year where a woman and her bf were assaulted by some group of men. Apparently a woman and a man being assaulted shows a problem with violence against women. 🙄

Judging by recent events in the US this is a common theme.



I find this to be unlikely. It seems to me that the purpose behind pushing these stories is to remake gender relations worldwide.

You mean the young woman and her boyfriend in Delhi? The incident where he was beaten unconcious and she was violently raped by 6 men for hours and then dumped in the street? The incident where she was at one point raped with a metal rod so forcefully for over an hour that it ripped her intestines out of her body? The incident where her injuries were so horrendous that she died in hospital after 2 weeks of suffering? Is *that* the "assault" you're referring to?

Yeah, that's all about remaking gender relations.

You can take those rolling eyes and shove them in the appropriate orifice of the toaster that you're reduced to lusting after.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I guess you all hurt raildogg`s feelings, by posting the truth.......

 

[nehalem256]

You mean the young woman and her boyfriend in Delhi? The incident where he was beaten unconcious and she was violently raped by 6 men for hours and then dumped in the street? The incident where she was at one point raped with a metal rod so forcefully for over an hour that it ripped her intestines out of her body? The incident where her injuries were so horrendous that she died in hospital after 2 weeks of suffering? Is *that* the "assault" you're referring to?

Yeah, that's all about remaking gender relations.

Of course the incident was used as part of spring board for remaking gender relations. I mean why else would any rational person call an incident in which a man is literally beaten unconscious to be part of a war on women?

Kinda funny that there is an issue with violence against women, when violence against men is what gets ignored.

 

[dawheat]

Of course the incident was used as part of spring board for remaking gender relations. I mean why else would any rational person call an incident in which a man is literally beaten unconscious to be part of a war on women?

Kinda funny that there is an issue with violence against women, when violence against men is what gets ignored.

Why does it always have to be one vs. the other with you? Literally Jesus Christ.

 

[Ns1]

Pretty much this.

I remember the big India rape story last year where a woman and her bf were assaulted by some group of men. Apparently a woman and a man being assaulted shows a problem with violence against women. 🙄

Of course the incident was used as part of spring board for remaking gender relations. I mean why else would any rational person call an incident in which a man is literally beaten unconscious to be part of a war on women?

Kinda funny that there is an issue with violence against women, when violence against men is what gets ignored.

😵

 

[nehalem256]

Why does it always have to be one vs. the other with you? Literally Jesus Christ.

That is pretty much the opposite of what I am saying.

I am saying that India likely has a general violence problem which the media chooses to portray as a violence against women problem.

 

[Ns1]

That is pretty much the opposite of what I am saying.

I am saying that India likely has a general violence problem which the media chooses to portray as a violence against women problem.

we're saying it's not mutually exclusive.

 

[nehalem256]

we're saying it's not mutually exclusive.

I am not sure how you are disagreeing with me.

A problem with violence against people would by definition include a problem with violence against women(as women are people).

The issue I have is casting a problem with violence against people as a problem with violence against women is that it purposefully ignores half of the victims.

 

[Ns1]

The issue I have is casting a problem with violence against people as a problem with violence against women is that it purposefully ignores half of the victims.

We're not ignoring them. Let us know when some guy gets gang raped and we'll be sure to sensationalize that too.

 

[nehalem256]

We're not ignoring them. Let us know when some guy gets gang raped and we'll be sure to sensationalize that too.

I didn't realize that was the only form of violence 🙄

 

[brycejones]

This message is hidden because nehalem256 is on your ignore list.

The quickest way to stop hearing about nehalem's mommy and toaster issues.

 

[nehalem256]

This post by an American college student, Michaela Cross, about her experience with extreme sexual harassment while visiting India for three months says volumes about the attitudes of Indian men toward women.

When I went to India, nearly a year ago, I thought I was prepared. I had been to India before; I was a South Asian Studies major; I spoke some Hindi. I knew that as a white woman I would be seen as a promiscuous being and a sexual prize. I was prepared to follow the University of Chicago’s advice to women, to dress conservatively, to not smile in the streets. And I was prepared for the curiosity my red hair, fair skin and blue eyes would arouse.

India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

So raildogg can insist that India is "no worse than other countries" when it comes to rape, but Cross's experience is a pretty damning piece of evidence that any young woman who goes unescorted in India faces a high probability of being raped.

Except apparently she didn't have major issues the first time she went to India.

 

[Ns1]

I didn't realize that was the only form of violence 🙄

I never said it was. I'm just saying that there hasn't been any male gang rape victims, so there are no male gang rape stories to sensationalize. So your claim that we are ignoring 50% of the victims is incorrect, as there are (apparently) no male gang rape victims.

Western media did appropriately cover the male assault victim btw. He just didn't suffer nearly as bad as the girl, which is why we focus on her.

 

[Newell Steamer]

No one is painting India in a bad light,.. other than Indians doing illegal, bad and terrible things.