Gender and Violence and Blame

POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 20:14
VIEWED: 35151
PAGE 30 of 31

PREV PAGE 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NEXT PAGE

RIONAEIRE

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 7:38 AM

If living off the land is what it takes to get Byte eating nonbegan again then I'm all for it! Plus some people are happiest that way, just being connected to the earth and I think that is beautiful and something special. I love survival novels, the more clichet tropes the better! I have no chance in the wild and when I was a younger woman, and an older girl, that made me very sad and upset, I could never be truely timeless, I was bound to this world and this modern way of life and that hurt me badly.

But since I've found ways to be timeless inside myself and except the reality I live in, because I have ways of escaping it for a little while and being anything I want to be, and having that way to be something good and beautiful makes real life more manageable and doable and even not so very bad, I can survive it now.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 8:41 PM

Back on track

Quote:
The lawyer representing three of the men charged with the gang rape and murder of a medical student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi has blamed the victims for the assault, saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India.

Manohar Lal Sharma said his clients will plead not guilty to all charges tomorrow when they make their next court appearance. His comments come as Indians have reacted with outrage to the opinions of politicians and a religious preacher who have accused westernized women of inviting sexual assaults. Sharma said the male companion of the murdered 23-year-old was "wholly responsible" for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets at night.

"Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady," Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court in India's capital. "Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect."

Sharma's comments highlight frequently aired attitudes toward women in India. Activists say reporting of sex crimes and police investigations of rape are hindered by a tendency to blame the victim for not following the traditional, conservative social roles ascribed to women.
Advertisement

"This is the mentality which most Indian men are suffering from unfortunately," said Ranjana Kumari, director for the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. "That is the mindset that has been perpetrating this crime because they justify it indirectly, you asked for it so it is your responsibility."

'Chant God's Name'

A spiritual guru, Asharam, sparked an outcry earlier this week when he said the New Delhi victim was equally responsible and should have "chanted God's name and fallen at the feet of the attackers" to stop the assault.

Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that underpins the country's main opposition political party, said rapes only occur in Indian cities, not in its villages, because women there adopt western lifestyles.

Sharma said the man and woman should not have been traveling back late in the evening and making their journey on public transport. He also it was the man's responsibility to protect the woman and that he had failed in his duty.

"The man has broken the faith of the woman," Sharma said. "If a man fails to protect the woman, or she has a single doubt about his failure to protect her, the woman will never go with that man."

Sharma, 56, a Supreme Court lawyer for the last two decades, says that his clients are innocent.

Courtroom Chaos

"This is a very complicated case and the matter has not been solved yet," he said. Police have said they have DNA evidence linking all six to the crime.

Ram Singh, the driver of the bus and the alleged ringleader, is struggling to communicate and fluctuating between crying and laughing, Sharma said. Sharma, who has also been appointed to represent Singh's brother Mukesh and Akshay Kumar Singh, who is unrelated, plans to challenge police over their handling of the evidence.

Sharma's appointment comes after chaotic scenes on Jan. 7 that forced the magistrate to order a private hearing over concerns for the safety of the accused. Sharma was one of two lawyers denounced by other advocates for volunteering to represent the defendants. Arguments and scuffles over his offer led the magistrate to order the court room be cleared and future sessions to be held behind closed doors.

The gang rape of the woman on Dec. 16 provoked a sustained and charged debate about the safety of women in the world's biggest democracy. The brutality of the crime and allegations by a male friend of the victim that it took police 45 minutes to respond to calls outraged the nation.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 9:00 PM

Quote:
saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India.

Quote:
said rapes only occur in Indian cities, not in its villages, because women there adopt western lifestyles.

One of your own female prime ministers was raped in a village. Repeatedly! And you dicks voted for her, guess she suddenly became respectable huh! Because it's not like she was respectable before, or deserved to be afforded any respect because she was a living PERSON!

Respect. I'll tell you fuckers who's gonna get no respect! You assholes stand by while someone who could be your sister, your wife, your mother gets raped, then you animals aren't even fucking HUMAN, and you deserve no respect from any of the rest of us! Fall on a funeral fire, maybe you'll get an APPRECIATION for how it feels to be one of your nation's women!

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 12, 2013 4:58 PM

BYTE: I wasn't taking at dig at you about living in civilization, I was being tongue-in-cheek about ME. I guess it didn't translate well. Old as I am, I enjoy not having to work brutally hard 12 hours a day (study of peasant and colonist bones here and in the EU indicate a short lifetime of unremitting toil, starting at the age of 5.) and I like the idea of modern medicine and modern plumbing.

FREM, HKC, TONY... You guys still haven't accepted the fact that even YOUR ideal societies have rules, and you still haven't figured out how to make them durable and less corruptable.

FREM: Raise them right, and everybody will turn out OK. But what if they don't, and what if they don't? Your answer is the monkeysphere but I got news for you... our society is no longer a monkeysphere, and some of our biggest robber barons are very personable. Your suggestion is too primitive.

TONY I include you because you're our favorite libertarian. In YOUR world, there are only two "valid" responses... shooting someone, and individual market response. If you can't fix it using your wallet or your gun, it can't be fixed. Your adherence to "individualism" as the basis of "freedom" is unrealistic. Even our FF realized that in order to create freedom, they HAD to create rules.

HKC: You answer is individual adjustment to the situation, so again, YOUR "rules" rule out other responses which may be more effective.

Yanno, I'm trying to look at this from the broadest possible perspective... freedom might need a structure which promotes it, and that it MAY require some sort of collective and (in a society which is economically integrated over a wide range) relatively impersonal rules. You seem to keep pushing the idea that we're back in the late 1700's and that we can handle things at the individual/ family/ village level. I obviously don't think that will work. Society is NOT just the average response of individuals. If it were, we would never be in the mess we are today. Since this seems to be an area in which people are not looking beyond what they already feel comfortable with, I'll just push on by myself. Thanks for the input.

BYTEMITE

Monday, January 14, 2013 4:04 PM

Quote:
You guys still haven't accepted the fact that even YOUR ideal societies have rules, and you still haven't figured out how to make them durable and less corruptable.

I'd argue Frem, HK, and Anthony are all for rules - they particularly like the ones about what the government can't do to it's citizens.

Corruption is an abuse of power. The less consolidated power there is, the less impact any corruption can have, and the easier it is to depose.

In fairness it's likely that business entities in our current system are not democratic enough, hence a concentration of power that allows executives to pollute small towns, gut a company, sell it off, and flee instead of run it properly. That concentration of power seeps into the governing body.

I've never thought that more investment in the government and government controls will improve regulations. But an outraged and educated public finally ALLOWED to have a real say in the system and those businesses might.

Ultimately, though, I have misgivings about forcing any kind of system on any individual, much as this shoddy-ass piece of society was forced on me like a pledge of allegiance because I was born here. Hence my individualized rejection of this awful society and its death spiral. Groups of people and individuals should be able to do what they want and organize how they want so long as they don't impede anyone's health, choices, or livelyhood.

Not really free unless you can leave.

FREMDFIRMA

Monday, January 14, 2013 8:02 PM

Ain't about "Rules" - it's about who makes em, and how they are enforced.

It's one thing to have the community as a whole generally agreeable on them, and enforce them with moral persuation, negotiation, and in extremis giving someone the cold shoulder and cutting them off from trade by virtue of the folks they'd deal with are the ones they've offended....

Yet another for some miniscule group to formulate arbitratry rules which benefit THEM, usually at others expense, and enforce them by ramming the gun barrels of The State down peoples throat forcing them to comply OR ELSE.

I suppose the issue is between asking, and telling.

Funny thing about that, even in military service, my superiors realized very quickly that asking me to do something would get it done quickly and well, with attention to detail and a little extra, as opposed to orders, which would get it done next week sometime-maybe and the halfassed bare minimum if that, and adapted accordingly.

So too could we.
IF we wanted to.
But no, it's just too EASY to manipulate the system into forcing your will on others, unwanted and unwelcome, behind the barrels of the weapons in the hands of The States enforcers, all the while pretending ones own hands are clean.

They ain't.

-Frem

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Monday, January 14, 2013 9:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Ultimately, though, I have misgivings about forcing any kind of system on any individual, much as this shoddy-ass piece of society was forced on me like a pledge of allegiance because I was born here. Hence my individualized rejection of this awful society and its death spiral. Groups of people and individuals should be able to do what they want and organize how they want so long as they don't impede anyone's health, choices, or livelyhood.

Not really free unless you can leave.

Sounds like you and Maggie Thatcher would have a lot in common.

"There is no such thing as society, only individuals and families."

I think we are compelled as a species to live in societies, and ALL societies, large and small have rules which individuals are expected to follow.

Perhaps the difference between unbearable and bearable societies is how much chance does an individual have in influencing those rules. And if you take a historical view, apart from very small communities, we're probably better off that any other point in time.

BYTEMITE

Monday, January 14, 2013 10:22 PM

I'm not sure a single quote that I don't know the context from is "a lot in common." Like maybe one thing in common if you kinda squint at it and stick your tongue out to the side.

There is always society, and there have always been people who remove themselves from society.

Quote:
And if you take a historical view, apart from very small communities, we're probably better off that any other point in time.

I think that might be removing like 99% of the human animal family history.

Better, sure. It still sucks.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:15 AM

Quote:
Corruption is an abuse of power. The less consolidated power there is, the less impact any corruption can have, and the easier it is to depose.

And so, given the apparently inevitable tendency for power to consolidate, what rules do you put in place to reverse the consolidation of power?

There is a very good description of how power consolidates and societies become corrupted in the Climate Change Hitting Home thread.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:29 AM

Quote:
It's one thing to have the community as a whole generally agreeable on them, and enforce them with moral persuation, negotiation, and in extremis giving someone the cold shoulder and cutting them off from trade by virtue of the folks they'd deal with are the ones they've offended....

Back in the day, you could have people generally agreeable that blacks weren't human. Some people still think that today.

Your idea that giving someone the cold shoulder ignores the fact that they COULD be very nice to you and the people around them, but brutalizing whole populations halfway around the world. What then?

Also, back in the day, banishment wasn't a social inconvenience, it was a death sentence. So, back in the day... a lifestyle my hubby actually lived in during post-war Hungary up in the mountains... social controls actually had teeth in them. We need something equivalent in today's extended economy because ultimately, in the end, someone actually has to enforce fairness on those who choose not to be.

I can't imagine how to translate your ideas on today's situation. It would only work in economies that are self-sufficient and isolated among those who know each other directly.

PREV PAGE 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NEXT PAGE