THE observation by an Indian Chief Minister a few years ago, degrading a former Miss World while commenting about her lack of beauty is disgusting and disturbing. According to this very knowledgeable man, ‘she did not have the beauty’ but still won the title!
I wonder what that same man is saying about all our women who won medals and titles during the Olympics? And his statement to my mind, is what rape is all about in this country, especially today.
If, according to the chief minister the beauty queen won without being beautiful, then she obviously won because of her confidence in herself. The confidence to stand tall like the most beautiful woman on earth.
The confidence to answer questions thrown at her, and the confidence to look a man in the eye as an equal and more!
This is what our men hate! They walk with a swagger along the paths of our country and say aloud as that CM said, “Look at that girl, walking like she owns the road!”
“She’s not even beautiful,” they say, “Let us show her, her place!” And the poor girl who has either taken a bus late home, or, had the confidence to walk boldly down a lonely road, is either left dead, bruised, broken or butchered, never to walk with confidence again.
Most often never to walk away alive Confident women like former Miss World, Diana Hayden frighten these men, and like the husband who assaults his intelligent wife everyday, because he cannot match her brains, these men too use brawn.
Or, give them ornamental posts, where they can be controlled! “You take over as headmistress of the school!” says the managing trustee.
“But sir, it has always been given to a man till now!” “Yes, it still is,” sniggers the trustee to himself, as he puts the strong woman in the post and then controls her day to day activities.
And it needn’t just be principals of schools, does it? It’s men with inferiority complexes and suddenly there seems to be a lot of them who do this, either pulling the woman off the bicycle of life she rides with confidence, or putting them in positions they can be controlled. “Sir,” says the puzzled woman after a while, “We are not moving forward!”
“It’s okay,” says the man, holding onto the handlebar, “We are moving the way I want!” Yes, it is, because the movement they want, is not the efforts of the confident woman, but the keeping of that woman either in place, or on the ground, writhing as an assault takes place. There’s rape going on in this country, and it ain’t only sexual..!
