The grisly Delhi bus gang rape was not the first of its kind nor will it certainly be the last, for most men since the start of civilisations — well why, even in the stone ages, had been found to be sadistic towards the weaker sex basically because of their bad genes and that wild kick of unmanageable hormones that prompted the bad type to consider momentary or long term possession of woman with the use of devilish force.
The sad thing is that while civilisations have progressed though evolution, that wild, basic instinct of man has chosen to remain primitive and dangerous, refusing to evolve out of that comfortable cocoon of the stone age psyche.
It is about time one felt disgraceful of being a man when one comes across such incidents of gang rapes, rapes, molestations and sodomy reported in the media which has become an everyday affair, all being the sordid and despicable acts of the man against the weak and the vulnerable sex. Though one cannot tell a rapist by the way he looks for it is a myth that a rapist is necessarily a psycho-schizophrenic man plagued by timidity and sexual deprivation, or he must be a Freudian stereotype with a domineering mother or wife. Or that he is necessarily a criminal or has an institution raised upbringing that must have deprived him of the blissful affection of a mother and sister that usually disciplines a man to be deferential to the opposite sex.
A rapist could be a brother, a friend, a father, a son, a neighbour or a colleague-just anyone we come across as a normal human being in our day to day life and we may not know him. Why it could be us, potential offenders, if we don’t socially learn to ostracise or at least avoid men who are known sexual offenders. It is time we must stop openly befriending a man who shows any tendency that slights, mocks or degrades woman in any way.
While some of our leaders, bureaucrats, social activists and conservative researchers are busy peddling the useless rape and molestation myths blaming it on the victim for her scant and provocative dressing sense, liberal lifestyle and late night venturing into possible places where she was vulnerable, they don’t realise that they are propagating the veiled assumptions that a woman raped is mostly the woman who should have known that she had it coming.
What do they say to the para- medical student who was gang raped on a bus even when she was accompanied by a male friend, and mind it she was not in a dark alley, but on a public transport in the national capital? It is the man and man alone who is to be blamed whenever a woman is subjected to sex offence. It is high time we taught our adolescents on top priority basis in schools and at homes on why one must be essentially courteous and respectful of the weaker sex.