Open letter to western feminists
Reading posts about the horrid DSK trial – about who is “believed” and who isn’t, how rape intersects so closely with race, a “satiric” list of “eve-teasing” in India, all within six-seven hours of each other, has made one thing abundantly clear – My/our rape culture is not like your rape culture. While each post is different and can only be read in its own context and space —- there is a certain intersection somewhere. In each instance, it’s not “really” rape and/or sexual harassment, specifically because it’s seen as an outside to rape culture that mainstream (western) rhetoric of rape and rape culture allows for. That said, I can only speak of contexts, spaces and silencing that *I* know of, take note that I am not suggesting that every POC context of sexual assault and/or rape is interchangeable.
“Reasons” such as “you speak English”, “you have no respect for Indian culture” are so commonplace here, that reading them I was laughing and crying at almost the same time —- these are reasons I hear hugely. Then there is “she is too independent” and “it’s not rape if the woman is from the lower caste” that make my blood boil every time I hear them —- these are also things on which *our* rape culture is based on, where rape is used as a corrective tool. I know women who’ve been sexually assaulted by their family members because they had to be “taught a lesson” —- but none call it “rape”, mainly because we don’t speak out against “our families” —- there is a word that runs skin deep in many communities I am a part of and/or have worked with, called lajja or laaj, which roughly translated can be called “communal shame”. With laaj, we keep our heads down, we don’t report these instances, because we know either the police won’t help us, they may assault us or that after reporting these cases, we may not have resources to survive. Of course, I am not saying NO ONE reports rape cases, but the 100 or so women I’ve known of over the course of the past three years, all of us are sexual abuse, sexual assault and/or rape survivors, haven’t even considered reporting —- mainly because the abuse doesn’t have an end point. Many are still living in abusive situations, many may never not be in abusive spaces.
Western-centric rape culture speaks of misogyny and hatred, of possession of female-identified and female-presenting bodies because dominant bodies can get away with such brutality, because they’re all a part of a system that makes sure to perpetuate the unequal hierarchy —- all true, if you’re a part of the norm, if your body and context fit — then, your assault is read as assault, the moment it isn’t about a body that breathes within western borders, that is notwhite, that isn’t able-bodied, isn’t cisgendered, then you have to not only prove your assault, you also have to legitimise your worth, that you are a life worth something, that you deserve equality, kindness and love too.
How to talk of sexual abuse, if your abuse isn’t read as “abuse”, if it is seen as a one—time event, as a not-rape because the word “yes” was uttered, but still a rape took place? It still ritually takes place? That even when people do, on some parallel reality believe you, but ask “why don’t you report it?”, “why don’t you move out?”, “why don’t you have the answers to my questions?”, “why do you honestly believe that sometimes you are happy in an abusive space?”. Questions barreled with more questions, answers to things we don’t think of. With most organisations and (western) feminists I’ve worked with/ encountered, there is always a talk of closure. Inevitably, the dialogue goes to an end, a “way out” —- what I find missing is a space to heal, to cope even as abuse goes on. Rather, an erasure of narratives that happens in unfamiliar spaces to western rape culture rhetoric, that healing becomes, in a way, a route we must carve out on our own, in whichever way we can, in addition to having words and ideas re-enforce that [x] is rape culture, and while what happened/ is happening to us is unfortunate, but something rape culture doesn’t address, even though it pretends to.
All of us, outside some norm western rape culture terms, rhetoric and understanding holds on to. Often, we are not seen as rape survivors/victims — the idea that rape for us isn’t an issue, as much HEALING IS, is missing. For us, ways to heal, build safer spaces between cracks and margins of lies we tell ourselves and others that is rape culture.
This isn’t a “lash-out” post, I am not “angry” that experiences of me and mine are nowhere situated within rape culture as defined by most western feminism(s) —- definitely past anger —- rather this is a plea of a defeated person —- don’t assume universality. Difference doesn’t always have to be synonymous with “inferior”, “worse/better” —- difference can be, accept me in my contexts, in my spaces, just as I do for you. Don’t assume you speak for me, I can speak for myself —- listen when we do, whether in or out of groups, in tongues and dialects unfamiliar to you. Difference doesn’t have to be an Othered body, rather it can be another body you can lend your support to, no?
J.
