Mary Jayne Pinheiro
The gruesome gangrape of Nirbhaya in 2012 had drawn visceral response from the nation.There were protests and candlelight marches held across the country. The widespread agitation forced the government to amend existing criminal law.
However, even after the amendment to the penal code of criminal act came into force, crimes against women have not reduced. It is astonishing to know that India is passing through a tribulant phase with regard to women security, cases of rapes, marital rapes, domestic violence, trafficking and acid attacks are on the rise, on a daily basis.
The increasing number of crimes against women indicates that the ‘Worth’ of a woman has neither been clearly understood nor accepted by man. Every Man has to understand the fact, that a woman was created by God and gifted to him as his lifetime companion. It is due to bad influence, wrong conditioning of the mind, over thousands of years in the male-dominated society, men are engaged in the process of exploiting women and unfortunately the exploitation is still continuing in the modern educated 21st Century society.
A woman is born with compassion, has more understandIng and filled with kindness and love. The woman is sensitive and vulnerable. These tremendous qualities in her make her a beautiful woman. Perhaps God gave the responsibility to give birth to a child to a women only because they are courageous and tolerant to hold the child for nine months in their womb.
The men who understand all of these qualities in a women are truly genuine, are gentlemen and so they will always respect women. These men are few in society, but, most of them knowingly take advantage of women and exploit them extensively; sexually, emotionally and economically.
Only when men start respecting women, the inhuman crimes against women will be eradicated.
There are men in the society who treat their mother’s as goddesses but ill-treat their wives, in such situations women are equally responsible for exploiting other women. There are several marital rapes and domestic violence which go unreported because either tormented wives do not want to take legal action against their husbands due to long delay in the court proceedings to get justice or simply because women are not aware of their constitutional rights, therefore bear in silence.
A society where women are not secure, protected and respected is not worth calling civilized society. Today, our society has a big challenge of how to change the mindset of men to make them to respect and honour women. It has to take the responsibility and strive to succeed in creating a less patriarchal and violence free society.
