I Was Wounded; My Honor Wasn’t

THE NEWYORK TIMES (OPINION PAGES)OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Published: January 7, 2013

I Was Wounded; My Honor Wasn’t
By SOHAILA ABDULALI




THIRTY-TWO years ago, when I was 17 and living in Bombay, I was gang raped and nearly killed. Three years later, outraged at the silence and misconceptions around rape, I wrote a fiery essay under my own name describing my experience for an Indian women’s magazine. It created a stir in the women’s movement — and in my family — and then it quietly disappeared. Then, last week, I looked at my e-mail and there it was. As part of the outpouring of public rage after a young woman’s rape and death in Delhi, somebody posted the article online and it went viral. Since then, I have received a deluge of messages from people expressing their support.


Woman Dies After a Gang Rape That Galvanized India (December 29, 2012)
Related in Opinion


It’s not exactly pleasant to be a symbol of rape. I’m not an expert, nor do I represent all victims of rape. All I can offer is that — unlike the young woman who died in December two weeks after being brutally gang raped, and so many others — my story didn’t end, and I can continue to tell it.

When I fought to live that night, I hardly knew what I was fighting for. A male friend and I had gone for a walk up a mountain near my home. Four armed men caught us and made us climb to a secluded spot, where they raped me for several hours, and beat both of us. They argued among themselves about whether or not to kill us, and finally let us go.

At 17, I was just a child. Life rewarded me richly for surviving. I stumbled home, wounded and traumatized, to a fabulous family. With them on my side, so much came my way. I found true love. I wrote books. I saw a kangaroo in the wild. I caught buses and missed trains. I had a shining child. The century changed. My first gray hair appeared.

Too many others will never experience that. They will not see that it gets better, that the day comes when one incident is no longer the central focus of your life. One day you find you are no longer looking behind you, expecting every group of men to attack. One day you wind a scarf around your throat without having a flashback to being choked. One day you are not frightened anymore.

Rape is horrible. But it is not horrible for all the reasons that have been drilled into the heads of Indian women. It is horrible because you are violated, you are scared, someone else takes control of your body and hurts you in the most intimate way. It is not horrible because you lose your “virtue.” It is not horrible because your father and your brother are dishonored. I reject the notion that my virtue is located in my vagina, just as I reject the notion that men’s brains are in their genitals.

If we take honor out of the equation, rape will still be horrible, but it will be a personal, and not a societal, horror. We will be able to give women who have been assaulted what they truly need: not a load of rubbish about how they should feel guilty or ashamed, but empathy for going through a terrible trauma.

The week after I was attacked, I heard the story of a woman who was raped in a nearby suburb. She came home, went into the kitchen, set herself on fire and died. The person who told me the story was full of admiration for her selflessness in preserving her husband’s honor. Thanks to my parents, I never did understand this.

The law has to provide real penalties for rapists and protection for victims, but only families and communities can provide this empathy and support. How will a teenager participate in the prosecution of her rapist if her family isn’t behind her? How will a wife charge her assailant if her husband thinks the attack was more of an affront to him than a violation of her?

At 17, I thought the scariest thing that could happen in my life was being hurt and humiliated in such a painful way. At 49, I know I was wrong: the scariest thing is imagining my 11-year-old child being hurt and humiliated. Not because of my family’s honor, but because she trusts the world and it is infinitely painful to think of her losing that trust. When I look back, it is not the 17-year-old me I want to comfort, but my parents. They had the job of picking up the pieces.

This is where our work lies, with those of us who are raising the next generation. It lies in teaching our sons and daughters to become liberated, respectful adults who know that men who hurt women are making a choice, and will be punished.

When I was 17, I could not have imagined thousands of people marching against rape in India, as we have seen these past few weeks. And yet there is still work to be done. We have spent generations constructing elaborate systems of patriarchy, caste and social and sexual inequality that allow abuse to flourish. But rape is not inevitable, like the weather. We need to shelve all the gibberish about honor and virtue and did-she-lead-him-on and could-he-help-himself. We need to put responsibility where it lies: on men who violate women, and on all of us who let them get away with it while we point accusing fingers at their victims.

Sohaila Abdulali is the author of the novel “Year of the Tiger.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 12, 2013


An earlier version of this article misstated the number of years since the writer was raped. It was 32 years, not 33 years.

I FOUGHT FOR MY LIFE .. AND WON

“I Fought For My Life...And Won”

SOHAILA ABDULALINo. 16 (June-July 1983)  MANUSHI


 I was gang raped three years ago, when Iwas 17 years old. My name and myphotograph appear with this article.
I grew up in Bombay, and am at presentstudying in the USA. I am writing a thesison rape and came home to do research acouple of weeks ago. Ever since that daythree years ago, I have been intenselyaware of the misconceptions people haveabout rape, about those who rape andthose who survive rape. I have also beenaware of the stigma that attaches tosurvivors. Time and again, people havehinted that perhaps death would havebeen better than the loss of that precious“virginity.” I refuse to accept this. My lifeis worth too much to me.
I feel that many women keep silent toavoid this stigma, but suffer tremendousagony because of their silence. Men blamethe victim for many reasons, and,shockingly, women too blame the victim,perhaps because of internalized patriarchalvalues, perhaps as a way of makingthemselves invulnerable to a horrifyingpossibility.
It happened on a warm July evening.That was the year women’s groups werebeginning to demand improved legislationon rape. I was with my friend Rashid. Wehad gone for a walk and were sitting on amountainside about a mile and a half frommy home in Chembur which is a suburb ofBombay. We were attacked by four men,who were armed with a sickle. They beatus, forced us to go up the mountain, andkept us there for two hours. We werephysically and psychologically abused,and, as darkness fell, we were separated,screaming, and they raped me, keepingRashid hostage. If either of us resisted,the other would get hurt. This was aneffective tactic.
They could not decide whether or notto kill us. We did everything in our powerto stay alive. My goal was to live and thatwas more important than anything else. Ifought the attackers physically at first, andwith words after I was pinned down. Angerand shouting had no effect, so I began tobabble rather crazily about love andcompassion, I spoke of humanity and thefact that I was a human being, and so werethey, deep inside. They were gentler afterthis, at least those who were not rapingme at the moment. I told one of them that ifhe ensured neither Rashid nor I was killed,1 would come back to meet him, the rapist,the next day. Those words cost me morethan I can say, but two lives were in thebalance. The only way I would ever havegone back there was with a very, very sharpinstrument that would ensure that he neverraped again.
After what seemed like years of torture(I think I was raped 10 times but I was in somuch pain that I lost track of what wasgoing on after a while), we were let go,with a final long lecture on what an immoralwhore I was to be alone with a boy. Thatinfuriated them more than anything. Theyacted the whole time as if they were doingme a favour, teaching me a lesson. Theirswas the most fanatical kind of selfrighteousness.
They took us down the mountain andwe stumbled on to the dark road, clingingto each other and walking unsteadily. Theyfollowed us for a while, brandishing thesickle, and that was perhaps the worst partof all—escape was so near yet death hungover us. Finally we got home, broken,bruised, shattered. It was such anincredible feeling to let go, to stopbargaining for our lives and weighing everyword because we knew the price ofangering them was a sickle in the stomach.Relief flooded into our bones and out ofour eyes and we literally collapsed intohysterical howling.
I had earnestly promised the rapiststhat I would never tell any one but theminute I got home, told my father to callthe police He was as anxious as I was toget them apprehended. I was willing to doanything to prevent someone else having


o go through what I had been through.The police were insensitive,contemptuous, and somehow managed tomake me the guilty party. When they askedme what had happened,I told them quitedirectly, and they were scandalized that Iwas not a shy, blushing victim. When theysaid there would be publicity, I said thatwas all right. It had honestly neveroccurred to me that Rashid or I could beblamed. When they said I would have togo into a home for juvenile delinquentsfor my “protection.” I was willing to livewith pimps and rapists, in order to be ableto bring my attackers to justice.
Soon I realized that justice for womensimply does not exist in the legal system.When they asked us what we had beendoing on the mountain, 1 began to getindignant. When they asked Rashid whyhe had been “passive”, I screamed. Didn’tthey understand that his resistance meantfurther torture for me? When they askedquestions about what kind of clothes I hadbeen wearing, and why there were novisible marks on Rashid’s body (he hadinternal bleeding from being repeatedly hitin the stomach with the handle of thesickle), I broke down in complete miseryand terror, and my father threw them outof the house after telling them exactly whathe thought of them. That was the extent ofthe support the police gave me. Nocharges were brought. The police recordeda statement that we had gone for a walkand had been “delayed” on our return.
It has been almost three years now, butthere has not been even one day, when Ihave not been haunted by what happened.Insecurity, vulnerability, fear, anger,helplessness—I fight these constantly.Sometimes when I am walking on the roadand hear footsteps behind I start to sweatand have to bite my lip to keep fromscreaming. I flinch at friendly touches, Ican’t bear tight scarves that feel like handsround my throat, I flinch at a certain lookthat comes into men’s eyes—that look isthere so often.
Yet in many ways I feel that I am astronger person now. I appreciate my lifemore than ever. Every day is a gift. I foughtfor my life, and won. No negative reactioncan make me stop feeling that this ispositive.
I do not hate men. It is too easy a thingto do, and many men are victims of differentkinds of oppression. It is patriarchy I hate,and that incredible tissue of lies that saymen are superior to women, men haverights which women should not have, menare our rightful conquerors.
My feminist friends all assume that Iam concerned about women’s issuesbecause I was raped. This is not so. Therape was one expression of all the reasonswhy I am a feminist. Why compartmentalizerape ? Why assume rape is only anunwanted act of intercourse ? Are we notraped every day when we walk down thestreet and are leered at ? Are we not rapedwhen we are treated as sex objects, deniedour rights, oppressed in so many ways ?The oppression of women cannot beanalysed unidimensionally. For example, aclass analysis is very important, but it doesnot explain why most rapes occur withinone’s own class.
As long as women are oppressed invarious ways, all women will continue tobe vulnerable to rape. We must stopmystifying rape. We must acknowledge itsexistence all round us, and the variousforms it takes. We must stop shrouding itin secrecy, and must see it for what it is —a crime of violence in which the rapist isthe criminal.
I am exultant at being alive. Being rapedwas terrible beyond words, but I thinkbeing alive is more important. When awoman is denied the right to feel this, thereis something very wrong in our valuesystem. When someone is mugged andallows herself to be beaten in order tosurvive, no one thinks she is guilty ofwilling consent to be beaten. In the caseof rape, a woman is asked why she let themdo it, why she did not resist, whether sheenjoyed it.
Rape is not specific to any group ofwomen, nor are rapists a particular groupof men. A rapist could be a brutal madmanor the boy next door or the too friendlyuncle. Let us stop treating rape as theproblem of other women. Let usacknowledge its universality and come toa better understanding of it.
Until the basis of power relationshipsin this world changes, until women ceaseto be regarded as the property of men, wewill have to live in constant fear of beingviolated with impunity.
1 am a survivor. I did not ask to beraped and I did not enjoy it. It was theworst torture I have ever known. Rape isnot the woman’s fault, ever. This article isone contribution towards exploding thesilence and the comfortable myths whichwe build up to convince ourselves we arenot potential victims, thus consigningactual victims to the most agonizingisolation a human being can know. 􀂈

HER ONLY FAULT

Her only fault was she got on the wrong bus!!! 

She was a student
She was 23
Her fault some people say because she boarded the wrong bus
And oh yeah
SHE WAS A GIRL
... Six men raped her one by one and then used an iron rod to tear her vagina
Small intestine and large intestine came out
They left her to die on the road
Naked
Wounded
Exposed
Devastated
What’s more is that no one even turned to look at her
No one even bothered to throw a shawl on the ill-clad
ill-fated girl
She can never live a normal married life again
She Went into coma five times since 16th December
She was unconscious
Critical and hasn't been able to stop crying
But don’t worry
She wasn't your sister
She wasn't your daughter
But she could be. The brutality has to stop right here guys
These people deserve capital punishment for their heinous
Perverted act
She died  Saturday 28th
December 2012
Rest in Peace and I pray that her killers get the WORST punishment possible
This doesn't only happen in India..
But in every country around the world..
Is this how we treat our women?
It Makes me ashamed to even live on this planet today

BEFORE THEY WERE MOTHERS

Before they were mothers
Leto ans Niobe
had been the most
devoted of friends
Sappho




SLEEP,DARLING
             
Sleep darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is
like a golden 
flower
I wouldn't 
take all croesus'
kingdom with love 
thrown in, for her 
Don't ask me what to wear
I have no embroidered 
headband from Sardis to 
give you, Cleis, such as 
I wore 
and my mother 
always said that in her 
day a purple ribbon 
looped in the hair was thought 
to be high style indeed 
but we wer dark: 
a girl 
whose hair is yellower than 
torchlight should wear no 
headdress but fresh flowers
Sappho

இந்த கவிதைகளில் தளும்பும் உணர்வுகளை பார்த்தீர்களா? ஆயிரமாண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பும் 

பெண்களின் நட்பு வட்டம் சிறிதாக தான் இருந்திருக்கிறது. 

நாம் பேசிக்கொண்ட நேரங்களில் எப்பொழுதோ 

நீங்கள் சொன்ன தனிமையை சாப்போவின் கவிதைகளில் நிறைந்திருக்கும் தனிமையுடன் சேர்த்து பார்க்கிறேன். 

இப்போதும் தனிமை திணிக்கப்படுகின்ற கலாச்சாரமாக 

பெண்களுக்கு ஒரு துளி கூட மாறாமல் அப்படியே.

 நம் அப்பாவும் அண்ணனும் தனிமை தேடினார்கள். 

அது அவர்களுக்கு ஆற்றலை திரும்ப பெறுவதற்கான தீர்வாக..

நாம் அதற்குள்ளேயே வாழ்ந்தும் ஆற்றலை இழந்துக்கொண்டே ..

அது கட்டாயமாக்கப்பட்டது.  

நண்பர்களை விட்டு தொலைவில் ,

பெற்றோர்களை விட்டு தொலைவில் ,

பிறகு கணவனை அலுத்து போகும் நாட்களில் 

உணர்வுகளிலிருந்தும் தொலைவில், 

குழந்தைகளுக்கு நம்மை புரியாமல் போகும் வயதில் 

பு றத்தின் கற்பனைகளிலிருந்தும் தொலைவில் ... 

தனிமை , தனிமை , 

பல நேரங்களிலும் வேதனையின் உருமாற்றமாக தனிமை ...

மங்கையர்கரசியார்

மங்கையர்கரசியார் ,.பாண்டிய மன்னனின் மனைவி, சமண மதத்தினரால் அரசனுக்கும் நாட்டுக்கும் ஏற்பட்ட துன்பங்களிலிருந்தும் மீட்க எடுத்த சில முயற்சிகளை நாயன்மார் கதைகளில் படித்தேன். அவரை பற்றி பரவலாக பேசப்படவில்லை. அதற்கு காரணம் என்னவாக இருக்கும் என்று நினைக்கிறீர்கள் தோழரே .. சாவித்ரியும் சீதையும் கண்ணகியும் பெண்களின் ஒழுக்கத்திற்கு ஒற்றை மூலியாக வலம் வரும் போதும் இவரை போன்றவர்கள் ஏன் மறைந்திருக்கிறார்கள் ? 

பர்லக்ஸ் நடனக்கலை

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இது நம்ம ஊரு கரகாட்டம்/ரெகார்ட் டான்ஸ் மாதிரியா?
நம்ம ஊரு டான்ஸ்களையும் கொஞ்சம் இந்த மாதிரி புரமோட்
பண்ணக் கூடாதா?  -மாதவி.

மீரா:
தோழீ, இது நம்ம ஊரு ஆட்டங்கள் மாதிரி கிடையாது. இது பிரெஞ்சு மூலம் வந்த ஒரு அருமையான மேடை கலை. கவிதைகளுக்கும் இலக்கிய எழுத்துக்களுக்கும் ஆன உடல் மொழியாக தொடங்கிய இந்த கலை பிறகு நகைச்சுவை கலர்ந்து மேடையில் வந்தது. ஒரு கேரிகேச்சர் ஆக. சமூகத்தின் பலபல பிரச்சினைகளும் பாரடிகளாக(Parody ) இப்படி வந்திருக்கிறது.   சில்விய பிளாத்தின் கவிதைகள் கூட இந்த பர்லஸ்கு நடன கலை வழியாக மேடையில் அரேங்கேறியிருக்கிறது.  மட்டுமல்ல. இருபதாம் நூற்றாண்டின் முதல் பகுதிகளில் எப்பொழுதோ இந்த கலை அமெரிக்காவில் தடை செய்யப்பபட்டது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.  பிறகு பெண்ணுடலை கொண்டாடும் ஒரு கவிதை காட்சியாக இது மெருக்கேறி உலாவருகிறது.  "உறுப்புக்கள் ஒவ்வொன்றும் அழகானவை. அவையில் உணர்வுகள் படியும்போது அவை பேசுகிறது. கொஞ்சுகிறது நடனம் ஆடுகிறது. அழுகிறது. சிரிக்கிறது.. இது தான் பெண்ணுடல். உங்களை பேணுபவளும் காதலிப்பவளும் காமிப்பவளும் ஆன பெண் இந்த உறுப்புக்கள் வழியாக தான் ஆன்மாவை உங்கள் முன் வைக்கிறாள் .  அதை சிதைக்காதீர்கள் "என்ற  அழுத்தமான கருத்துடன் மேடையேறிய ஆயிரக்கணக்கான   பர்லஸ்கு நடன கலைஞர்கள் மேற்கத்திய நாடுகளில் எங்கும் இருந்திருக்கிறார்கள். இருக்கிறார்கள். 

உடலில் இருந்தும் ஆடைகளை களைந்து இறுக்கமல்லாத  ஒரு மனநிலையில் அந்த பெண்கள் ஆடி உணரவைக்கிறார்கள். அருமையான ஒரு கருத்து. இல்லையா. 

நம்மூர் பண்பாட்டு கலைக்கும் இதற்கும் ரொம்ப தூரம்.  சில விஷயங்களில் வெள்ளையர்கள் நம்மை விட அறிவார்ந்தவர்கள். பல பொழுதும்  அவர்கள் பரிணாம ஏணியில் நம்மை விட ஒரு படி மேலே இருக்கிறார்கள் என்பது உண்மை என்று கூட தோன்றுகிறது. ... 

மீரா