PANORAMA
Masculinities and Violence against Women
A grim report on violence against women in Bangladesh has recently been published by a Dhaka based human rights coalition called Odhikar that should agitate the concerned citizens of this country no matter which aisles of the political divide they may belong to. It tells a macabre story that, however, only touches the tip of the iceberg. Notwithstanding it is a horrifying account of how the women of our cherished land, where incidentally both the government and opposition are headed by female leaders, have been treated during the year 1999. The violence against women in 1999, according to this report, had been steadily on the rise. A total of 835 women were raped during this year. Of them, 10 raped by policemen. Sixty-seven women died as dowry victims, while some 153 women sustained acid burns. The report poignantly points that violence against women has now become pervasive and systematic. Ironically, the year ended with the saga of on going repression against women that perhaps was epitomized by the highly publicized assault on a young woman at Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) at Dhaka University in presence of hundreds of young men and law enforcing agency. The nation should hang its head in shame at the fact that it had taken place in a university campus thought to be the sanctuary for the victims of all injustices. It should be a clarion call for everybody to wake up and start searching for the causes for such heinous behaviour of a section of our population that no civilized society should be ready to accept.
But in reality what transpired so far were a few pieces of articles in the newspapers, some highly commendable editorials that created only a very minimal impact on the society at large. There was no outcry, no sense of shame, and no signs of remorse on the part of either our political leadership or leaders of the civil society. What has come to the fore is that the concerned citizens are not yet ready to treat the issue of violence against women in Bangladesh through holistic approach. Until and unless such approach is taken it would be difficult to arrest the decay that is afflicting our society so badly. Such an approach calls for a deeper look and insights so as to find the reasons why such repression against women are galore in Bangladesh and why does the society tolerate such pervasive misconduct of a section of our male population. The whole issue would have a superficial treatment if we just confine ourselves to the ineffectiveness of our law enforcing agencies and the use of political connections by the perpetrators, which has been evidenced by the eyewash treatment awarded to the culprits of Jahangirnagar University and recent "failure" by police to arrest the main assailant of TSC incident.
There is, however, no doubt that the lack of transparency and ineffectiveness and protection given by the ruling political party to their so-called student leaders who are guilty, do in effect encourage (not officially but unofficially) the crimes, and give some kind of license to the anti-social elements to go on their rampage but a deeper look reveals a mindset of the police, most of whom are male, that more than anything else helps perpetuate the process of repression against women. A mindset immersed in the belief that men are naturally masculine that propagates aggression in men and their association with violence. It is accepted as a normal male characteristic. In reality, however, it is a cultural construction - social practices that associate men with violence. The reasons being that men's masculinities and their natural tendency to resort to violence are rooted in the writings of ancient and modern political theorists, so-called findings in hormonal testosterone levels, sociobiological readings, religious sermons like the Chokhbazar Hadiths, and versions of history in which men are socialized to be aggressive for the survival of their species. Thus it is presumed to be all right for the men to be physically rough and immoral.
Such mental attitudes set trends in our cultural milieu creating a socio-cultural matrix that tacitly accepts aggression on the part of the men. So our cultural environment permits an all pervasive tendency to put the women on the dock whatever the situation might be. Hence, the female students of Jahangirnager University were thought to be responsible for inviting rapes by being out in the campus at so-called odd hours and by not dressing properly. Underlying assumption had been that 'boys would be boys,' and it was the women who were responsible for the situation and in effect enticing them to commit the 'crime.' It was difficult to explain even to our so-called progressive colleagues that no woman in her right mind is going to invite rape. The continued process of putting women on guilty trip did not end here. Such perverted thinking and psychology got epitomized in the form of an ad in the newspaper that eligible (?) bachelors were no more interested in marrying the female students, including the ex-ones. This gender-based condemnation of the victims, thus, eased the way out for the actual culprits.
The victim of TSC assault is also facing similar criticisms and furor. More than anything else people, including the police, are now questioning her judgement as well as her personal and moral character. Most do not realize that it was her right to be there to celebrate the coming of the millennium along with other citizens and it was no body's business to inflict physical and psychological trauma on her. It can perhaps be better explained if we examine the flip side of the coin. What would have been the reactions if a young man would have been murdered on that night for being out there? Would the society have taken system into task or would it have blamed the man for being out there? There is no need to look far to search for an answer. The system, of course. But in case of women, it is totally different. Women, thus, are routinely blamed whenever anything goes wrong in our social, political and religious discourse. They are condemned whether there is divorce in the family, or for having misguided children, or causing husband's alleged ill health or whatever. Obviously, society looks the other way even when women become the victims of rape or murder because there is always someone to blame for. The manifestation of such horrible psychology came to the fore during Shazneen murder when people were vainly trying to blame even her mother (as Shazneen was already dead) for that gruesome incident. So masculinities create environment as well as a set of beliefs that put men in a level of thinking that permits them to be physically violent.
This, however, would be too much of a generalization since all men are not violent. The practice of violence against women, however, becomes endemic and systematic when this concept of masculinities is transformed into hegemonic masculinity that "commands the state" ( Bob Connell: 1985). Systematic violence against women takes place when the state is imbued with hegemonic masculinities that "entail establishing or maintaining power relations, which crucially includes naturalizing or normalizing power relations. The subordination of women and other alleged inferior men with 'feminine characteristics' are, thus, the bedrock of hegemonic masculinity. It is system from which all men benefit, though not all men support it" (Mike Donaldson: 1993). In this context the cultural norms, as mentioned earlier, and creation of systematic terror emerge through the demonstration of male power so as to intimidate women in order to make them less effective. Acid throwing, dowry deaths, rape and murders are only various weapons used to make that power clearly visible.
I urge people to try to understand that incidents at Jahangirnagar University or TSC are not merely sexually driven phenomenon but in the larger context they have been viewed as crude and obscene attempts by hegemonic masculinities to counter the challenges by women to have the guts to be on the spots, which the men feel must be met. That is why the officer-in-Charge of Ramna Thana could very easily ease his conscience and his inaction by stating that the woman concerned at TSC deserved it because she was not allegedly properly dressed. The underlying message is she should not have been there because she was not following men designated social and cultural norms and had the audacity to be there that was felt to be subdued by male dominance. The psychology of male dominance and demonstration of male power was more crudely evidenced when a middle aged union parishad female member was gang raped because she did not comply with their unfair demand, which she exercised in capacity as a female.
The root of violence against women, thus, seems to be rooted in the masculinities - the one that is hegemonic and globalised. What are its remedies? The solution lies in the willingness of the men to change. The pertinent question is: are the men willing to change in their "moral-intellectual outlook or in their psychic-social behaviour?" For their willingness to change is a giant step forward and extremely vital in changing the basic character of the state itself. First step in that direction is to recognize that such a phenomenon does exist in Bangladesh and willingness on the part of the men to try to give up their masculinities both individual and hegemonic. Once it is psychologically accepted necessary remedial steps should be coming forth spontaneously, as along with it there would emerge a changing power relationship in whose context subjugation of women by men would be redundant. The state in that context would itself take up strategies like public pronouncements of the leaders denouncing masculinities in strongest possible terms, making required changes in educational curricula, energizing socializing agencies to disseminate mutually respectable gender relations etc, and only then the pervasive and systematic violence against women would be minimized.
One prominent citizen of our country through his column in this very paper, on behalf of the society, had apologized to the women of Bangladesh for inflicting so much pain and violence on them. Apology is asked when one feels that one had done some wrong that signals the concerned party's desire to rectify it. From that perspective it is welcomed and should be treated as a new beginning. His gracious apology is accepted but may I remind him and others that individual apology is not enough. It has to be a collective one, and that it should not be the end in itself. Rather it is hoped that recognition of the wrong would help launch a new mode of thinking that would shape the power relations between men and women on equal basis and thereby eliminate the scope of violence against women in the country. That arduous task lies heavily and squarely on the shoulders of the men. Hopefully, they would live up to those expectations.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments