TW: Sexual Assault, Rape, trauma
I am sure most of the people belonging to South Asian Culture have heard the phrase “teri zindagi kharab hogyi”.
In English, it translates to “Your life has ended” or “Your entire life has been damaged.”
Most of the time this phrase is used by the elders in the family for women who have been assaulted sexually or raped.
In any case, this is the best support that is provided by conservative families in South Asia. It starts with victim blaming and victim shaming, followed by “samaj kya kahega?” (what will society say?) , “kisi ko batana mat” (Don’t tell anyone) to “you should stop going out of the house until it is necessary”.
Instead of supporting her, they start blaming the woman. While they blame her with triggering comments such as ‘why did you wear these clothes’, ‘what were you doing outside at this hour’, ‘why did you talk to them first’ etc., they do not realize that they are propagating victim-blaming. This eventually leads to victim shaming when they start viewing the woman as ‘impure’ or ‘unrespected’. This unhealthy and toxic message is conveyed to the woman that she ought to feel ashamed even though she herself was never at fault.
Because a female in the family has been sexually assaulted, members in the conservative families automatically assume that their image in the society has been ruined. What I have a hard time understanding is what role does society play in all of it? How is staying silent the solution to all problems? And why does life feel like it has to end just because we’ve been assaulted, with no fault of our own?
I understand that trauma has the capacity to disrupt one's life. It leaves a scar that we eventually learn to live with. But to process everything after an assault and overcoming it requires a huge amount of support – support from family, loved ones, friends. What angers me most is why some brown families, instead of supporting the victim/survivor, provide unhealthy ways to tackle life. These ways are nothing but staying silent, moving on as if nothing happened, dress ‘sensibly’ to not attract male attention, reduce or stop going out of the house because according to them, the threat is never inside the house, it is always outside. Unfortunately, because this victim-blaming mindset and rape culture is so normalized in our society, our brown elders believe that their reputation lies in the hand of the daughters in the family. In any means, if daughters have sex before marriage, it is a shame to elders, and to the entire extended family.
How does a female’s sexuality bring shame or ruin the reputation of her family? This mindset propagates two thinking patterns. Firstly, that only female’s sex life will bring shame. What about male’s? If having sex before marriage brings shame to the family, then if a man has sex before marriage, does it not degrade family image then? If you reflect deeply, we all have been raised with this mindset. We tend to call a female a ‘slut’, ‘prostitute’ just because we know of her having sex before marriage.
Secondly, this thinking pattern also causes many females to feel ashamed and guilty of having sex before thier wedding. Many females themselves believe that because they did not wait until their wedding, they are in the category of sluts. This makes them feel ashamed of themselves when they are not wrong. Eventually this shame goes up the family chain and is believed to ruin the family reputation.
When a person is raped or sexually assaulted, the reputation that lies in thier private organs (that is in Yoni in most cases) is disrupted. Not surprisingly, this reputation was forcefully put by elders in the family to their daughters' bodies since birth. Surprisingly, no one seems to question it or find anything wrong with this practice.
In patriarchal society, where males have authority to do anything without questioning, females are supposed to be the carriers of all the reputation in the family. This mindset is built in us since birth, and we eventually do not see anything wrong with it.
What elders or people do not understand is that the health of the victim, justice to the victim and providing support by believing them is more important than their ‘unhealthy’ reputation. At such a time, when someone is going through trauma in life, forgetting it is not an option.
Constant support without victim-blaming is utmost important.
I still can not get over a personal experience of mine, where my high school principal back in my hometown told all the females present in the class to always behave in a certain way that would not show that I was excited because of something, otherwise it would gain some male attention. She told us to dress in a certain way where all that could be visible would be the face and the feet.
Lastly, she told us something that at one point seemed sensible, but now leaves me feeling sorry for her and ashamed of whom I had as a mentor in my life. She explained that fathers and grandfathers of daughters in the family have white turban. While fathers and grandfathers of sons in the family have black turban. If boys do something wrong, it is never seen on the turban as the colour of it is black. However, if a daughter does something wrong, it is easily seen on the changed colour of the turban. What she intended to say is that the whole family reputation lies in the hands of females, built or unbuilt on what they do. When a daughter gets sexually assaulted in the family, the white turban would become dirty that everyone in the society could see. Thus, being a female/ daughter is a huge responsibility that females carry with themselves of protecting their family’s reputation, even though they (females) never intended to carry such responsibility at first.
Thinking back, I realize that this mindset itself is disrupted in all ways. I am glad that growing up I had the opportunity to unwrap and unlearn what my family, teachers and mentors had taught me in terms of me carrying my family’s reputation. But the battle does not end here. We all will need to fight. Our first win has to be against ourselves where we stop feeling ashamed of ourselves for being a victim/ survivors of sexual assault or even for having consensual sex before wedding.
Please know that female bodies have nothing to do with protecting the reputation of the families in the eyes of society. We shall all speak up against the wrong, even if that involves going against our own families, because in the end we know that we are right, it is not our fault. We shall take our time to process everything, speak up when we feel comfortable. But staying silent is never an option. Being sexually assaulted has nothing to do with oneself wearing ‘revealing clothes’, or because ‘they deserved it’ or ‘they were too drunk.’ You know you were never at fault for being assaulted, you know that your life has not ended. You are not defined by your traumas or based on your sex life. Lastly, you do not have to feel ashamed of what happened and that it does not bring shame to you, your family, friends and your loved ones.
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