Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Blog 1: A crime without a name

On December 16th, 2012, an Indian college student was brutally attacked on her bus ride home. The gang-rape was so horribly gruesome that not only is there no name for the crime, but the young woman died of her injuries two weeks later. A group of men attacked her, raping her with a “rotten iron rod”; her death was ultimately due to the gangrene in her intestines.

India has been facing a string of violent sex crimes targeting young women in higher education. However, the word “rape” cannot possibly be used to describe what happened on December 16th; the act was not only sexually violent, but down right mutilating torture. In a society that depends on linguistic explanations, how can this crime ever be brought to justice? New words help us conceptualize things, but there is no way to even describe the brutal attacks occurring against women.

 The government in Delhi does not know how to treat the situation, and the incident is still unpunished and overlooked. There are even right wing politicians saying that women need to stay home or not dress inappropriately when they do go out.  As a result to the inaction of the government, riots against gender inequality and violence have broken out in Delhi.

I think this was an excellent start to my global issue blog. It confronts the huge problem of how to define injustice, because if we cannot define what is wrong, we cannot solve it. Policies against gender violence can’t be made if the injustice is being kept silent. Silence will only be perpetuated if people cannot come out and say what has happened. This is a problem the United States faces, as well. Many incidents of rape go unrecorded, or are so violent they cannot only be categorized as a sex crime. Simply lashing out at a woman is one thing, but violating her privacy and bodily integrity in such a grotesque way changes the crime completely. A linguistic association for invasions on the female body would definitely help it be more known. After all, society has created this nasty web of media; we might as well use it to make noise about a problem in society that needs to be solved.
Dylan Reddish, 10:50pm on Jan 23
 
 
 

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