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There can only be 3 types of
people when it comes down to gender based violence.
1.
The offender
2.
The victim
3.
And the on looker or bystander
When we talk about gender based
violence and crimes such as rape, domestic violence and stalking, we usually
talk about defending or blaming the victim that is how the rape was or wasn’t
her fault. On the offenders side is a similar argument whether or not he did it
to display power and what punishment does he deserve etc. Almost 100% of our
arguments are based either the victim or the offender, which does make sense.
But what does not make sense is the ignorance of our attitude towards the on
lookers. In this article I will talk about the role of an on looker and if you
fall into this category, what is the extent of your power to bring gender based
violence to an end.
An on looker is a person, who is
neither a victim nor an offender. This means, you are an on looker if you have
neither committed a crime nor have suffered one. But this certainly does not
mean that an on looker is unrelated to the crime in anyway. Every on looker is
50% offender and 50% victim. As an on looker you certainly know about these
crimes, they occur around you all the time, within your circle of friends or
family and in the middle of the street.
When an on looker sees a man
raising his hand on a woman, or hears a man making a lewd remark on a woman, he
has a choice. A choice to either interrupt the man - make him realize that this
is wrong, a choice to play along and support the man and lastly, to remain
silent. An on looker more often than not chooses to be silent for the following
reasons:
It is not my problem!
Why should I care?
He is not going to change just
because I stop him!
Within my heart I think he is
doing right!
The silence of an on looker is
the biggest reason for the rising rates of gender based violence in every
country around the world. Silence is CONSENT to the other person’s remark, do
not forget that. Even if you did not join in the conversation or raise your own
hand on a female, you are equally guilty for NOT saving the victim. When guys
sit in groups hanging out and having fun, they often talk about women, which is
fine unless the conversation become sexist. Calling names, making filthy
remarks and abusing women is NOT
acceptable, even if there is no woman around! When a player sort of guy
blabbers about how he fools women around, almost every guy in the group will
salute and adore him.
On the contrary, as an on looker,
if you make the person realize what he said or did was wrong, he will get
embarrassed. Assume the scenario in the family now. An uncle raising his hand
on his wife or your brother abusing his wife and you hear it. Instead of being
an on looker and minding your own business, you SHOULD interrupt and stop him,
embarrass him for what he is doing and talk about it. Martin Luther King in his
famous speech, I have a Dream, said
that, “Our
lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
It is
not easy; it takes guts to speak up, especially when the matter involves other
people. You will be accused of interruption and also find it not motivating
enough to fight someone else’s battle. There could be various reasons why the
victim is not reacting and that is not the point right now. May be your
standing up for the victim could give her a reason to stand up for herself. It
could boost her morale and finding another person not blaming her for a problem
can be very encouraging. If there are other on lookers who are spectators to
humiliation of women, your speaking up might give them a reason to speak up
too. They would have thought about interrupting but the fear of peer
retaliation might have kept them quiet. Instead of waiting for some person to
interrupt, you be the one to initiate change.
Our
society has been impregnated by filthy values of manhood and women humiliation
and it keeps giving birth to men who commit these crimes thinking it is OK to
do so. As on lookers, if we do not participate in the change in whatever way we
can, we are also responsible for the rising statistics. The painful memory of
the December 16th 2012 Delhi gang rape is a perfect example of the
role played by on lookers which led to victim’s death. In a busy metropolitan
city, the capital of India, how many vehicles do you think would have passed by
the victims when they were in the bus and on the street? Don’t you think a
timely help could have saved her life?
There
were mass protests and vigils carried out by young students after her death.
But scarping the dirt of the society is not the job of just the youth of the
society. There is a role to be played by each member of the society and
specially the older, matured men who sit on important chairs in the government
and run families as the so called “heads”. Each one of us has to realize our
capacity to bring an end in whatever way we can to this nasty mentality against
women- be it a one line lewd remark to a strange woman on the street, a name
calling emotional abuse in the family or a rape behind a club. As an on looker,
you have this role to play, now more than ever. Stop abuse before it turns you
into a victim.
In the
words of Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘Ten people
who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent’. So be one of
those who make noise, speak up and don’t be just another on looker!
By
Shahla Khan
author,
I Want Back My SPARKLE
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