The Delhi rape-victim has been cremated. That’s the end of her.
[Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh said on Saturday that he was aware of the emotions the attack had stirred, adding that it was up to all Indians to ensure that the young woman’s death will not have been in vain.
What emotions would those be?
Let’s look again at what happened to her.
On the night of the attack, the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman’s body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.
Why? Why would they do that? Why wasn’t it enough to rape her, or to rape and beat her? Why did they also shove an iron bar up her vagina and beyond it with enough force to destroy 95% of her intestines?
The only obvious answer, I think, is hatred. Just hatred.
And that kind of thing scares me. Not personally, really. In spite of all the stupid lies the hate-campaigners keep recycling about me that I’m so stupid and scaredy and radfem that I see innocent emails from supporters as threats for no earthly reason (the prediction that I might be shot is never mentioned), I actually don’t spook easily. I never have. I’ve always wandered around on my own a lot, from childhood on, which wouldn’t be the case if I were personally afraid. It scares me generally. It scares me for women and for the state of the public discourse. It creeps me the fuck out that open boastful misogyny has become so popular and mainstream lately.
I think it’s strange that the vocal boastful misogynists don’t worry about this. I think it’s strange that they convince themselves, or pretend to, that shouting loudly and repeatedly that Woman X is a fucking bitch has nothing whatsoever to do with misogyny itself or with dispersing it ever more widely across the landscape. I think it’s strange that so many people think it’s good to foster a climate of ragey hatred.