While the statements made by the convicted rapist in the interview about the woman carrying more of the blame than the man who rapes her are surely relevant to a general critique of Indian attitudes towards women and are helpful to understanding the extent of the problem, the critique cannot end here because if it did it might simply be countered that his villainy was treated as a capital crime in India. Far more worrisome, in my opinion are the words of the rapist’s lawyer who stated he would burn his own daughter to death if he discovered she had misbehaved.
Such life degrading statements claimed as an ideal to be adopted and striven for sickens me similarly to the disgusting acts of brutality perpetrated and justified by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's the same kind of dumb, superstitious fear of the feminine that was at the core of witch hunts in medievel Europe. It's a culture I believe should be exposed and shamed and it was a greater accomplishment of the filmmaker, in my opinion, to interview the two defense lawyers than it was to interview the remorseless convicted rapist.
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| A young Indian couple celebrating Holi at 7a.m. |
Before citizens of countries such as Canada or Germany write India off as being a backward nation because of the current debate on how women’s rights here are trampled on, however, they might pause to consider that the history of women’s emancipation in their own countries is relatively new and that sexual harassment and assault continue to be problems in those countries also.
2 comments on "India's Daughter review"
This is a very sad situation, and yet it is at least being challenged, and as you say, it is not exclusive to India or the East. We have the same imbalance of power here in Ireland. Men get paid more, dominate positions of power, and think themselves the guardians of women, rather than their protectors or at least equals. As ever, (I see this all over the world) the new generations are the first to see and object to the cruel injustice of the old ways, which are all too often backed by religions of every kind. Men and women should regard each other as equals, with their own needs and desires, and not think that somehow either has a right to demand anything from the other.
Hi Rory, thanks for your comment. Yes, it's new generations who want change and new generations bear the brunt of the old ones, clinging to some past traditions or behaviors which were ugly and destructive then and seem brutal and primitive under the light of knowledge of new possibilities. The new possibilities however are shining brightly and the old generations are not all opposed to change.
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