Do Indians even understand consent?
You see so many of them objecting to rapes, molestation and sexual harassment. But truly speaking, our country has no understanding of consent at all.
I like how Indian men and women righteously blame parenting and wrong values when they hear about rapes and sexual harassment. “Parents need to ensure that boys need to learn how to respect women. Parents are not giving them the right values. Boys need to be taught about consent.” Aww…consent. Such an important word. Think about it:
- How does one teach how to respect women in a country where it is okay for families to force daughters to marry? Whether they want to or not.
- How does one learn to respect women when we don’t allow those in our families to use their skills and education to go out and earn a living?
- How does one learn consent when it is okay for families to pressurise their daughters to marry a boy who they DO NOT want to? Isn’t that the opposite of consent?
- How do boys learn to respect women and their bodies when they see that the women they love don’t have any say over their own bodies? They can’t rest when they want to. They need to eat last even when they are hungry; they need to work even when dead tired; they can’t even raise their heads in front of elder men. They can’t show their faces and heads to outsiders.
- How do boys learn consent when we are okay stuffing Copper T and spermicide pills inside women, or tying up of their tubes surgically or dousing them with contraceptive pills before and after, all because their partners are too fucking lazy to forego a bit of imagined pleasure by wearing a condom.
- How do boys learn consent when they are still taught ‘Ladki ke naa mein hi haa hai’ or that eve-teasing/molesting is no big deal?
- How do boys learn consent when most of them are literally paid off with dowry to marry a girl?
- How do boys learn to respect women when their sisters are regularly guilt-tripped into waiving their rights over their father’s property/ home / land or giving their last roti/ barfi or even the front seat of the car for their brothers?
- How do boys learn to respect women and their bodies when gynaecologists in certain cities refuse to consult or advise a married woman without her husband present? The law doesn’t require them to do so….they do this on their own.
We imagine that women don’t mind doing all this. That a woman is happily resigned to her duties toward her family. That a woman forced to marry/have babies/give up her rights/ work and cook 24x7 without resort to protest is actually her ‘consent’. We imagine that this consent can be bribed, forced or even coaxed with guilt-trips. In actuality, we imagine the consent.
So tell me again, how is it that our boys will learn to respect women and their bodies when they see that women’s lives and needs don’t matter?