New Delhi rape victim dies

One of the accused has been found dead in his cell

Swiss tourist gang-raped in central India

Yeah, because everyone in India is a rapist and condones this behavior. It's really amazing to me that I have somehow spent decades on this earth and managed not to give in to my cultural predisposition and sexually assaulted someone.

Can we all agree that violence against women doesn't exactly respect national boundaries, please?

Thank you Shal, Yes, I can certainly agree with that. I will absolutely condemn the horrific and completely unacceptable behavior of the men who raped those women in India. Just as I would of anyone who commits rape anywhere.

I'd assume you're referring to the Steubenville rape case except there's a pretty long list of offenses that take place every day (many of which go unreported). According to 2010 UCR statistics, a forcible rape occurs approximately every 6.2 minutes in the US. As far as reported cases go, the rate has been on the decline, about 6.5 % lower since then, but it's still a significant problem.

No this topic is about a rape victim who happens to have been in India. Sweden has the worst record of rape in the Europe and a far higher rate of rape than India. My father unlike your gross generalization of India stopped a woman being raped as any decent person anywhere should. So no India doesn't suck certainly not as badly as Sweden per 100,000 people as indicated in Shal's link.
Making a pejorative statement about an entire nation based on a terrible thing that happened there is intellectually lazy, inaccurate and pointless. It denies the reality that the vast majority of people in that country deplore the violent act and are actively trying to prevent actions as I presume people in Sweden are. In spite of the horrifically high rate of rape in Sweden, I would not say, "Sweden sucks" that would as I said earlier be lazy, inaccurate and insulting.

I think a better response from Morrigan would have been "fuck India's rape culture." India has amazing things and people in it and we shouldn't discount the country as a whole due to the actions of some subset of the population, even if we are only evaluating the country from a women's rights perspective. India had a female head of state and Delhi's metro system has some female-only cars. Some states such as Kerala have female-only police forces. Abortion rights were decades ahead of their time in India at independence (even if most women aren't educated about them) and public policy is slowly working to make things better for women. Even the public is getting bolder about challenging India's rape culture, lining up with one of rcrx's objections.

At the same time, I can't in my wildest dreams entertain the idea that the actual rape rate in Sweden is higher than in India. On paper, Sweden's rate looks high because they report a higher percentage of the incidents and their definition of rape is broad (which was an issue in the Julian Assange case). A high rate like Sweden's quite likely indicates a strong position of women because victims aren't afraid to come forward to report assaults. In an Indian context the same is true: Kerala (home to 90+% literacy rates and traditionally much more progressive women's rights than much of the rest of India) has on paper more incidents of sexual assaults than places like Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh. In other words, the context is important for those statistics. Sweden ranks in 7th place on the United Nations Gender Inequality Index for 2012. India, by contrast, ranks 136th place - with the lower ranking the better. Experts estimate that only 10% of rapes get reported in India (with a quarter of those accused getting convicted). When a Dalit woman is the victim, the conviction rate is less than 1%. India has such a strong rape culture that women infrequently report sexual assault. On top of that problem, it's been well documented how police in India often blame the victims or harass them, and fail to investigate sexual assault allegations. Women's rights groups are trying to get a law passed to criminalize the rampart police failure to investigate rape allegations.

The prevalence of rape culture in India has been very well documented and it's a prominent source of embarrassment for educated Indians - as I'm sure you know. India, honestly, is an incredibly misogynistic country. Female literacy is 15% lower for women than for men, women are still sold as chattel in rural parts of the country, and gender selective abortion is so prevalent that pregnant women can't get ultrasound tests if it's solely to determine gender. One third of the world's child brides live in India and the country has the world's highest teenage pregnancy rate.

For the record, don't infer that I'm anti-Indian: I'm a huge fan of everything from Indian culture to Indian food to the Hindi language (which I'm slowly learning). I spent the fall in Delhi, Kolkata, and Thiruvananthapuram, doing research. I'm just painfully aware of how misogynistic the country is as a whole and how much more work needs to be done by feminists there. Yes, other countries have sexual assault problems as well, but let's not pretend that India's serious rape culture doesn't contribute to these recent high publicity incidents.

Agreed, but the rape culture found within national boundaries can disproportionally encourage and protect perpetrators of violence against women. There's a middle ground to be had between either writing off the whole society as hopeless or accepting a false equivalency.

Precisely, just as much as it's wrong to paint all of Indian society as inherently barbaric because of such incidents, it discounts similar behavior in other countries. It's rape that's barbaric, no mater which political boundaries it falls within.

That being said, there is a notable difference in how various societies respond to acts of rape. Unfortunately, in some countries, there may be little or no response to such incidents, in which case it is their legal system and/or local law enforcement that have failed (and therefore suck).

RedBastrd, I agree with much of what you wrote. I would point out that in my mother's generation there re far more women doctors from and in India than in the US at the same time or for that matter most western countries. India had a woman prime minister long before most of western society. That this is not evidence of across the board equality and respect for women in India is a well taken point. However, it also serves my point that reductive comments like "X sucks" fail reflect the reality of that country's experience.

Furthermore, as someone who works in public health I understand the difficulties of reporting bias and incomplete data. But its' a far cry from that acknowledgement to asserting that it "can't be possible" for India to have a lower rate of rape than another country. That presumes that the other country even with very wide definitions of rape doesn't also have a social stigma associated with rape. It assumes that Indian culture not only condones but promotes rape through apathy. As you correctly point out Dalit society is undoubtedly affected by this bias. However, within communities there may be a protective effect that reduces the likelihood of violence. Without comprehensive research we can't know and it would be inappropriate to assert that X is worse than Y because all the stuff I read in the media says so.

My point in citing Sweden's reported rates of rape was explicitly in anticipation of your qualifier regarding regarding reporting and classification of rape in Sweden The statement "india sucks" eliminates all nuance of understanding of the situation in India that you are asking for with regard to Sweden.

And that is a problem. Whether it stems from ignorance, intellectual laziness or even casual prejudice, it is hypocritical to dismiss one country so reductively while ignoring or qualifying evidence of an equal or even greater rate of assault in another country. So, when we say that every x period of time a rape occurs in India. Are we reflecting the reality that there are one billion people in India? If for example, Luxembourg were to have that same statistic what would it mean? It would mean that the small population of Luxembourg would have to be raping at an impossible rate in order to equal the number of rapes in a country of one billion.

So when we look at rates versus numbers we have a better perspective upon the scope of the problem than by looking at numbers. We have now 2 gang rapes reported in INdia recently. Each of these is horrible in and of itself. We have the same number of gang rapes reported in the United States and Sweden respectively over a similar period of time. The population of the US is approximately one-third that of India. I don't know the population of Sweden but I presume it far less than that of the US. All three countries have had large stigmas with regards to reporting of certain crimes. So while I will not assert, for lack of evidence, that this affects each society equally, I will suggest that the differences may not be as dissimilar as suggested. So, ultimately it would suggest that things aren't really any better in the West and from a statistical standpoint it is possible that it could be worse. It would be a mistake from a distance of thousands of miles to presume that normal everyday Indian society accepts rape as a fact of life any more than say, Stockholm or Steubenville. That is not a false equivalency it is rather pointing out that we do not know the reality and are making negative inferences based on limited data. My personal perspective is that Indians aren't more tolerant of such violence and will respond in the same manner as people everywhere.

To begin this topic deeply saddens me. I've avoided commenting for a while because the topic not only makes me sad but also angry. India needs to not just write new laws to protect women but also to have a continuing open dialogue about women's rights in the country. I also am a fan of Indian food, history and culture but India needs to address its failures. Many people in India have rallied for new laws because of this tragedy, hopefully they will continue to fight for their mothers and daughters.

Rcrx,

Likewise, I agree with a lot of what you said. As I noted, I'm not interested in making "India sucks" types of arguments. I'm a huge supporter of India on most topics (excluding very specific issues like treatment of women, income disparity, and handicap accessibility). Even from a feminist standpoint, India has a lot to be proud of and is making progress in a lot of areas. You're right to want to avoid all Indians being painted with the same brush as these criminals.

Where I disagree is that I think a "Don't be a jerk" response to Morrigan's post would have been better than a "Sweden is worse in rape" type of response. I don't think attitudes toward rape are as similar across the countries as you suggest. It's not stubbornness on my part; the evidence that I can see just doesn't show anything close to parity. Sure, when polled, I'd guess that almost everyone in India (or in Sweden or the US) opposes rape. The difference, though, is in how institutions, individuals, and groups react to sexual violence. As far as the statistics are concerned, yes, India has only had a small number of gang rapes in recent news (the two you mentioned and the two in Bihar the day after the New Delhi bus incident, plus the one in Chandigarh). Comparing those figures with Sweden and the US gives us too small of a sample size to make any judgments on any of the countries. Likewise, looking at national statistics (like the ones from the NCRB) is always going to be difficult, particularly since they don't include human trafficking (presumably the lead source of sexual assault in the country) or marital rape (common in child marriages). In a recent study (the International Men and Gender Equality Survey of 2011) of Indian men, mostly from Delhi, 24% admitted committing sexual assault, which is slightly higher than the 8-20% various studies have shown in the US but still close enough not to be conclusive.

My reasons for rejecting any claims of equivalence or near-equivalence between rape cultures in Sweden and India are varied. First of all, the level of misogyny just isn't the same, and misogyny sets the stage for more violence against women. In the absence of conclusive, equivalent, and reliable numbers showing lower sexual violence rates in India than Sweden, I'll refrain from accepting claims that Sweden is worse off - just by considering the larger question of the gender relations. I'm not just relying on the media either: I did spend a short time living there (which while pleasant overall didn't give me confidence in the high standing of women) and one of my research questions is on the status of women in India, Soviet appeals to Indian women on the promise of female liberation, and the subsequent role of Indian feminists in Indo-Soviet Cold War politics. Yes, media has brought a great deal of attention to problems in India. Bloggers and prominent Indian feminists are quite clear about the systemic sexual harassment ("eve teasing" ) and violence against women. Reading blogs and talking to women in India gives the unqualified impression that women don't feel safe in the country.

If we go beyond these accounts, though, things don't look much better: US consulates issue travel safety warnings to women visiting India on the grounds of sexual assault, and the US government considers India to fail at meeting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Given that over three quarters of trafficked people end up in the sex trade against their will, the failure of India to meet the requirements (despite increasing effort on their part) distinguishes them from countries like Sweden. Trustlaw ranked India as the fourth most dangerous country for women in 2011. Indian NGOs are just as critical of the country on the grounds of violence against women. One (along with police) reported that as many of 20% of the youth in NE India (Assam, Manipur, Tripura, etc.) are forced into the prostitution trade, which includes rape and beating as an introduction into the profession. The Indian government's Ministry of Women and Child's Development conducted a study from 2005-2007, which found that 53% of those surveyed reported being victims of sexual abuse.

The International Center for Research on Women issued a report in 2004 which summarized some findings of other studies:

Those numbers are startlingly high to the point where I'm not sure I believe that they're accurate. All the same, the point is that the picture of India as a place unsafe for women isn't just a media creation: that's a consistent picture from all sorts of sources, including the Indian government, Indian and Western feminists, and NGOs operating in India.

By the way, we're just speculating on this point but apathy isn't part of my explanation for the rape culture. I don't think that Indians promote rape through apathy but I do think that they are often in denial about how much sexual violence against women happens in the country. Pride, misogynistic views, and low education levels (particularly in rural India) surely gets in the way of appropriate measures to fight the problem. Likewise, I don't think that there's a protective effect from community attitudes, since what we see from families inside and outside of India is that family members frequently disbelieve accusations of incest and child sexual abuse. Almost all of the reports and surveys about sexual abuse against Indian women (particularly against children) contain a consistent trend that people refuse to believe and support victims. Of course, India isn't alone in this case but I see scant reason to expect any protective community effects from traditional societies without some positive evidence in that direction (from India or elsewhere).

So, overall I'm skeptical of claims that India and Sweden have the same kind of rape culture operating. I just don't see parallels for the kinds of things I noted above happening in Sweden - at least not on the same scale or with the same responses from government and public institutions. Victim blaming is rampant in both the US and India (and presumably Sweden) but that's just the tip of the iceberg. India recently had a serving politician getting caught raping a woman (Bikram Singh Brahma), police refusing to investigate gang rapes caught on film and publicly distributed (in Punjab), and the military systematically uses rape in Kashmir, Jammu, Assam, and Manipur (receiving protection from the Indian state when doing so) - incidents without much of a parallel in Sweden in recent news as far as I can tell. Again, I don't think India's alone in having a rape culture but I do think that its is pretty pronounced and outcries for public discussions of that rape culture and the misogyny that underwrites it (something many are calling for in India right now) are certainly necessary.

I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to partially disagree. While making your case you're still citing statistics that are not necessarily reflective of the actual reality. They may be the best we have and I am not saying you shouldn't cite them. I'm merely saying that this entire discussion centers around singling out one country that clearly has a problem when other countries also have significant problems. My point is that Indians themselves are rising up to make things better and that reflects both the basic fact that the majority of Indians despise that anyone is getting raped, just as the majority of people anywhere despise it. That there are systemic problems in India is a valid criticism, just as we see the systemic and cultural problems of the US have contributed to the Steubenville case. Ultimately, as the US became more middle class and economically stable, a lot of the behavior of systemic bias and corruption was mitigated if not as we well know, halted. The same thing is happening in India. Please note I am not saying that India as a country is a paragon of virtue, far from it. I am however saying that to single out India when there are in fact vicious assaults occurring elsewhere including Sweden, the US, the UK etc. etc, is to dance on the razor's edge of bigotry. It adds nothing to the discussion and ignores all the nuances that have been part of your posts and those of others. As I wrote earlier, my inclusion of Sweden in the discussion was meant to point out exactly that hypocrisy.

Regardless, thanks for the thoughtful and civil discussion. I truly appreciate it.

Isn't pointing out that there are vicious assaults happening elsewhere in the world just a deflection though? The topic of the thread is rape and misogyny in India; I feel that I am allowed to be outraged about the situation even though rape and misogyny also occur elsewhere. It outrages me when it occurs elsewhere, too - it just so happens that it is the situation in India that is being discussed right now.

Actually, I think we have enough common ground where we don't have to debate the issue further. Thank you for the civil discussion as well.

I was responding specifically to Morrigan's post, not the general outrage at the situation in India. You absolutely should be outraged. This for me though treads on a fine line of singling out one country unfairly when the problem exists in many places. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be outraged at the situation in India and point out any systemic flaws that make the situation worse.