“What were you wearing?”
“Boys will be boys.”
“It’s your fault for going out at night.”
Sound familiar?
Rape is not something unfamiliar to
Malaysians. Hardly a week goes by without reports of a new rape incident. With
the numbers pilling up over the past few years, we can no longer ignore that
rape culture has grown prevalent in Malaysia.
29 698 reported rape cases between 2006
to 2015.
Approximately an average of 7 rape
cases a day.
It is clear that we now live in a society
where the occurrence of sexual assault and rape is normalised and considered
inevitable. However, in a country where even the mention of sex is considered
taboo, how is it that the number of rape and sexual assault cases are on the
rise?
It comes as no shock that our society
has a deeply entrenched misogynistic mind set and that this ideology has been
instilled in us since we were young with little progress being made to overcome it. With this mentality and world view, the burden of rape prevention has now
fallen onto the victims. It is more common that a woman be blamed for rape due
to the way she dresses or acts rather than the offender being held responsible,
despite most rape cases being committed on girls as young as 12 years old.
This patriarchal society is only
enforced by the lack of accountability befalling offenders and the lack of
equal treatment and education. Men and women are brought up differently. While
women are taught shame and modesty, men are taught to be strong and wilful. Sexual
education in particular is not taught in schools, resulting in men and women to
grow up with little knowledge on sex and consent.
Even at a university level, it is clear
that the objectification of women is taken very lightly especially among men.
For instance, in April 2017, an incident involving an IACT student being the
subject of rape jokes among the male students caught the limelight of social
media. In a group chat, made with the primary purpose of objectifying freshman
girls, the male student ‘joked’ that he wanted to rape her. This caused a huge
public uproar when the messages were leaked on social media.
Of course, then excuses arose; this was
just “locker room talk”, they were simply joking, their comments held no real
intent. However, normalising jokes or comments made at the expense of women or about
topics such as rape and sexual assault only feeds into misogynistic culture. By
normalising disrespect towards women and undermining the horrors of sexual
aggression, this insensitive mentality is only instilled in us as we mature and
enforces victim-blaming culture.
If this is the standard we have set for
our youth, then to what standard should we hold the leaders of our nation?
In 2017, former sharia court judge and
UMNO MP Datuk Shabudin
Yahaya stated that while rape is an offence, a rape victim’s best option for a
bright future was by marrying her rapist. He further went on to state that
girls as young as 9 or 12 years old who have bodies resembling 18 year olds are
"spiritually and physically" ready for marriage. Essentially,
legalising statutory rape.
Often a rape victim is asked questions
such as “what were you wearing at the time?”, “were you drunk?” and “why were
you out alone?” which shifts the blame onto the victim. For a former judge and a societal
representative to validate and participate in the toxic belief that the victim
was responsible for what happened to her is particularly horrifying. Despite the
outrage his statements caused among Malaysians, it provided a ‘get-out-of-jail’
free card for rapists: marry your victims.
So how do we move
forward?
We live in a new
age. It is a time for activism and change. Women and other minorities have started
standing up for themselves to make a difference. Social media in particular has
provided a platform where even the weak are given a voice. The impact of social
media is especially fruitful in the West where there has been an influx of
support for women and the sexually abused through the #heforshe, #metoo and
#timesup movements. All of which have given women and men who have been
sexually abused, the courage to tell their side of the story and has resulted
in major repercussions for many of their offenders as seen in the case of
Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar.
Further, as a result
of the 2016 presidential election, rallies such as the Women’s March have been
held all over the world and there has been a huge amount of support for these
public demonstrations. Malaysia held its first ever Women’s March last March in
conjunction with International Women’s Day. Although there were many people
that were sceptical about the what these demonstrations would achieve, the main
goal of such demonstrations are to spread the message of equality and empower
men and women.
However, there is a
long way to go. Remoulding the way in which a society views rape and sexual
crimes takes time and effort. Activism is, in my opinion, a step in the right
direction but the government needs to play its role in enacting better and more
progressive laws in this area. Sexual education for one, should be mandatory to
be taught at a young age instead of leaving it up to parents or religious leaders.
People must be educated on the topic of consent.
It is time to teach
people not to rape instead of how to prevent from being raped.
It is time to end
rape culture.
