” Oh I told my son that if you go out with a girl, remember that you are not responsible for her. She is going out with you entirely at her own risk”

I was horrified when I heard Kalpana make this statement. We were two mothers watching our children play badminton at one of Mumbai‘s top clubs. Her husband was a head honcho at a multi national and she herself was one of those hot shot career women whose opinion mattered. At any rate it mattered more than mine as I was a stay at home mom, one of a dying breed. Kalpana was not only a smart, well educated and articulate woman, she was also the mother of two sons while I had two girls.

” Oh all these girls these days are too smart, ” scarcely bothering to disguise the scorn in her tone.” And let me tell you, ” she assured me , “MY son won’t do anything to any girl,  but just suppose he and his girlfriend are walking by the sea side and some one comes and accosts them what can a poor 15 year old boy do? It would make more sense for him to run. Isn’t it?”

I didn’t see the logic in this at all having grown up in an era when chivalry was not yet dead and when boys were expected to look after girls, especially if they were dating. But Kalpana went on, ” See you have daughters and I have sons. So if you don’t want your daughters to get into trouble, you should see that they stay at home. If they do go out, they are inviting trouble.”

This kind of regressive thinking was a revelation to me. I thought such ideas went out with the ark. Unfortunately there are many many Kalpanas out there in this world. While I agree with her that as a mother of a son, she would naturally have her son’s interest at heart what appalled me was the corollary that any girl who goes out is “cheap” hence her son shouldn’t risk his life for her.

Today the whole country is up in arms about the rape in our Capital City. It doesn’t matter where it took place what matters is that it happened:  a gross violation of a woman’s right to safety and a citizen’s right to free and unfettered movement . It is a sad and bitter truth that the women in our society are venerated only as Goddesses in temples and on calendar pictures, they are worshipped as mothers but treated as chattel, identified as property of the men who sire them or marry them. No matter how many women are doctors, lawyers , engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs and law makers the fact remains that a lone woman on the street is not safe.

But what will make it safe for women to walk alone on the street, or stay alone by herself? Legislation? Knowledge of self defence? There can be no simple answer because my personal belief is that punishment is no deterrent to a crime. Everyone knows that evil is punished but does that mean evil has vanished?

Castrate him who rapes a woman

So while the perpetrators of this crime should be punished ( I personally think they should be publicly castrated) the only way this crime will end is when people respect each other for being who they are and treat each other with dignity and love.