Sexual Violence in India: A Tale of Two Stories... for balance?

Some of us were shocked and outraged the other day when via CNN iReport, user RoseChasm, a South Asian studies student at the University of Chicago, shared with the world the horrifying tale of her harrowing experience of being sexually harassed, repeatedly, while in India.

Courageous Woman Speaks About Her Rape in India And Official Apathy

Rape. Sexual Violence against women. Gang rape. Happening daily in the glorious nation of India. I have been expressing my outrage about this through my blog posts and via Social Media (Facebook & Twitter) for a while now (See here, here, here, and here), trying to encourage - and engage in - activism against sexual violence in whichever way I can, not only in India, but elsewhere in the world, too.

I don't know if all that outrage, that anger, that activism, those protests against sexual violence ever achieve anything; certainly nothing seems to change in a country like India. Barring some token political maneuvers, nothing has been done in response to the nationwide protest against the horrifying ordeal and eventual death of Jyoti Singh Pandey, and the outrages continue to occur. Faced with an apathetic, callous and intransigent system, even people like me, who make an effort to voice these concerns and shine the spotlight on sexual violence, do run the risk of getting inured to such incidents after a while - due to the sheer volume of it.

Twitter-bullying, Indian ishtyle

Noted FreeThoughtBlogger Ophelia Benson, certainly no stranger to the harassment meted out online to women who dare to speak out, has written long and hard about it (See here, here, here, and here; Twitter is a medium which seems to especially bring out the very worst that humanity has to offer, the bottom-feeders, the misogyny-laden online trolls who revel in their power of semi anonymity and physical distance, which enables them to hurl slights and abuses at women who try to go against a patriarchal society and make a difference. Ophelia, a grizzled veteran of battling misogyny and idiocy online and off, has recently conceded that sometimes it does get too much - the relentless abuses, lies and misrepresentations, not to mention the thinly-veiled threats of violence and expressed wishes for harm to befall her.

education, schmeducation! Tribalism rules.

What's the fucking point of your fucking education and your fancy PhD degree if every time you go out with your wife, you insist (or, your religion insists and you endorse it heartily) that she cover herself head to toe in a fucking symbol of unenlightened medievalism?

All right. That was a rant RAGE speaking.