India's Daughter (BBC documentary about brutal gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh)

[youarenotimmune]

I feel sick after watching this. We had all heard about the horrific details of the incident back in 2012, but these interviews with one of the rapists and his two lawyers are chilling. Misogyny at its terrifying worst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tfaurfg7EQ

 

[cobl04]

Reading their quotes alone was sickening.

 

[corianderstem]

Is this the guy who said she shouldn't have fought back?

Yeah, I'm not watching this. Fuck that guy. And everyone else involved.

 

[youarenotimmune]

Yeah, that's the guy. Reading their quotes was disturbing as it were, but listening to to them actually say this stuff without a modicum of remorse or compassion is beyond sickening. Forget remorse, the murderer-rapist actually seems to be enjoying talking about it. His thinly veiled glee as he recounts the beating and rape is jarring, to say the least.

Watching the interviews was a little surreal, because the murderer-rapist and his lawyers come off as terrifying caricatures, not actual human beings. If this were a movie you'd dismiss these characters as unrealistically evil.

The most frightening aspect of all of this is that these people aren't isolated sociopaths, but representative of a portion of that society which is brimming with unbridled hatred for women. The mind truly boggles...

 

[cobl04]

That's something I've thought about quite a bit. As a "progressive" Westerner I'm always wary of criticising a culture I don't know about, but there are clearly significant problems that run deeper in some nations. I read the other day that 93 women are raped in India every day. I'd have to do more research but it seems like it would not be unreasonable to say that, in India, women have a far harder time than they do in Western countries. (I think similar things about Islam, it *appears* that the fringe, extremist element (which it is, no doubt) in Islam is bigger/more extreme at this point in history than it is in Christianity, for example.)

That said, I fucking HATE it when conservatives/racists/rednecks/bogans who have little to no respect for women all of a sudden become feminists when it comes to how women are treated in other cultures. It is infuriating to see these people cry "oppression!!" when half an hour later they'll ask if the washing has been done.

 

[youarenotimmune]

Agreed. Misogyny is so deeply entrenched in these societies that a legislative overhaul alone, as called for by many in the wake of this incident, won't be enough to curb it. When you believe that women who are out with a male friend at night deserve to be raped and punished, you need a seismic shift in your cultural psyche.

Education is the silver bullet in my opinion. There are large chunks of society in these countries which are illiterate. No education whatsoever. An educated family is much less likely to oppress its women than an uneducated one. An educated society is much less likely to harbor misogynistic attitudes.

And you're dead on about the hypocrites. Closet misogynists here in the developed world who jump out of their holes to belittle "the feminists" for crying about equal rights when these horrible things are happening to women in other parts of the world. Basically telling women here to be grateful they don't live in those societies and just shut up and stop asking for more equality.

 

[Galeongirl]

Yeah I'm not watching this either. I read what he's said, without a shred of regret or a sense of decency. It makes me sick.