Yes, All Men and Women Who Stay Silent Perpetuate the Culture of Violence with Impunity

https://countercurrents.org/2024/10/yes-all-men-and-women-who-stay-silent-perpetuate-the-culture-of-violence-with-impunity/ 

29/10/2024

Recently, there was a debate on social media regarding `#Not All Men’. This phrase is popularized online by mostly the Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) to depict that not all men are violent. It is in response to discussions regarding misogyny or abuse, which blame men as perpetrators. The proponents of this phrase ignored the feminist voices, which have been highlighting that violence is not a man versus a woman issue. Violence against women is about patriarchal oppression and the culture of impunity, which harms society at large. This is depicted from the responses of women who initiated a hashtag #YesAllWomen and #MeToo movement. In both these online movements, women shared their experiences of harassment and discrimination they faced because of persistent misogyny.

For centuries, women have been oppressed in patriarchal societies where violence and hegemony are used as tools to control them. Over the years, violence in private and public places against women has taken a virulent form. Violence not only physically affects victims; it also leads to emotional trauma, psychological scars, and the need for healing and closure. Moreover, violence implies not only an assault of the body, mind, or soul of a woman, but it also occurs when the conditions are being enabled to facilitate it and when the system—the state and the society—excuses it.

The women who try to raise their voices against such violence are ostracized, stigmatized, ridiculed, shamed, and alienated. The families, the communities, and all other social and legal institutions blame women. All efforts are made to silence women who defy patriarchal norms. Men and women in positions of authority within families, politics, society, or the legal system deploy all the strategies to silence women who raise their voices against violence. The arguments of discipline, love, sacrifice, honour, shame, and stigma are all made to compel women to `adjust’,  `forgive and forget’, or `move on’. Patriarchy conditions women to bear violence silently. It also trains women to sustain this culture of blaming victims for the violent acts committed by abusive men.

Also, the laws made to protect women from violence are appropriated to serve the masculinist order. The legal system, instead of punishing the abusers, discredits women survivors of violence. Myths and misogyny are propagated to portray the survivors of violence as liars and gold diggers. Victim blaming shuts the women’s voices of pain and suffering while ignoring the cries for justice. The moral compass of society works in a way to put the burden of guilt and shame on the victim of violence rather than shaming the abuser for their violent and criminal act. The androcentric courts are also guided by this patriarchal ideology, which silences the voices of women survivors of violence.

This system puts the entire burden of violence on women victims while evading to fix the accountability of a violent man, creating a culture of impunity. Violent men felt emboldened and entitled in such a culture because they knew that they would not be held liable for their criminal actions. Thus, society enables conditions where abusive men are excused for all their horrific, vile, and criminal actions.

Perhaps society fails to penalize men guilty of violence against women because these men are ordinary men. They are someone’s father, brother, husband, or son. This logic ignores the fact that a victim is also someone’s daughter, mother, wife, or sister, and more importantly, a human being and citizen endowed with rights. She deserves justice.

Not only in India, but across the world, women are discriminated against and alienated by the social and legal system. For instance, recently, the horrific experiences of Gisele Pelicot, a French woman, sedated and raped by her husband and dozens of other men for nine years, show how women are deceived by the systems and institutions, which promise them safety, equality, and justice. The trial of this case is going on. The video records and the documents found during investigations presented before the court indicate the terrible nature of violence. This case has evoked discussions relating to the prevalence of rape culture, consent, betrayal in marriage, pornography, and digital violence against women, and importantly, it shows how the masculine code operates, where none of the men invited to rape her complained against it. It shows that any man can be a predator, the one who is not just “someone met in a car park late at night” but “can also be in the family, among our friends.”

More importantly, Gisele Pelicot’s reaction, her courage and determination to speak for all women victims and survivors of violence, despite being hurt, and her zeal to support the cause of survivors of violence are empowering. In her response to her ordeal, she said that she felt betrayed, broken, and completely destroyed. She precisely stated that the `shame should change sides’. She rightly challenged the system to ascertain that all men who stayed silent should be shamed for their violent acts.

The cases of violence against women in India and worldwide depict how the families, communities, the law, the legal system, and society are complicit in the crime against women and create a culture of impunity where men feel entitled to violate the soul, the mind, and the body of women as per their whims and fancies. Therefore, the violent men and patriarchal society that silence women and embolden men, should all be held responsible for creating a culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, all women experience sexism, discrimination, misogyny, and violence in some way or another.

Yes, all men and women who stay silent in situations when violence is inflicted on women or refuse to acknowledge the persistent situation of discrimination against women are complicit in crime. 

Yes, all men and women who intentionally turn their faces away when a woman faces violence in a public or private space are guilty of perpetuating the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, all men and women who intentionally indulge in fierce backlash against women’s rights while promoting misogyny and toxic masculinity, disseminating myths, knowing that cases of violence against women are increasing in terms of scope, outreach, and barbarity, are guilty of perpetuating the climate of injustice.

Yes, those backlashers who propagate the myth that women are liars and gold diggers to divert attention from the role of men and society should carry the burden of the guilt of creating the culture of violence with impunity. 

Yes, all families who silence the voices of women and prevent them from complaining encourage the culture of violence and impunity.

Yes, the families who turn away women in pain rather than supporting her are complicit in creating a culture of impunity.

Yes, the communities that compel women victims and survivors of violence to carry the burden of shame and guilt while excusing men for their violent crimes preserve the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the culture that tolerates and promotes practices such as dowry violence, female foeticide, son-preference, honour killing, forced marriages, child marriages, witch hunting, widow discrimination, and girl child discrimination is guilty of perpetuating violence with impunity.

Yes, those who welcome and garland the murderers and rapists are complicit in crimes against women.

Yes, the society that tolerates misogynist speeches and sexist jokes every day is guilty of perpetuating the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the media that propagates the misogyny 24/7 is guilty of perpetuating the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the businesses that objectify and commodify women for their profits are complicit in the crime of creating a culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the onus lies with society, which upholds and perpetuates patriarchal norms that favour men while silencing women for maintaining the culture of violence against women with impunity.

Yes, those who sideline `women’s issues’ believing that women’s pain and suffering are less important than all other problems in the world and should be attended to when all other problems are resolved, create a culture of violence against women with impunity.

Yes, the state, which has failed to enforce the laws and policies to facilitate conditions to eliminate violence against women, is complicit in the crime.

Yes, the state that has failed to allocate budget to provide services to the victims and survivors of violence is guilty of creating a culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the legal system, including the police personnel, the prison administration, the policymakers, the lawmakers, and enforcers, who discredit the voices of survivors of violence and deny justice to women, are complicit in the crime in creating the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the police personnel who refuse to register the complaints of violence against women are complicit in crime and create a culture of impunity.

Yes, the lawyers and the judges who apply the arguments of divinity and politicize the law and the legal system to marginalize the oppressed are guilty of sustaining the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the lawyers and judges, who instead of using the constitutional provisions, subjectively release the abusers, are reinforcing the climate of impunity.

Yes, the lawyers and judges who himpathize with the abusers for being young, or he has a family to support, and similar excuses uphold the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the lawyers and judges who ignore the needs of the victims and their families for justice are complicit in perpetuating the culture of impunity.

Yes, the legal system that delays cases related to violence against women is guilty of perpetuating the culture of impunity.

Yes, all men and women in positions of authority who stay silent to uphold their vested gains when women’s rights are violated are guilty of contributing to the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, all men and women politicians and parliamentarians who refuse to acknowledge the increasing violence against women and choose to do nothing about it are complicit in the crime against women.

Yes, the political parties who sideline women’s issues and give tickets to men guilty of committing violence on women are complicit in creating the culture of crime against women with impunity.

Yes, all men are guilty of perpetuating the culture of violence with impunity when, in conflict situations, women’s bodies are being targeted to teach a lesson to the enemy.

Yes, when the institutions created to protect women fail to fulfill their obligations, these institutions are guilty of failing women and are creating the culture of impunity.

Yes, the army personnel guilty of rape, when shielded by their higher-ups; the system are responsible for creating the culture of violence with impunity.

Yes, the system that has become immune to the screams of women facing violence is guilty of perpetuating violence against women with impunity.

Yes, `the shame should change sides’ as Gisele Pelicot stated.

Yes, the system of blaming the women who experience violence should change.

Yes, the culture of violence against women with impunity should change.

Yes, the state, society, and communities should fix the accountability of abusive men.

Yes, the perpetrators of violence should be carrying the burden of shame and guilt of committing the crime against women.

Yes, the patriarchal social and legal norms must change in the spirit of justice, and the culture of violence with impunity must be altered.

Yes, the system should facilitate the conditions necessary for the women who face violence to openly speak against it without any guilt or shame and promote the healing of survivors and victims of violence.

Yes, the structural oppression and systemic inequalities must end.

Yes, we need to smash patriarchy.

`Not all men’ but `Yes, all men and women who stay silent’ propagate the culture of violence with impunity, and this should end.

Adv. Dr. Shalu Nigam is a feminist lawyer and researcher working on gender, governance, and human rights issues. Her most recent book which is published in on Dowry is a Serious Economic Violence: Rethinking Dowry Violence Law in India.