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

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.

To counter this argument, in my article `Yes, All Men and Women Who Stay Silent Perpetuate the Culture of Violence with Impunity', (appeared here https://countercurrents.org/2024/10/yes-all-men-and-women-who-stay-silent-perpetuate-the-culture-of-violence-with-impunity/), I wrote how society silences women victims and survivors of violence.  

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.

 Excerpt from my book 

Dowry is a Serious Economic Violence: Rethinking Dowry Law in India 

(2023)

Amazon

Centuries ago, when Karl Marx wrote exhaustively about the callous exploitation of workers by the capitalist class, he may not have imagined how in South Asia, women as brides would be treated as commodities, pitilessly exploited, and violently murdered in their own homes by their abusive husbands for extorting wealth. As the ruthless oppression of the toiling masses could not be prevented by laws or policies, the merciless torture and murder of women could not be regulated despite establishing a legal mechanism in place. Over the decades, predatory capitalism has irrevocably acquired an altered form, and the free-market approach has devised a new mechanism of manipulation (Faber D, 2018). Similarly, the viciousness of the neoliberal forces, clubbed with patriarchy, feudalism, conservatism, rampant materialism, and excessive consumption propelled by extensive consumerism, is aggravating the desire among men and their families to accumulate quick wealth using marriage as a tool to extract resources from women and their families. The bourgeoisie-proletariat categorization, in the situation of dowry practice, is expanded to include the classification of savagely privileged men versus women – rich or poor, and in urban or rural areas. Women from all backgrounds dreadfully suffer for the material gains of men and their families in a harsh and hostile environment fuelled by the neoliberal, Brahmanical capitalist patriarchy.

 

She is a girl; she has a right to survive with dignity

Shalu Nigam 

21 June 2022

She is not a commodity to be traded 

Hope that the moment you downgraded her could be faded 

She is not an object of your desire

She has dreams of her own to aspire

She is not a burden to be discarded 

She is a human to be accepted 

She is not a property to be owned 

She could imagine a world of her own

She is not a source of your free labor

Respect her rights and her worth, she is stronger

Because she is a girl, a woman 

She needs no permission

Her body her life and her future belong to her

Don't bring in your stereotypes, traditions or your repressive culture 

Your world is brutal and discriminatory 

But she dreams of a world that rests on equality

Where everyone has a right to survive with dignity

 

How the Malimath Committee Denied Women Their Rights?

Section 498A IPC was inserted in the Indian Penal Code in 1983 and provides to protect women from cruelty in their matrimonial homes. The Malimath Committee Report (2003), twenty years after the enactment of Section 498A, noted,

“In a less tolerant, impulsive woman may lodge an FIR even on a trivial act. The result is that the husband and his family may be immediately arrested and there may be a suspension or loss of job. The offence alleged being non-bailable, innocent persons languish in custody. There may be a claim for maintenance adding fuel to the fire if the husband cannot pay. She may change her mind and get into the mood to forget and forgive. The husband may realize the mistakes committed and come forward to turn a new leaf for a loving and cordial relationship. The woman may like to seek reconciliation. But this may not be possible due to the legal obstacles. Even if she wishes to make amends by withdrawing the complaint, she cannot do so as the offence is non-compoundable. The doors for returning to family life stand closed. She is thus left at the mercy of her natal family…This section, therefore, helps neither the wife nor the husband. The offence is non-bailable and non-compoundable making an innocent person undergo stigmatization and hardship. Heartless provisions that make the offence non-bailable and non-compoundable operate against reconciliations. It is, therefore, necessary to make this offence (a) bailable and (b) compoundable to give a chance to the spouses to come together” (p. 191).

 

The Committee, while making such observations, expressed its apprehensions about the ability of the criminal justice system to provide justice. However, the committee has failed to recognize that

First, cruelty under 498A is listed as a cognizable, non-bailable, and non-compoundable crime and has to be dealt with accordingly. The criminal justice system, while dealing with each case, is expected to take abundant precautions in ascertaining the guilt of the accused person; therefore, to suggest that this offence be diluted implies distrusting the judiciary and labelling the trial courts as inefficient to effectively adjudicate the culpability of the parties.

Second, the context of the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim does not make domestic violence a lesser crime. Rather, the severity of the crime is adverse in situations where the batterer is in the position to exert financial, emotional, and social control over the victim because of the relationship, and the victim is financially dependent on the perpetrator.

Third, salvaging a violent marriage is not a viable option when a man is abusive, as he destroys the family through his violent actions. Families cannot be built on the edifice of bruised and battered bodies or scarred minds.

Fourth, the bitterness in a relationship already starts once a wife is being abused; therefore, suggestions should have focused on altering the men’s violent behaviour.

Fifth, the policemen are not overzealous in arresting the accused. Rather, studies have shown that women undergo hassles in filing the FIR. Also, at every step of the trial, mediation is enforced vehemently to compel women to reconcile.

Sixth, making the offence compoundable will not serve the purpose, as neither will it deter the perpetrator nor will it help to salvage the relationship. Experiences show that violence escalates in situations when women are pushed back into abusive situations without the guarantee of safety.

Last, the committee has failed to raise concerns relating to provisions of shelter homes, medical, or legal aid, or other facilities for the battered women, as its only apprehension was to save the family. This indicates its biased approach.

Despite its pitfalls, this erroneous approach sets precedents, is being repeated multiple times, and has major implications for diluting the procedures and provisions relating to criminal law. Over the years, the state has followed the recommendations blindly without testing the validity of claims or referring to the existing research to suggest changes. 

For more details, please see my book

Domestic Violence Law in India: Myth and Misogyny (2021), Routledge

 

Family courts uphold family ideologies, not gender justice

During the 1980s, the demands were made by the women's movement to establish family courts, and the Family Court Act was enacted in 1984. The law provides for specialized forums to deal with ‘matrimonial conflicts’ and not domestic violence. These are designed to adjudicate matters such as divorce, custody suits, maintenance, restitution of conjugal rights, and connected issues. The goal is to make the courts accessible and less intimidating for women through dispensing with lawyers, legalistic jargon, strict rules of procedure, and standards of evidence.

These courts depicted mediation as an alternative to the patriarchy-inspired adversary system. This is preferred by many because of its reputation for providing a better hearing. Yet this system could not aid in reducing violence or enabling justice for women. Studies have shown that the family courts are not free from difficulties like backlogs, the exploitative commercial approach of lawyers, long, drawn-out battles, multiple court proceedings, and the insensitive approach of officials.

Family courts were created to avoid cumbersome litigation and replace it with samjhauta, or ‘brokering compromises’, to achieve efficiency and to shed the burden of the law. These courts mandatorily offer coercive persuasions to forcefully push women back to the violent families, to ‘adjust’, to ‘compromise’ to ‘preserve marriage’, even if it endangers their life and limb. An idea that is constantly being pushed is that the family is equipped to protect women while underplaying violence in it. Perhaps it is easier and more economical to compel women rather than question a man’s violent behavior. What is erroneously strengthened is the belief that women prefer to stay within abusive households, and therefore, through ‘forced compromises’, they are compelled to accept the violent situation without any guarantee of their safety or security. No options are offered outside the domain of the ‘sacrosanct’ family. The rhetoric of ‘counselling’, ‘mediation’ or ‘settlement’ reiterates the regressive family ideology rather than protecting women from violence or providing psycho-social support to victims. The focus on settling ‘family disputes’ could not deal with the serious violence women face. Family courts negate women’s experience of violence rather than providing justice. Theoretically, an adversary system is replaced to resolve matters expeditiously and harmoniously, but in reality, the criminal justice system is twisted to adjust to the tenor of the patriarchy.

The alternative dispute resolution system diluted the seriousness of domestic violence in various ways. The language itself deliberately lessens the gravity of an offense committed within the chardiwari of the household. The term ‘dispute’ entails that two parties are equal, as compared to the term ‘violence’ which implies an abuse of power. The concept of parity among parties on unequal footing is introduced silently by the slyness of the patriarchal forces. No attempts have been made to question the inequality in the relationship. This misconceived approach overlooks the fact that conciliation as a technique poses grave problems, as it overlooks the concept of power within the relation. It expands the state’s control over individual behavior within families, and more specifically, it is at times being used to cement the norms of a ‘good wife’, ‘good mother’, or a ‘bad woman’. Further, denial of anger and the command to forget the past and live in the present generate dissatisfaction and give rise to a feeling of injustice. The law has reinforced patriarchal oppression while discriminating against women.

Mediation avoids questions relating to power, property, and violence within a relationship. The use of coercion in a situation where two parties are not on par creates problems rather than resolving issues. This process of ‘coercive harmony’, as explained by Laura Nader, destroys rights by limiting discussion of the past. It prohibits anger, curtails freedom, eliminates choices, and removes protection of the law. It ignores a ‘victim’ status and compels a woman to compromise her health, life, or limb. Mediation within marriage does not address the structure of power located within the relationship and ignores the fact that parties in conflict in no way operate within the universe of ‘balanced bargaining equity’. It does not satisfy the survivor’s need for justice. Rather, it normalizes and trivializes the violence in everyday lives and compels survivors to curtail their emotions and hide the resentments that arise when they face abuse. During the process of mediation, a woman is vulnerable to threats and harassment and is under extreme stress and pressure, yet the reconciliation procedure does not consider these facts. Mediation overlooks legal entitlements and ends up denying justice to women who have less bargaining power and cannot negotiate.

Another choice offered is ‘settlement’, where a victim is left with no other alternative but to fend for herself and her children instead of a meager amount of money, if any, offered by the violent husband, or she may stay at her maika or remarry. Therefore, these so-called ‘women-friendly’ adjudication spaces failed to address the concerns of the victims of violence. In other words, these courts are ‘family-centric’ rather than ‘victim- or survivor-centric’.

This approach rejects the notion of making survivors economically self-sufficient or offering options to lend socio-economic support to victims. The patriarchal imagination failed to provide distributive justice or material relief and support to the abused wives through a single-window mechanism, despite the knowledge that a comprehensive rehabilitative package is essential to remedy the situation of violence. The bold notion of challenging male dominance while improving the status of women or providing innovative solutions aiding survivors has not been imagined as an alternative by the state or society.

For more details, see my book Women and Domestic Violence Law in India: A Quest for Justice, 2019, Routledge

p 59-60