Violence and Hatred = Rape Entitlement

No one is entitled to rape another human being. Yet in some societies it is invasive, endemic, pervasive, part of the culture. Where men feel entitled to grab sex whenever and wherever they can, and woman become fearfully resigned to a situation they feel impotent to do anything about. Women live with caution and in fear, their lives circumscribed, and men have the attitude that what they do is part of normal life in the societies in which they live.

India most certainly presents as a case in point. Where to be poor and female can be a death sentence. At the very least it can be a realization that women and girls can be victimized and the larger society simply shrugs metaphorically and nothing is done. Actually, rape victims are advised to remain silent, if they survive the rape, rather than complain and subject their family to shame. The law may be invoked but it rarely responds because while controversial, rape and the violence that accompanies it is so common.

Reuters, Adnan Abidi

In New Delhi the men who had serial raped and mortally injured a 23-year-old university student who had been in the protective company of a male companion had the verdict of guilty as charged for the "murder of a helpless person", pronounced upon them by Judge Yogesh Khanna. They were convicted on all 11 counts; including rape and murder. They face the possibility of hanging.

Anger: Indian women participate in a silent procession to mourn the death of the gang rape victim

Women in India endure constant sexual violence. Even though the brutal gang rape and horrible torture that the young woman underwent galvanized Indian society to protest vociferously against rapes and violence against women, those events continue; young girls abducted, raped, tortured, murdered. What they all have in common for the most part, is their poverty, their susceptibility as unprotected members of society, their vulnerability to brutality.

Women in Africa fare little better. It was widely considered that the rape of a young girl would represent a cure for AIDS. Rape of women and girls in African countries is commonplace. A new survey of six countries in Asia: Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea, concluded with the findings that one in ten men admit to raping a woman, that number increasing when wives or girlfriends are included; then that number is fully one-quarter of all men.

Ingrained sexist attitudes are cited as contributing factors in rapes. With additional factors thrown in for good measure, such as poverty, or having been emotionally and/or physically abused as children. Previously a report from the World Health Organization found one-third of women worldwide claim to have been victims of domestic or sexual violence.

In new research conducted by South Africa's Medical Research Council published in the journal Lancet Global Health, men were asked if they had ever forced sex on a woman when she was unwilling, or if they had forced a woman too drunk or drugged to consent. Between six and 8% of men raped a woman not their partner. When wives and girlfriends were included the figures rose to 30 and 57%.

The lowest rates of coerced sex were in Bangladesh and Indonesia; the highest in Papua New Guinea. Over 70 percent of men claimed "sexual entitlement" as their motivation. Almost 60% claimed they were bored, wanted to experience some fun. And 40% said they were angry, they wanted to punish the woman.

Fifty percent of the men said they had felt guilty afterward.