AT­TIL­LAH SPRINGER

How yuh jam­min so?

Like yuh feel­in hot or what?

Mr, why grinin so

You come out to jump or not

Every time yuh swing yuh hand

Yuh bounce mih tot tot or mih butt

You be­hav­ing just like if you want to eat me

Right here on the spot

How Yuh Jam­min so, Mighty Spar­row

The roar of an­guish com­ing from the women of In­dia echoes and rip­ples around the world. It took the death of a 23-year-old for some mem­bers of In­di­an so­ci­ety to sit up and be­gin to con­front a sit­u­a­tion that is tac­it­ly ac­cept­ed around the world, even by those of us who think we are all mod­ern and pro­gres­sive and cool about sex.

It is a dou­ble-edged sword that the fil­mi fan­tasies of the pu­ri­ty of love be­tween In­di­an men and women that some of us in the West hold have been shat­tered by the sav­agery of the five rapists' act. But it doesn't mean that we are any clos­er to con­fronting the fact that rape cul­ture is as per­va­sive as cap­i­tal­ism.

We will hap­pi­ly sign a pe­ti­tion de­mand­ing that they do some­thing about rape in In­dia. Mean­while the broad­cast­ing of the sex­u­al abuse of an Ohio girl is not as much of a news item as Kim Kar­dashi­an's preg­nan­cy. It's time for us to put away an­oth­er myth about In­di­an women: that of the sub­mis­sive, shrink­ing vi­o­let who ac­cepts her fate meek­ly and qui­et­ly.

I see the im­ages of women rais­ing sticks against the po­lice try­ing to stop their peace­ful protests. I read the sto­ries of Phoolan De­vi the Ban­dit Queen. About the Pink Sari gang de­fend­ing the en­vi­ron­ment. About the hun­dreds of women of Koon­dakoolam who have stood up to the Gov­ern­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions try­ing to build a nu­clear re­ac­tor in their back­yards and I don't need any more con­vinc­ing that In­di­an women are any­thing but pas­sive.

The women who have tak­en to the streets are de­mand­ing not just jus­tice for the late Dami­ni but al­so a change in the per­cep­tion of what it is to be a woman. The ex­treme po­si­tions of god­dess or whore. Be­cause women are not sup­posed to ei­ther en­joy sex or choose who they want their sex­u­al part­ners to be or, heav­en for­bid, de­fy the de­mands of the man to whom she "be­longs."

To those of us who watch on from the West, all smug in our post-mod­ern lib­er­a­tion, what are we go­ing to do about rape cul­ture in our own back­yards? How have we sought to ques­tion the way that our own bod­ies are treat­ed?

Who wants to have a con­ver­sa­tion about dis­man­tling pa­tri­archy? Who wants to con­front the fact that whether or not you think the Prime Min­is­ter is good at her job or not, the crit­i­cism of her is al­ways bor­der­ing on dis­turbing­ly sex­ist and over­bear­ing­ly sex­u­al? Who wants to talk to their young peo­ple about sex? Who wants to change the warn­ing is­sued by gen­er­a­tions of par­ents: "when ah leg­go mih cock yuh bet­ter tie up yuh hen"?

Who wants to take on the think­ing be­hind the bizarre com­ments of the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice blam­ing teenage girls for the in­crease in sex­u­al of­fences. I'm no longer will­ing to ac­cept that rape cul­ture is part of the bur­den women have to bear and sure­ly some­body with a lit­tle bit of sense needs to tell Mervyn Richard­son that the way to ad­dress sex­u­al of­fences is not to start by blam­ing girls for fil­ing re­ports.

I thought we'd come a long way from deny­ing that young peo­ple are be­ing abused. I thought we would be at the point where we would be try­ing to de­con­struct the psy­chol­o­gy of why young women are on­ly able to val­ue their sex­u­al­i­ty as a com­mod­i­ty that they can trade to get the ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions that this so­ci­ety says they need to have to mat­ter.

Every Car­ni­val we get a slew of ad­ver­tise­ments and ar­ti­cles ad­mon­ish­ing women about what to do to avoid be­ing raped or at­tacked on the streets. Don't go off by your­self, they say. Don't ac­cept drinks from strangers. Women are al­ways ex­pect­ed to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their ac­tions. Where are the cam­paigns ad­dressed to the men?

Where are the cam­paigns chal­leng­ing back­ward no­tions of mas­culin­i­ty? Where are the boofs for men to man up and stop rap­ing women? Why are we rais­ing women to be vic­tims and men to be ag­gres­sors? The idea of own­er­ship of your body is per­haps one of the most rad­i­cal ideas that a woman could ever have. And I don't mean choos­ing to wear a wire bra to play mas.

Maybe one day we'll stop see­ing rape cul­ture as some­body else's prob­lem. Maybe one day we too will take to the streets for all the Damin­is in our com­mu­ni­ties who are too ter­ri­fied to re­port their own sex­u­al of­fences for the fear of be­ing blamed by a so­ci­ety that is still to scared to talk hon­est­ly about sex.