As the saying goes, violence toward a woman
begins when the doctor says “Congratulation, you got a baby girl”
Conventional demographic administration
categorizes human species in a dichotomy set of sex type, male and female.
This dichotomy is used to attribute norms, expectation, and even more
regulation. It eventually brings this world like now: lace doll for girl and
army figure for boy. Woman is expected to present herself in a graceful and
non-violent way, while a man is understood for behaving like what a man is
supposed to be, that is placid and ferocious enough, not to confuse with the
gracefulness of woman (or other might perceive him as a gay). Take a look at
the commercials for perfume, cars, cigars, and oh gosh do not forget those popular
Hollywood movies. How woman and man are described publicly, mostly through
media, will definitely build a certain consensual opinion about what they are
supposed and expected to do. This gives birth to the filter of personal interest
based on the consensual norms. A girl might have a huge interest on aviation
engineering, but it is likely her family would disagree as it is considered as
a man’s toy. Now we know that one soul has just been taken down.
The more significant contribution comes from
political sphere. We are in the middle of what can be perceived as the Phallic
Reign. Since the human population grows massively, people start having the need
to entrust their civil rights to a licit entity, in the form of government or
people’s representative, to manage the entire community system including the
laws, education, economy, health, and other societal matter. It is the reality
we need to concern that despite the conventional administration has already
applied this sexual dichotomy, the political system rarely considers the ratio
of woman and man on the reign per se. If government really is the people’s
representative, how that explains and is accounted for the possible discrepancy
between women’s interest and men’s interest being accommodated? That might as
well explain the reason behind hundreds of local legislation in Indonesia that
discriminate women, specifically, ranging from prohibition of a woman being in
public area at night, prohibition of women sitting astride on motorcycle, and
other preposterous clauses, certainly arranged by those who were born with
penis. Sex-based regulation indicates the presence of unequal degree between
woman and man, in this case, man is assumed to have power over woman until
today.
Make it concise this way: since the acclaimed
crown is on the phallus, he begins to ensure that the reign will never be
dethroned. From the perspective between the scrotums, woman as non-phallic
constitution is perceived as the object that needs to be made regulation to
control the possible unwanted occurrence leading to heresy. Woman’s life is now
defined, regulated, and incriminated. Woman is always one point less than man
for being non-phallic. Phallically speaking, it takes a penis to possess the
real freedom of life.
As they are talking about rape, the saying goes
like this: it is not the intention that leads to crime, but the presence of
opportunity
The rape incident rate might be various across
different nations with their own cultures. However, high or low incident rate
number of rape will not change the fact that rape factually exists. Especially
rape toward women, the incident has been experienced by women from varying
ages, baby to granny, different races, and different social background. Look around
you pertaining to this phenomenon, isn’t that disturbing? Under the Phallic
Reign, woman is the victim, not only by political manner, but also by being
physically attacked and bearing the dishonor.
There are too many forms of violence against
women. Sexual abuse is the blatant discord symbol of man toward a woman. Woman
is raped or sexually dishonored because she is a woman (non-phallic) and perceived
as an object. He attacks the very special female organ that is distinctive.
Several views try to explain about rape, such as the relation of
superordinate-subordinate, control and authority, and others like religion and
cultural approaches. In reality, each time rape occurs, not a few people see
rape as merely the result of negligent conduct by the rape victim herself for
dressing too seducing or letting him (the perpetrator) catch the opportunity to
do so. Indonesia has several online news media that occasionally report a rape
case. Read the public comment below the article and you will understand what
commoners deduce on this matter. Let me put how common reaction toward rape
this way: a woman was raped and yet, it is her mistake for making man rape her
by dressing with what is available at the local store.
Man has been long forgotten in the discourse of
violence against woman whether it is domestic rape or rape by stranger, while
in fact man is the perpetrator who should be the main matter, the bull-eye
target. This information distortion results in victim blaming like “Why did she
wear that revealing dress?” or “Why didn’t she fight back?” or “Why did she
have to get drunk?” or other why-did-she-do-that kind of question, and
ridiculously, the main role of man as the perpetrator is gone with the wind
like Macarena song, amidst the victim blaming feast.
Similar reaction is often found in property
crime, when friends lost their wallets in public bus for example. They heard
thing like this “Why didn’t you keep your wallet inside your bag and hold it
tight?” and “Oh poor you. Next time don’t use public transportation. Bad people
are ubiquitous”. Reaction toward property crime is also victim blaming. They
suggest their friends avoiding to do something that is not even a crime. Is
taking public bus a crime? Is using your pocket to keep your wallet is a crime?
I thought stealing was the crime, so why don’t they remind the neighborhood to
stop taking other’s belonging without permission? For other situation in the
field of property security, such suggestion might be useful. A way to prevent a
crime through environmental design is called as target hardening. If the
environmental design has missed to harden the weak spot (opportunity), theft
(crime) might occur. But viewing rape toward woman as property crime only
accentuates the object status of woman. There is a missing link here regarding
the Phallic Sovereignty: If in the first place woman is viewed as object and
regulation is made to control non-phallic creature, so who owns the
proprietary? Who should feel the loss of woman being raped? Who is that loser?
Consequently,
the loser is them who were born with penis. They failed to create secure
environment that can prevent rape. Please be reminded, woman cannot be
perceived as property/object and therefore, victim blaming on rape cases is not
applicable in any way. The blame is always on the perpetrator. Wearing clothes
is never a crime. If wearing a certain type of clothes is considered as seducing
to then seen as a crime, banning the store to sell products like that might be
highly advised as the solution to prevent rape. Please be reminded, but to rape
is wrong and that is the crime.
For rape is the crime, instead of judging the
rape victim for wearing such revealing clothes or with other blaming statement,
it is the time for people to start questioning the perpetrator himself with:
why did you rape? Why couldn’t you control yourself, strong man? Why didn’t you
keep your sight?
For rape is the crime, instead of only telling
unmarried woman to keep her virginity, to restrict the curfew, and to dress
with solid clothes, it is the time to realize people the need to teach their
sons and nephews to keep their sight politely, to avoid thinking heinously
about woman, and to treat woman respectfully, because she has a bless to bear a
life and deliver it into this world.
For sex organ is naturally given not
chosen, for human is equipped with intelligence, thus being a woman is never a
curse. Discrimination is the crime that we, phallic or non-phallic
creature, should together fight, because violence toward woman is violence
toward humankind.
