RAPE, SHE'S NOT TO BLAME
How do we tell her to stay away from harm's way, to not walk the streets at night, to not dress or act provocatively, to avoid clubs and night parties, to keep a distance from strangers and boys, to keep no boyfriend till marriage, to stay focussed on her study, to abide by the gospel or the prophet, and to keep the family's honour? How do we tell her this if, despite all her efforts at doing so, she - our sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmas, nieces, aunties, female friends and associates - still get raped? What do we tell dear Duduke when she’s ten and wonders why Uwa, a 22-year-old decent and respectable lady, got raped in the Church where she was supposed to feel safe?
Perhaps we should stop bothering about the hows and whats. Perhaps we should even stop bothering about the telling itself. Because, you know, is it necessary? Are the telling and she doing what she is told as preventive as we presume it to be? We tell her to do this and not to do that, to take this precaution and to follow that advice. But we've been telling her all these since Eve, yet the telling and she doing what she is told has still not kept her safe. It has not stopped him from pouncing on her like a predator on prey. And he still gets away with it, leaving her to swallow the pain alone. Hopefully she doesn't choke on it.
We, the society she's part of, still hold the belief that somehow, victims of sexual violence are responsible (at least partially) for the crimes committed against them. And so, we victimize her - the victim - for her victimization and vindicate him - the violator - of his villainy. By this, we also suggest that her freedom from this violence lies in her virtue - not his -, that her redemption must be earned. Every time she - our sister, mother, niece, etc - gets sexually abused, rather than hold him responsible for his crime, and mete out the necessary penalties for his action, we blame her instead.
We say that he is easily aroused by what he sees and that since he is a man, the real blame lies on the cause of his arousal. Behind that notion is at best, the silly insinuation that it is impossible for him to man his manhood (even though we say he is a man) and at worst the possibility that he suffers from some kind of "masculine OCD" (a condition yet to be diagnosed in men) that makes him pathologically powerless before his passions. Although it is true that more than women, men are aroused by what they see, arousal does not, and will never, justify his sexual aggression. First, having an appetite for a rich cold dessert of whipped cream, eggs, and fruits (otherwise known as parfait) does not justify me going out of my means to have it. Stealing it for one would be outrightly out of place. Why then would having an appetite for sex justify me taking advantage of someone else's body? It may please you to know in fact that sex shares a similar neural pathway with food. So if a man can control his appetite for food, he can do the same for sex. Secondly, there is a psychological disconnect between sexual obsessions resulting from OCD and rape. People with OCD often fear that a forbidden or illegal sexual obsession may lead them to act on those desires and so avoid situations that predispose them to such desires. On the other hand, those who perpetrate rape act upon their desires as a form of self-gratification and seek situations that predispose them to the act.
We say if it happened in a bar or a club or a night party or his apartment, then she cannot be innocent. If she had a drink or two before the act not only is she not innocent, she is most certainly guilty. The sage in us suddenly awakens from his slumber, telling us to tell her that "you can't walk on hot coals and expect not to be burnt." "She asked for it," we say. In suggesting this, we overlook the many cases when she, as sober as a priest on Sunday, was raped in her apartment, at school, and other places considered to be safe. In the case of Uwa, the Church. Sadly, the sage in us seems not to be wise enough to tell us how cold the coals should be for her to walk on them.
We, the Society, say if her attire is a bit too revealing (or revealing at all) then she was actively trying to seduce him or at least passively giving him "green light." Like a sheep lead to slaughter, he must be innocent. It doesn't matter if she was a Yanriya wearing a Burka or a sister in a long skirt, long-sleeved shirt, and scarf, her provocative dressing induced his sexual aggression, we say, as though the "virtuous" and "modest" do not also get sexually violated. I mean, wearing a hijab and a full-body-cover jalamia did not prevent 18-year-old Bello Barakat from getting raped by him. And think about it really, what shade of green and intensity of light is cue enough for him to sexually assault a toddler? Not more than a week ago, Tony Ojukwu (executive secretary of the National Human Rights Commission) reported an incident of a 2-year-old repeatedly raped by one Uncle Peter Agbaya Alainitiju. As if that was not sad enough, the mother of the child blamed her for being raped and called her an Ashawo. A 2-year-old!
But, whether maliciously or of good intent, when we blame her for being raped, what we do is to rape her again. Yes, I'll repeat that for emphasis. We rape her again. We rape her again because the physicality of rape is not all there is to it. The emotional, spiritual, and psychological trauma that follows is far more damaging than the physical assault. And it kills her. Although he is the one who condemns her, sets the guillotine, sharpens its blade, and fits her head into the frame, we do the actual beheading when we blame her. When we blame her, we animate and reanimate her experience, keep her emotional, spiritual, and psychological wounds fresh, kill her pride, ebb away whatever is left of her self worth, and indeed blow out the flame of her already dim life. Even after we've killed her, we still do not let her be. We hang her head on a post, and raise it high in the open for public spectacle, you know, as a lesson to other girls. Even the devil must cringe at this class of cruelty.
Up until now, I've consistently referred to "the society" as "we". I do so because even though people tend to want to exonerate themselves from matters like this and instead point fingers at "those" who perpetrate these crimes, all of us get fault for inside dis matter. We make up the dysfunctional society that victimizes her and fails to protect her. And even though we may not have actively contributed to her pain, we - you and I - are in some micro ways not exempted. You and I - her brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, friends, associates, etc -. I'll give a few examples. We contribute to her pain when we fail to believe her narrative. We contribute to her pain when we make her describe her experience over and over again because to us, it's just too incredulous that it happened. We contribute to her pain when we ask her what she was doing at a particular time and place she was raped. We contribute to her pain when we lecture her younger sisters to avoid the scene of the rape, right in her presence. We contribute to her pain when we make snide remarks about her on Twitter and make a joke of it. We contribute to her pain when we choose to keep quiet and mind our business. We contribute to her pain when we try to invalidate her hurt. We contribute to her pain when we try to hush her to protect him. We contribute to her pain when we do not speak out on her behalf. We contribute to her pain when we no longer associate with her the way we used to. We contribute to her pain when we try to help her out of pity.
One other thing is this: People who commit these crimes, many times, are quite ordinary, ordinary "good" people, with no prior criminal record. Ordinary "good" people like me. Ordinary "good" people like you too. You would deny and say "hell no, not me. I could never commit such an atrocity", but if you get to know thyself, as Socrates admonishes, perhaps what you would discover is that inasmuch as you're capable of great good, you're capable also of enormous evil. And while I'm not in any way trying to diminish the culpability of "his" choice, you would be surprised to find out that given the sufficient situational factor and personal justification to do so, I could, and you also could perpetrate all sorts of evil. And this is true irrespective of our social, religious, or existential inclinations and beliefs. Alexander Solzhenitsyn (a survivor of the many evils of World War II) puts it very well. He says "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the hearts of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart, this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil, and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish, (...) at times he (a human) is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood."
So yeah, we're not so innocent. Though we may turn and turn and point and point at him and they and them, you and I also are to blame. He is to blame, I am to blame and you are to blame. She, the victim, however, is not to blame.
By Ogunkoya Oluwamuyiwa David
Member of NIMELSSA EDITORIAL TEAM 19/20
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