Guest Post by author Shahla Khan - What is your relationship with abuse and gender based violence?

There can only be 3 types of people when it comes down to gender based violence.

1.    The offender

2.    The victim

3.    And the on looker

When we talk about gender based violence and crimes such as rape, domestic violence and stalking, we usually talk about defending or blaming the victim that is how the rape was or wasn’t her fault. On the offenders side is a similar argument whether or not he did it to display power and what punishment does he deserve etc. Almost 100% of our arguments are based either on either the victim or the offender, which does make sense. But what does not make sense is the ignorance of our attitude towards the on lookers. In this article I will talk about the role of an on looker and if you fall into this category, what is the extent of your power to bring gender based violence to an end.

An on looker is a person, who is neither a victim nor an offender. This means, you are an on looker if you have neither committed a crime nor have been suffered one. But this certainly does not mean that an on looker is unrelated to the crime in anyway. Every on looker is 50% offender and 50% victim. As an on looker you certainly know about these crimes, they occur around you all the time, within your circle of friends or family and in the middle of the street.

When an on looker sees a man raising his hand on a woman, or hears a man making a lewd remark on a woman, he has a choice. A choice to either interrupt the man - make him realize that this is wrong, a choice to play along and support the man and lastly, to remain silent. An on looker more often than not chooses to be silent for the following reasons:

It is not my problem!

Why should I care?

He is not going to change just because I stop him!

Within my heart I think he is doing right!

The silence of an on looker is the biggest reason for the rising rates of gender based violence in every country around the world. Silence is CONSENT to the other person’s remark, do not forget that. Even if you did not join in the conversation or raise your own hand on a female, you are equally guilty for NOT saving the victim. When guys sit in groups hanging out and having fun, they often talk about women, which is fine unless the conversation become sexist. Calling names, making filthy remarks and abusing women is  NOT acceptable, even if there is no woman around! When a player sort of guy blabbers about how he fools women around, almost every guy in the group will salute and adore him. What if the woman he just fooled around with was your own sister? Isn’t this hypocrisy to salute him if he ruins some one else’s sisters life and attack him if it was your own sister?

On the contrary, as an on looker, if you make the person realize what he said or did was wrong, he will get embarrassed. Assume the scenario in the family now. An uncle raising his hand on his wife or your brother abusing his wife and you hear it. Instead of being an on looker and minding your own business, you SHOULD interrupt and stop him, embarrass him for what he is doing and talk about it. Martin Luther King in his famous speech, I have a Dream, said that, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 

It is not easy; it takes guts to speak up, especially when the matter involves other people. You will be accused of interruption and also find it not motivating enough to fight someone else’s battle. There could be various reasons why the victim is not reacting and that is not the point right now. May be your standing up for the victim could give her a reason to stand up for herself. It could boost her morale and finding another person not blaming her for a problem can be very encouraging. If there are other on lookers who are spectators to humiliation of women, your speaking up might give them a reason to speak up too. They would have thought about interrupting but the fear of peer retaliation might have kept them quiet. Instead of waiting for some person to interrupt, you be the one and initiate change.

Our society has been impregnated by filthy values of manhood and women humiliation and it keeps giving birth to men who commit these crimes thinking it is OK to do so. As on lookers, if we do not participate in the change in whatever way we can, we are also responsible for the rising statistics. The painful memory of the December 16^th 2012 Delhi gang rape is a perfect example of the role played by on lookers which led to victims death. In a busy metropolitan city, the capital of India, how many vehicles do you think would have passed by the victims when they were in the bus and on the street? Don’t you think a timely help could have saved her life?

There were mass protests and vigils carried out by young students after her death. But scarping the dirt of the society is not the job of just the youth of the society. There is a role to be played by each member of the society and specially the older, matured men who sit on important chairs in the government and run families as the so called “heads”. Each one of us has to realize our capacity to bring an end in whatever way we can to this nasty mentality against women- be it a one line lewd remark to a strange woman on the street, a name calling emotional abuse in the family or a rape on the street. As an on looker, you have this role to play, now more than ever. Stop abuse before it turns you into a victim.

In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent’. So be one of those who make noise, speak up and don’t be just another on looker!

By Shahla Khan

Author, I Want Back My SPARKLE

We at Readers' Muse thank the author for her timely response to the cause! Please read the review of the book I Want Back My SPARKLE by the author in the previous article.