Indian woman jumps off moving train to flee rape

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Independent

Indian woman jumps off moving train to flee rape

The woman’s leap came in the aftermath of the fatal attack on the medical student and a male friend in Delhi last month

Andrew Buncombe
Friday 04 January 2013

A young woman is in a critical condition in hospital after she flung herself from a moving train to escape a sexual assault, the latest in a series of incidents that have highlighted the vulnerability of women in India.

As the authorities prepare for the latest court hearing over the rape and killing of a 23-year-old medical student, details emerged from the state of Bihar about the woman who jumped from her carriage after allegedly being molested by a paramilitary soldier.

“Her condition continues to be critical. A team of doctors is treating her. She has suffered injuries in her head and legs,” a police official told the IANS news agency.

The incident happened as the 25-year-old woman from Darjeeling was travelling on a train to Delhi on Thursday evening when the man tried to molest her after she visited the lavatory. After fighting him off, she then leapt from the Brahmaputra Mail train as it passed through the state of Bihar. The woman, who has two children, is being treated in a hospital in the city of Patna. A member of the Assam Rifles paramilitary force has been detained and charged.


Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indian-woman-jumps-off-moving-train-to-flee-rape-8439044.html

[polly7]

1. Poor woman. :(

How horrific to have to decide which would be worse, possibly killing herself in the jump or possibly facing what happened on the train in New Delhi. I hope she recovers.

[florida08]

2. what the hell is going on there

Take some protection ladies..the men have lost their minds. Keep some liq bleach in a toy spray gun. Where is the UN?

[Scootaloo]

10. Same thing that goes on here

Men believing they have autonomy over a woman's body, and a culture and legal system that tends to back them up on that assumption.

[Mojorabbit]

47. +100 nt

[cbrer]

55. +200 nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. I suspect what is going on there is what has always gone on there.

Only now, we're hearing about it.

I could be wrong; maybe there has been a sudden increase in these attacks, but I suspect it's that they are gettting more media attention now.

[Warpy]

52. Yes and no. It's an intensely sexist cuture where women are despised

as far less than human, far less than men. Few have become educated and started careers because any woman seen alone in the world is seen as a prostitute. Women traveling alone on business is really new there.

In addition, India now has several million surplus males with no hope of marriage.

They're going to need a war to even up the numbers or they'll need some pretty heavy handed repression to contain the violence.

[polly7]

58. I read this in another article:

And then she summarized:

And Economic systems influence culture and social values. An economics of commodification creates a culture of commodification, where everything has a price, and nothing has value… The growing culture of rape is a social externality of economic reforms. We need to institutionalize social audits of the neo-liberal policies, which are a central instrument of patriarchy in our times.

There is also an archaic feudalist system; there is the disgraceful caste system, there is religious lunacy: all having a detrimental effect on shaping both social values, and culture.

There is also ignorance, the result of a chronic lack of learning and education, as India is home to the greatest number of illiterate people anywhere on earth.

And there is sexual oppression, associated elsewhere with the 19th century, or much earlier days; there are feudal sexual master-slave relations, extreme prohibitions on sexuality, medieval guilt that religions attach to sexuality, unnatural men to women ratios (result of aborting female fetuses and killing baby-girls); all that adding fuel to already unstable, explosive conditions in the society.

The primary victims of this state of affairs are, of course, Indian women.

Anger After New Delhi Rape Victim Dies

By Andre Vltchek

Saturday, January 05, 2013

http://www.zcommunications.org/anger-after-new-delhi-rape-victim-dies-by-andre-vltchek

[seabeyond]

18. i am hearing ya. sounded like free reign on women. hurtling selves off trains.

this is becoming fuckin' surreal.

rape culture, yet? or are we still in denial.

[Doremus]

3. I think if I had to ride a train in India

I'd smear myself with excrement or some other repulsive substance.

Or pretend to foam at the mouth or act in some other manner that might repel someone's attention.

What other things can women there do to protect themselves unless/until the government steps up?

[SummerSnow]

6. carry alka seltzer tablets...

If you are being followed and in danger of sexual assault toss 2 tablets in your mouth. Start foaming.

[Doremus]

13. Insert the tablets, fall down and flail your arms and legs as if having a seizure. I like it.

I wonder if they sell those female condoms in India, the kind studded with razor blades? That would work as a last resort. Much better to avoid letting them get ahold of you, period.

[Skittles]

17. no need to go to that extreme

I have always found that incessantly scratching my crotch does wonders to get rid of unwanted male attention; yes INDEED

[Doremus]

37. Good one. Perhaps combined with a vacant stare and drool. Passing gas might work wonders too. nt

[yardwork]

20. Rapists aren't attracted to women. Rape is a crime of violence, not sexual attraction.

Suggesting that somebody would be less likely to be raped if they were repulsive misses the point. People aren't raped because they are wearing perfume, and they are not less likely to be raped if they smell of excrement. People aren't raped because they are wearing short skirts. They aren't any less likely to be raped if they are wearing a sweatshirt.

All these suggestions are less than helpful because they perpetuate the idea that the victim of rape was doing something wrong. It's the rapists who are wrong, not the victims.

[FarrenH]

26. Actually that's wrong

Last edited Fri Jan 4, 2013, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

its a common political, but not scientific, viewpoint.

Rape can be motivated by anger, compensation for feelings of inadequacy (dominance) or the eroticization of violence (sadism) - or combinations of all three.

In the last case it's vey much about sexual gratification, and the victims looks are likely to play a role. In some cases it can simply be about poor impulse control, a sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy. Again, looks may play a role in these cases.

I'm certainly not suggesting that what victims wear in any way justifies rape. But its wrongheaded to perpetuate myths about the causes of rape, especially one that is based entirely on political ideology, not scientific study.

[yardwork]

27. Sez who?

[FarrenH]

32. says a great many sources

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199211/round-rapists

http://www.amazon.com/Men-Who-Rape-Psychology-Offender/product-reviews/0738206245/ref=la_B001K7TY04_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/10/science/new-studies-map-the-mind-of-the-rapist.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

"Its only about violence" and "its only about dominance" are largely the fruit of speculative feminist theory. And in fact some studies have tested these propositions:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224498309551170

and found them wanting.

A few simple statistics also dispel the idea that every woman is equally at risk. For instance, while victims range from infants to octogenerians, in the USA:

15% of victims are under age 12
29% are age 12-17
44% are under age 18
80% are under age 30 (SOO, 1997, 1999 NCVS)

so 65% of all victims are between puberty and age 30, an age range that constitutes 35% of the population, according to the 2011 census. Coincidentally, its also the age range from which men are most likely to find women desirable. This isn't rocket science

[yardwork]

33. Psychology Today and random books listed on Amazon aren't authoritative sources.

And nobody said that all women are equally at risk. Certainly not me.

[FarrenH]

34. I did you the courtesy of googling some public sources on the internet

to get you started. Including a link to a book that does present clinical research that supports my statements, and a link to an actual study that finds the exact opposite results to those predicted by the dominance-only theory of what motivates rape.

Unfortunately I cannot give you books I've read or papers behind academic publishing paywalls. You're welcome to do further research yourself or simply dismiss what I've said as false. But if you were honest with yourself you'd acknowledge that the source of your own beliefs on the topic are not informed by any actual clinical research. If you're really interested in the truth, rather than winning an argument about your preconceptions on the internets, I suggest you go read some.

Also you seem to have entirely missed the point of the statistical exercise. You said looks don't matter. Clearly rapists are less likely to rape older-looking people.

[yardwork]

35. What is your point? That women are responsible for being raped because of the way they dress?

[FarrenH]

36. No, that was not my point

Because I don't believe a woman is ever responsible for being raped for any reason, be it the way they dress or their behavior. On that we agree completely.

My point is that you were perpetuating a common myth about what motivates rapists. Its not "just about violence" and young, attractive women are more at risk.

[riderinthestorm]

42. I don't have the study at hand but almost all rapists can't remember what their victim was wearing

what they looked like, or how old they were.

What they ARE looking at, and can usually remember, is footwear.

Yup. Your shoes.

They are evaluating whether their prey can run, kick, get away or maneuver.

The age range that is targeted wears high heels (easy footwear for a predator to overcome since women can't usually run or kick effectively with them). It has virtually nothing to do with looks, age or clothing.

The predator is sussing out prey.

Rape IS a crime of violence, domination, and humiliation. That's why infants are raped. That's why women in burqas are raped. Drunk guys get raped because they look like an easy target - it's why virtually anyone can be a victim until we change our culture.

[FarrenH]

56. Deleted my looong reply

in case you saw it and wondered why. I realised I didn't really want to be drawn into this debate. There are two seemingly mutually exclusive academic approaches to this issue, with the view expressed by yourself and the poster above coming out of sociology. In fact its virtually a catechism and rests on the idea that persists in that field that humans are blank slates, empty meat machines to be programed by culture, and even basic features of biological sexual dimorphism are cultural constructs.

The view from sociobiology, which examines ourselves and our close biological relatives like other primates (who also engage in coercive sex despite not having the cultural baggage the sociological view is premised on) through the lens of reproductive strategies (of the gene, not the mind) is at the very least orthogonal, if not diametrically opposed, as is evident in Pinker's statement (in The Blank Slate) that the sociological treatment will "go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds".

So I can see this degenerating into the offering of contradictory papers on the topic from these different angles.

Personally I think the former treatment is mostly a load of crap and apart from completely ignoring biology, natural selection and all that hard science stuff, has severe methological shortcomings, like relying on self-reporting from long term serial offenders who are more likely to be paraphiliacs or have some pathology, and are therefore more likely to be in jail and therefore included in such studies, while compelling evidence exists to suggest a large percentage of rapes are not committed by long term serial offenders.

But I'm a hard science guy and that's my bias. And the fluffiness of pure cultural explanations hatched from political positions just irritates me, as does the infection of much of American sociology by continental ideas like poststructuralism, or as I like to call it, bullshit.

I realise though, that on a political board the sociological approach is going to be the prevailing catechism and don't feel like whipping up a shit storm.

We all agree on issues of moral culpability anyway. Specifically that there are no circumstances ever when the behaviour of the victim justifies or even mitigates responsibility for rape, whatever the perpetrators motive.

Namaste.

[SemperEadem]

28. these would to the trick

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20008347-10391704.html

A South African doctor has created a female condom that puts teeth in the fight against rape.

Literally.

The anti-rape condom, called "Rape-aXe," features rows of jagged hooks designed to attach to a man's penis during penetration. Once attached, the condom can only be removed by a doctor - hopefully when authorities can arrest him, Dr. Sonnet Ehlers, the condom's designer, told CNN.

that should take care of the problem.

[Doremus]

38. Yes, those are a last resort.

Unfortunately, they don't deter the rape from occurring and work only when the penis is inserted in the vagina.

As a last resort, yes.
Avoidance of any contact whatsoever is first preference.

[SemperEadem]

57. that goes without saying

however, seeing that the aim is inserting the penis into the vagina...

[Hestia]

40. The Vagina Dentata rendered true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata

not that I an against it.

[golfguru]

4. Rapes in USA compared to India

Rate per 100,000 population

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year

31.8 31.5 30.6 29.8 29.0 27.3

1.6 1.7 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8


Keep things in perspective. Rape is far UNcommon in India. Which could
explain the woman jumping off the train.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Based on reported rapes, presumably

That makes it hard to compare the numbers for very different cultures.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

21. I wonder if the women there are just afraid to report rapes.

[JI7]

24. india's police are very corrupt, and of those who ARE reported many rapists end up going free

it's the anti women culture.

even with this recent protests over the girl who got raped and died there have been many people blaming the women. saying it's what they were wearing and other crap.

you know the recent news with stuebenville here ? well i would say what happened there is the norm in india when it comes to women who report rape.

this is why you are reading the stories about women beating up the rapists now or of this woman who risked her life to get away from it. in this case notice it was an authority figure who did it. there is no trust in law enforcement to do the right thing.

[DavidDvorkin]

29. That's one thing I was thinking

I also wonder about social shame. I don't know about India, but in some countries, horribly enough, the rape victim gets the blame.

[leftynyc]

7. As we know, rape

is probably the most unreported violent crime so the numbers for both countries are meaningless.

[golfguru]

12. It is true that rape is under reported crime, but....

I just do not want any one to get the idea that India has far more rapes than here.

Most unreported rapes are by some one known to the victim, such as date rape or by
a relative. Rape by a stranger is much more reported. In over crowded India, a rape on
a public place is hard to go unnoticed. I never saw a deserted street in Mumbai during
my last visit many moons ago. Even at night, I saw countless people sleeping on the
street. Of course in Mumbai temperature seldom drops below 70 F even at night.

[Doremus]

14. If they're unreported how do you know?

Do you have a link supporting that assertion? Thanks.

[golfguru]

15. Nope, just first hand observation

having spent 20 years of my life in India and 40 years in USA, with countless
women relatives in both countries.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Use your head for a change. Not every female wants to go through a trial.

How hard is it for you to grasp that fact?

Don't try to play games with this subject.

It's not a subject where your great wit is likely to shine.

[Doremus]

39. Pound sand. nt

[JI7]

23. Rapists get away with it in India far more than here

and that is rape but there is also the issue of harrassment where guys think they can just grab and touch women any place they want.

[golfguru]

44. You are right about inappropriate touching, not necessarily about rape

Indians react differently to crime than Americans. I have spent 2 decades actually
living in India whereas most posters here have never lived there.

People in US would rarely start a riot when a rape becomes known. That is different in India. In my own neighborhood, when a crime occurred and the offender was caught, he was beaten with sticks before the police arrived which was usually hours later. I witnessed burglars, pick pockets, shop lifters treated that way first hand. I never witnessed a violent rape with a screaming victim in over-crowded Indian cities. There is no such thing as a deserted street in large cities. I can barely walk in downtown Mumbai because of wall to wall people.

India is 1/3 size of US and has 4 times population. IOW it's population density is 12 times US. It is not easy to commit violent rape in cities without people around the victim hearing screams. Most rapes in India do not happen in villages or rural areas. A rapist caught there is likely to be beaten mercilessly by fellow villagers.

That does not mean violent rapes do not ever take place, but based on my first hand observation
the Wiki stats are not far off.

[JI7]

46. that is just too simple, women are not always going to scream

and many times they are being threatened to shut up .

we hear about some of these cases where the rapist is beat up but that is because of lack of law enforcement. and these are few cases where it happens.

there are far more where nobody but the victim knows what happened andd they tell nobody.

[golfguru]

48. In my 20 years in India, I was never a scream away from people

Unless you travel and spend time in India, you will have no concept of how crowded the country is. Especially the cities, which are hugely and absurdly over crowded. That is the overwhelmingly main reason I emigrated out. I miss so many things such as food, relatives, culture, etc. but the noisy living conditions became intolerable.

What is great about US is that even small towns have amenities of modern life available. So I now live in a small town where there is no constant noise of traffic to put up with.

[JI7]

53. and i have travellled to india also , and people do have privacy and women don't always scream

during assault.

[seabeyond]

19. fbi says unreported rapes range 30-70%. pretty wide range of unknown. nt

[golfguru]

49. That percentage may not vary from country to country as much?

[CSStrowbridge]

8. Statistics

Those likely only include official numbers and ignore the countless women that are raped and don't report it. India was recently labeled the worst G20 nation for women, and there's a reason for this.

[golfguru]

50. Can't say I agree with you based on my women relatives.

Keep in mind India had a woman elected leader long before we will have here.
In my immediate family, women were graduating from college before I was born,
going back to the early 1940's.

Just like US, where women now outnumber men in colleges, women in India are catching up fast.
I will add however that there are still many people in India who still are not educated
and follow old traditions of keeping women under wraps. But there are zero restrictions
for women who wish to become professionals. Go to a place like Bangalore, and you will see
scores of technical women professionals. I do not see anything keeping them back.

[JI7]

22. very misleading, Rape is not reported in india as much as in the US

[golfguru]

51. How many years have you lived in India?

I have lived there 20 years. May be you think you know more about India by reading than me
by actually living there.

I will give you just one anecdote. My concept of USA was so different than what I actually
found here. Now that I have traveled to 2 dozen or more countries, I have stopped believing
what I read unless I spend some time there. Another example is when I visited my in-laws
in Sweden. I never expected to find the warmest bunch of people anywhere. I thought they
would be somewhat similar to the British being so close out there.

[JI7]

54. and i don't live in other states in the US also and know we have issues here

[Posteritatis]

25. I categorically refuse to believe the Indian numbers you present there. (nt)

[golfguru]

43. The stats are straight from Wikipedia, your quarrel should be with them, not me..here is the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

[dkf]

9. Delhi women gun for licences; rape triggers big rush to acquire arms

NEW DELHI: The horrific attack on Nirbhaya has led to a spurt in requests for gun licences from women. Since December 18, the day the news of the brutal gang rape appeared in newspapers, the licensing department of Delhi Police has received a total of 274 applications from women. In addition, it has also been flooded with hundreds of queries on how to obtain a licence.

"We have received over 1,200 calls since that day. These include not only the average working woman, but even students who travel long distances to colleges and even their concerned parents. They were eager to find out more on the procedure to acquire arms," said a Delhi police officer.

Delhi police sources say hundreds more had turned up at their office itself. "We had to patiently tell them that one needs to have a clear danger to one's life to be given a licence. However, some of the parents were not happy with our replies. They said that with even public transport no longer safe in the city, they just cannot take chances. When we told them this could not be reason enough, we were told to give in writing that their daughters were indeed safe on Delhi's roads," said a source.

http://m.timesofindia.com/city/delhi/Delhi-women-gun-for-licences-rape-triggers-big-rush-to-acquire-arms/articleshow/17836320.cms

Don't have a gun, but I would rather have one than have to jump off trains.

[riderinthestorm]

30. I love ya dkf but an untrained woman with a gun trying to fight off a trained military officer?

She'd be disarmed instantly and the gun would have been used on her unfortunately...





The key is to change the culture so women aren't immediately thought of as prey. Guns aren't really the solution imho.

[dkf]

41. Well obviously one needs to be trained...

Thank goodness I am in a pretty safe situation and don't feel I need one. But if I were in India I would think about it if possible. Or maybe a taser.

[SemperEadem]

31. that explanation

makes about as much sense as police here telling someone they can't do anything to someone threatening a person until that person is attacked.

I don't blame them for pressing the police--it's like they're ignoring that there is a sense of being untouchable if one decides to single out a woman and rape her--and the knee jerk response is to jump all over the woman's head for not having a husband or a male relative with her. Well the student did have a male companion with her and he got his ass beat. What good does that do? The woman needs to be able to defend herself----perhaps the time has come for them to have certain rail cars and buses for women only, like they do in Japan because of all the groping.

she needs, at the very least, to keep a straight edge razor on her.