Why Do Men Rape?

"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," - A Rapist

A 14-year-old girl and her mother are raped by a group of eight men for three hours; a 16-year-old gang-rape victim sets herself on fire in Morocco after the rapists threatened to publish photographs of the ordeal; a 20-year-old girl is gang-raped in Haryana by the same five men who had raped her three years ago and were out on bail...I could go on and on about the rape cases that have made headlines in the past six months alone; and research shows 67-84% of rape cases are never even reported.

The rape of women by men has occurred throughout recorded history and across cultures. In India, brutal rapes and gang-rapes have become daily news. Each time we feel things cannot get any worse, men across this country, as if taking that up as a challenge, shock us with another brutal incident.

While we get angry, join protests, and demand that rapists be hanged to effectively fight this age-old evil, we need to spend more time understanding it so that we can fight the cause and not the symptom.

So why do men or groups of men rape?

1) Because they can

In a study done in South Africa, when rapists were asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement. Professor Jacqueline Bhabha says, "Once the sense that women are less important in some way is endemic and accepted, as it is, once large sections of Indian society accept that women are there to service men, that men are justified in hitting their wives, then pervasive gender violence comes as no great surprise."

Aastha Mittal

2) Because she deserves it

A 2012 report by UNICEF found that 57% of Indian boys and 53% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 think wife-beating is justified. A recent national family-health survey also reported that a sizable percentage of women blame themselves for beatings by their husbands. And if violence is okay, then what's to stop them from sexual violence?

A research also showed that rape is often seen as a punishment directed against other women.

Aastha Mittal

3) They were just having fun

In the South African study, after interviewing thousands of convicted rapists it was found that it was often an act of bored men (alone or in groups) seeking entertainment. At home, our leaders and top officials have time and again made rape sound like nothing more than a game. Take a look for yourself:

Ranjit Sinha, head of Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI): ¡°If you can¡¯t prevent rape, enjoy it.¡±

Om Prakash Chautala, former chief minister, Haryana: ¡°Girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don¡¯t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur.¡±

Aastha Mittal

4) Because they will get away with it

Three words - police reforms, police reforms, police reforms! The Justice Verma committee, formed after the Nirbhaya rape case, had highlighted the police and judiciary reforms that are desperately needed in the country in order to prevent and deal with rape cases. None of these have been implemented.

The rapist is highly likely to get away with his crime. Even if he is caught, India's court system is painfully slow, in part because of a shortage of judges. A Delhi high court judge once estimated it would take 466 years to get through the backlog in the capital alone.

5) One of them start it, the rest just follow

Psychologist David Lisak, an expert in violent crimes says,"Groups of individuals can be far more positive or far more negative, that¡¯s the nature of group dynamics. If you have a group of men, all of whom have various levels of frustration in their lives, and who feel powerless and angry for the things that are not going well in their lives ¡ª if you have one person in that group who begins to provide the group with an outlet and a target, then that can lead to violence. If they¡¯re in a culture where there are a lot of messages about the entitled role of men, the culture can provide some very ready scripts for violence."

Aastha Mittal

6) Because they are men, real men

Sociologist Beth Quinn argues that other men are often the intended audience and that harassment has much more to do with keeping women in their place than with sexual attraction. Logically, gang rape is explained more by men¡¯s ¡°need¡± to perform gender control for other men than it is explained by any kind of ¡°irresistible¡± sexual desire. The psychology of gang rape is aided by numbers, by underlying aggression, anger, and misogyny, by ¡°cult of masculinity¡±.

7) Because physically brutalising her makes men feel better about themselves

Psychologist David Lisak says, "There is nothing new about human beings targeting a vulnerable group. Not so long ago it happened in Nazi Germany where Jewish groups were targeted by an angry population. Rape is a particular form of violence."

If a culture provides a lot of messages like - ¡°If you¡¯re a successful man, women will fall all over you¡± - men that grow up there may feel emasculated, or angry, when that doesn¡¯t happen. Hence violating another person makes them feel better about themselves. What is needed to address this problem is a wide range of systemic and far-reaching measures. Just wreaking vengeance by issuing death penalties is not the solution. It satisfies a lust for biblical retaliation without opening up a space for much-needed rational, national soul-searching.

Aastha Mittal