Media Critique
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On May 9th, 2018 CNN, a worldwide network released an article of a second teenage girl who had been reported to have been raped and set to fire in the city of Jharkhand, only five days after the group and I arrived in Mysore. The article states that this is the second case within a short time span as close as a couple of days which has sparked an outrage of protests across the nation making women continue to ask whether or not they feel safe to be a woman in India.
As I previously mentioned, this news comes only five days after my fellows and I have arrived in India. Some precaution had to have been taken before we had arrived here as to how to dress and act in India and mainly not do anything that can spark any unwanted interest or cause any attention to anyone. For instance, we had to make sure that we cover our shoulder and wear knee length pants, something that you do not really pay attention to back home. I have however, in the short amount of time that we have been here, have felt of sense of gender discrimination as well as been observing it in different scenarios. At a local grocery store, I noticed a man skip a woman in line as she was waiting her turn to pay for her groceries. Not only did the man unacknowledged the woman waiting, the cashier had not said anything to the man regarding the woman. I find what is worse is that the woman herself didn’t feel the need to speak up on what happened. If something as simple as not speaking up when you are next to pay in line at the grocery store, are women afraid to speak up when they are victims of a more serious crime? Are these women afraid of speaking up on anything at all due to any social stigma they might encounter?
Violence against women in India is considered omnipresent while north of India, specifically Delhi, is considered the rape capital with 706 reported rapes in 2012 not including the number that goes unreported. More than half of the victims were between the ages of 18 and thirty and seventeen percent from this number were recorded from Delhi. (Rao 2014) The article explained of the rape attack from New Delhi in 2012, when a 23-year old woman boarded a bus to New Delhi with her male companion and was raped by a group of men. A physiotherapy intern, she was beat and battered to death and reportedly mutilated by an iron rod. The woman was the left on the side of a highway in Delhi and died 13 days later died from her injuries. This rape caught the media and public’s attention creating an outrage of protests lasting two weeks against police inactivity and to the safety for women. (Rao 2014) This led to a positive consequence that it caught the public’s attention for the importance of having women feel safe in India.
The article by CNN states that the current swarm of rapes cases has once shocked the country and it is back on the public and media’s attention since the attack in New Delhi from 2012. In response to the current rape cases, the women were interviewed by the media to gather their opinions from a societal point of view. What is a women’s place in India compared to man’s? Do you feel safe being a woman in India? One woman answered that she feels as if there is always a constant level of subordination to these women on a daily basis. They wake up, they go out, and they are automatically subjected to these rules and regulations, something that men are not expected to do. Another woman responded that considering the fact that something is always happening in India, no she does not feel safe in India.
Research ran by (Hetu 2014) had a focus to analyze the reaction of society towards rape cases and their victims. The article explained that society is misled by rape myths that are prevalent on a large scale which affect the attitude of the people in general and the rape victims in particular. The research covered three cases in which they discussed the detail of the impact of rape on these victims with adult men and societies overall understanding of the rape cases. In the end the common findings were discussed that in between all three cases the media using terms such as “simple rape” and “real rape” plays a big influence as to how these women feel they are being perceived in society. That to further help these women and being a sense of advocacy to the voiceless, you must hold “real” and “simple” rape to an equal standing.
The research above very well intertwines with the women’s responses to the article on how safe they feel being a woman today in India and what is a women’s place here in India compared to a man’s place. The research concluded that the media is a resourceful tool that connects this information to society, and they have a powerful way of shaping how society view these women as well as how they believe society will perceive them. This topic relates much to my research topic this summer as to how social stigma can affect whether or not a woman would seek help. On our first day at PHRI, the group and I had an opportunity to attend a lecture by Dr. Indira Ramarao whom explained to us the multidimensional sectors of healthcare. She explained that Healthcare is not only “freedom from illness” but that there is a global relevance to it as well. That healthcare needs to be seen from an economic, ethical, political, and gender angle as well to further help an issue.
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Rao, S. (2014) Covering rape and shame culture: studying journalism ethics in India’s new
television news media. Journal of Mass Media Ethics. 29(3), 153-167
Hetu, V. (2014) Reflections on the society’s reaction towards rape victims in Delhi City.
National library of Serbia. Doi:10.2298/tem1403003h
Sarkar, M. (2018) India’s problem with rape: do women feel safe? Retrieved from
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/08/asia/india-women-rape-intl/index.html