Rape & hypocrisy

We may be thousands of miles away from the scene of action, and the culture wars across the Atlantic, but very few urban Indians today will ask “Dominique Strauss Kaun?”
A globalised world of satellite television and the Internet produces scandals without borders. So, one of the most memorable images of the past week — that of an unshaven, manacled Dominique Strauss-Kahn

(or DSK as he is called in his native France) flanked by New York Police Department officials, was transmitted instantly across the world. And everyone — not just the French and the Americans — was quick to adapt the scandal to their own needs and milieu. The enterprising Taiwanese promptly came up with an animation treatment of the DSK scandal.
The rest is history, or its first draft, as a torrent of tweets.
For us in India, the scandal can be a key tool to bust some of the popular myths about sexual assault and rape.
Rape is not about sex and seduction. It is about power and abuse of power. Rapists don’t necessarily look like ogres. They can be perfectly nice and charming in one setting and turn violent in another. Just because someone is intelligent and talented does not mean the person is incapable of a sexual assault. These qualities neither add nor subtract from the gravity of the crime. Similarly, it is irrelevant to delve into the sexual likes and dislikes of the victim (or survivor, as some would say) of a sex-attack. Rapists/sexual assaulters often have partners and can get sex from elsewhere. But they mostly get their buzz by hitting on those who are vulnerable and socio-economically inferior to them. How often do you hear of a man sexually attacking a female boss?
To get back to the plot for the benefit of those who may have been hibernating the past week: Till last week, the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn was among the uber-powerful on earth — managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and widely viewed as a presidential contender in his native France. He seemed to have it all — name, fame, riches, power, charm, choices that most of us can only dream of, and a beautiful glamorous wife, a former French TV icon.
Then, all of a sudden, like Humpty Dumpty, he had a great fall. Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested and charged with an alleged sexual assault, including an attempted rape, on a chambermaid in a luxury suite in New York City’s Sofitel Hotel. From a $3,000-night suite it was the four walls of the notorious Rikers Island jail. At the time of writing, the former IMF boss has been released on a $1 million cash bail (and an additional $5 million in bond), but remains under house arrest in a building close to Ground Zero in New York, under surveillance by video cameras, armed guards and electronic monitoring devices.
The scandal has all the necessary elements of a long-running serial. So we are assured of a continuous flow of tidbits about the accuser and the accused in the coming weeks. The reactions, so far, have been interesting. Barring some feminist groups and a few journalists, much of France thinks DSK was a victim of a “set-up”. Friends of DSK are shocked that one of their highly respected national figures was handcuffed and paraded before the media. One close friend of the former IMF chief even called it a “lynching murder by the media”. Many of his supporters have questioned the integrity of the maid. Then there are the myriad conspiracy theories and charges of a frame-up.
In the United States, and much of the English-speaking world, very many people are seeing the case as a good example of an egalitarian justice system where an immigrant chambermaid can slap charges against a wealthy and powerful man who sexually assaulted her.
The question that pops up again and again, however, has a sense of deja vu: How can an educated, talented, charming man, who had so many women friends, be a rapist? His wife, Anne Sinclair, says her husband is innocent and that she will stand by him. Does that have a familiar ring? The wife of Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja who allegedly raped his 18-year-old maid, and is currently on bail, also said something pretty similar.
DSK was a famed “grand seducer”. “Yes I like women… So what?” he once quipped. But the critical issue today is something else. DSK is not in the dock because he liked women or because some of them reciprocated his feelings. He is in the dock because he is alleged to have forced himself on an unwilling woman. Those who have been screaming “honey trap” conveniently overlook the fact that a single mother and an immigrant, like the chambermaid, who levelled the charges against DSK, stands to lose everything if it is proved that she has been lying. The best lawyers that money can buy will be trying to prove that there had been no sex attack and the maid was making it all up.
In India, we have been pretty slow to debunk myths about sex attacks and their perpetrators. However, there has been some movement forward. The health ministry recently took a strong stand against the degrading and traumatising practice of using the “two finger test” as a method to collect medical evidence in rape cases. “It is supposed to assess whether girls and women are ‘virgins’ or ‘habituated’ to sexual intercourse”, a 2010 report by Human Rights Watch had noted in a scathing comment.
This is not enough. It has to be ensured that such recommendations are followed in practice and across the country. There are other impediments to justice as well. Rape is still defined very narrowly — only forced peno-vaginal penetration is considered to be rape. The law needs to change, as do mindsets.
The key lessons — sex attack is not seduction. Just because “nobody died”, to use a memorable phrase by one of DSK’s friends, does not mean no one was assaulted sexually.
French feminists are out in the streets protesting. They are supported by men who are brave enough to question social mores. Activists worldwide, including in India, have been flagging these issues for long. Everyone is innocent till proved guilty. That applies to maids and moneybags alike.
Meanwhile, can we change the slogan please from “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” to “Liberty, Equality, End of Hypocrisy”.

Patralekha Chatterjee writes on development issues in India and emerging economies and can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com