I just think no one wants to talk about rape unless they want to blame women. I was once in the car and we drove pass a woman who was covered but wearing tight clothes and the driver said, "how does she expect not to get raped when she dresses like that?"
I got touched two times when I was in full niqaab. My clothes were loose. The first time it happened I was in a market. I was so stunned and by the time I look back to see the man, he was lost amidst all the people. The second time it happened I was on a bus. Again fully covered, niqaab and all. That left me speechless. I froze and I was shaking so much after that.
I once told a friend this during our discussion on rape and she said I shouldn't have gone out at night, I should've been with a mahraam.
It shouldn't surprise me, but it did. When will a woman NOT be guilty of rape and sexual assult?
Yesterday I was having another conversation and this woman said that men are created this way, it is their fitrah, their means of reproduction. Yes, getting turned on is a fitrah, but forcing yourself onto others?
Men get away with so many things. They can rape and be told its not their fault. Men will be men, they say. Boys will be boys, regardless of how destructive their behaviours are no one corrects them. But god forbid girls eating impolitely, god forbid girls have body hair. That's not their fitrah, right?!
Wrong.
I attend lectures and ustadhs, who are men, who are patriarchal will go on about their rights and women. Women should bow down to their husbands, beautify themselves for their husbands, take care of kids for their husbands, be a good daughter, submit to sex whenever demanded.
But men? No one talks about men. Ever.
But this is not islaam. Do not bring your problematic patriarchal behaviour and call it islaam.
The Prophet spoke about women in his farewell speech. He identified how women was repressed during the time of jahiliyyah and gave them their due rights. He ordered men to be kind to women. He married women older than him. Widows. Divorcees. Out of all his wives, only one was a virgin, Aaesha radiallahu anha. But it was through Aaesha that the knowledge on women in islaam was established. She had no children. She was not a mother. Yet her status was still raised through her knowledge. Umar al Khattab, the second caliph in Islaam allowed his wife to shout at him during an argument. This was the man that shaytaan runs away from. When a man raped, he whipped the man and exiled him.
The lowering if the gaze? No one talks about that! Once the prophet sallahu alayhi wasallam was travelling with another man and she stared at a woman and the prophet took his face and turned it away.
We need to talk not only about the outcome (rape) but the cause as well (men). We also need to examine the things that enforces rape culture (porn would be a good start for example..) and how rape culture has also seeped into mainstream media (tv shows, music, etc)
We need to be more critical. We need to step up tbh. Victim blaming doesnt stop rape, in fact, in only reinforces it.
