Why it is toxic to talk about rape in global south countries without mentioning rape in the global north

The logic of our economy refuses to let us think that an educated athlete in the United States can commit the same crime as an uneducated and poor man in India. And the logic of our economy is the logic of our global rape discourse. The correlation is not coincidental.

On November 23, 2019, Ruth George — a student at University of Illinois, Chicago — was strangled to death in a parking garage. She was then sexually assaulted after becoming unconscious. Her killer was angry because the 19-year-old girl didn’t respond the way he wanted to his catcalls. She did what countless women do on a daily basis — she did not acknowledge his presence, she acted like she could not hear his disrespectful utterances, and she kept her eyes out of sight. She ignored him. That same week, the week of the UN-declared International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, a woman in India was raped and then burned to death. Her four killers, like Ruth’s murderer, were caught and they all confessed in their own time.

But there will never be justice for either of these women — in these matters, what is justice? With or without an air of justice, there is a blindness to the correlation between these two rapes and deaths. And that blindness correlates to the statistics of violence against women becoming increasingly appalling.

As it stands, according to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women worldwide experience sexual and physical violence in their lifetime. But if we consider the worldwide lack of reporting, then it is very likely that it is 2 in 3 women who experience gender-based violence. What we can be sure of is that these statistics are not improving.

In December 2012 a different group of 4 men gang-raped a woman in South Delhi. The 2012 rape in Delhi was beyond brutal and the details are nauseating. The young woman suffered in a hospital for two weeks after the attack, she died on December 29, 2012. One of the rapists in the Delhi case was tried as a juvenile — he was released from prison in 2015. The same year of his release, Brock Turner, a Stanford University student athlete, raped a woman near a dumpster on Stanford campus in Northern California.

If we look at the Delhi gang rape independent of the rape at Stanford then WHO’s research findings that “men are more likely to perpetrate violence if they have low education” seem to be true. The men in the Delhi gang rape were uneducated, poor too. But this theory fails when it comes to understanding Brock Turner. What the World Health Organization does not explore is the type of education needed to elimate sexual violence. Being well-educated in, for example, the sciences has little to do with being educated in human rights and gender equity.

Being poor and uneducated is not a recipe for hate. But, still, international agencies regularly cite characteristics that are easy to locate in underdeveloped areas as being the cause for violence and bad behavior. One reason for this might be that these agencies also have their own interests in keeping up the idea that these places in the global south are forever in need of their aid, development, and non-profit practices. But, in the end, their research results just skew our global understanding of rape as being a result of something other than the inheritance of a deep contempt for women, or misogyny.

If a rape does not take place within a certain geography, or if it lacks a certain amount of bloodshed, and/or is not committed by a particular assailant then that said rape is just a rape-in-question. Excuses for the rapist are made left and right by rich and poor men and women.

Our movies and news refuse to let us believe that an educated athlete in the United States can commit the same crime as an uneducated and poor man in India. An educated man from the land of privilege is a falsely accused man, but a poor man is always guilty — this is the logic of our economy and this is the logic of our global rape discourse. The correlation is not coincidental.

After the 2012 Delhi gang rape I was asked to give a public talk about India’s problem with violence against women. I told the university that I would be happy to give the talk, but that I would include statistics about rape on our campus and in the United States. My invitation to speak was rescinded.

‘We only want to discuss the issue of rape within the context of India’, they said.

‘Rape has no geography…and the fear women experience has no border, it can be felt anywhere and at anytime of the day’, I said in response.

Once rape is seen as something that is common to a particular region — like the global south — and essentially ‘othered’, then it becomes too easy to disregard. In other words, it is easy to say ‘bad things happen in poorer places’. And it is, of course, true that there is more crime in poorer places. But if we affix rape to the global south — on account of it being a poor region — then it is likely that people who wish to disassociate with those places will be less inclined to report any violence or abuse that they may encounter.

The talk that I was invited (and then disinvited) to give was on a campus that prides itself on being very diverse. Many of my students at this university were, in fact, first-generation Americans with direct ties to economically-poor (resource-rich) countries. And with the general hate targeted towards immigrants in their entire lifetime, it is not unlikely for people in immigrant communities to disassociate with any markers that might reinforce their connections to their home-countries.

We need more in-depth and comparative discussions on the rapes that take place around the world. Here are 3 potential points of comparison:

• Comparing the the lack of remorse expressed by Brock Turner and Mukesh Singh could he helpful in gaining a better understanding of how some men see women’s bodies as objects that can be owned, traded, and discarded at the whim and pleasure of a man’s personal desire.
• In the most recent rapes, both the men in India and Donald Thurman targeted women who were in isolated areas. If this is another global trend, then studies on how men’s behavior changes when they are in private spaces with women could be of extreme importance in ending violence against women.
• Additionally, why do the rapes and deaths incite mass response in India whereas in the United States little is said or done when a woman is raped and killed? What infrastructure are we lacking in the United States that limits our willingness to speak up for victims?

There is too much to be learned from a truly global understanding of rape and violence against women. And perhaps that is the problem, as a whole we are worried that if we learn what is really at the root of the problem we will be unable to face ourselves. But until we do, this epidemic of violence will continue to spread to every inch of our shared planet.