While Katrina’s flood thrives in our memories, Debby peters off to the east and TD5/Ernesto enters the Caribbean, New Orleans holds its collective breath. Whether to extract Rubbermaid containers from storage this evening or wait until Tuesday (when many hope that Ernie opts for the Yucatan peninsula)? Uncertainty is the toll of living in New Orleans during hurricane season.
Today’s nola.com confirms the rising cost of living in this city. Surrounded by jacked-up insurance premiums, neighborhoods teetering on the fine line between rebound and abandonment, increasing expenses and a mayor without a plan (or a clue), can the middle class make it during the rebuild? The current answer to this $110-billion-dollar question: We shall see.
Forget stress and money; grey hair is easily painted over and moolah comes and goes. In any disaster, whether natural or humanmade, one that occurs overnight or lumbers along over the course of years, the real price of living is borne by its least-enfranchised. At times of chaos, strife, poverty and socio-economic/political instability, women and children need additional protection. The ACLU investigates violations in New Orleans prisons after Katrina and Spike Lee talks of the overall suffering here; who speaks for the women? As pertains to Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, concerns about US military misconduct, extremist violence or the semantics of civil war abound, but why is more light not shed on the real victims – mothers whose rights are decreased or taken away, sisters who are brutalized and raped, daughters who are dehumanized? Back in December 2005, NPR aired a piece entitled More Stories Emerge of Rapes in Post-Katrina Chaos. Through the course of the show, my brain performed its usual cautious fencesitting on such issues. However, this statement made by Louisiana Rape Crisis Group’s Judy Benitez earned my agreement:
“The fact that something wasnÂ’t reported to the police doesnÂ’t mean it didnÂ’t happen,” Benitez says. “We know about all the other things that happened, all the thefts, all the robberies. There was all kinds of crime taking place on a much higher level than usual. Why would we think there was less rape typical of any given week in the city? It doesnÂ’t make any sense.”
Charmaine Neville, local chanteuse and scion of the famous Neville family of musicians, was a rape victim during the flood. Looking back on the last debacle I experienced, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, women and girls were in danger of battery and sexual abuse.
The concept of Women As Disposable Commodity in times of political and economic turmoil is unacceptable. The liquidation of women’s rights in war and crisis zones is not a mere side-effect and has lasting consequences on a society. Once introduced into a society, even as fallout or a temporary practice, it becomes a cultural habit then a tenet. Oligarchies and military regimes, and female female foeticide, infanticide and resultant abandonment and kidnapping, will usher us back into the Dark Ages, when fear was king.
Just because it isn’t played out in colorful footage and clever bylines doesn’t imply its absence. Please write your congresspeople and remind them that, while we purport to herald democracy and civilization in America and abroad, the disrespect and cloaking of women are not signs of advancement. Rape and rejection are lasting wounds. Enforced burqas shroud more than the body.
Is that really entirely fair? Women and girls do indeed face higher risks of abuse (sexual and otherwise), but I don’t think you can assert that men do not suffer in such situtations.
Applying a universalist-feminist victimization model is dangerous and fallible (I’m not saying that’s what you did, but you may be brushing up against it).
[great post otherwise, though. thanks for writing it.]
Maitri, welcome to the Mutiny! Remember, nothing you write here, no matter how subtle, thoughtful or righteous, shall escape inane commentary. So, please, Maitri, enough of this raped women business, let’s focus on the real victims!
Excellent post. Besides rape, I understand that incidents of domestic violence are rising as well.
Mr.K trying to get into the good books? 😉
Thanks for the good write-up, Maitri. However, I am missing the desi angle from the story.
Of course, they do, but who have been the most historically disenfranchised? Women. I don’t see men (other than gay men in Arabia, who are viewed as feminine) getting the worst of it during war and disaster.
Women As Disposable Commodity is something desis should be concerned about with the rise of fanaticism and tribal fascism in the wake of global war and strife. In a sense, we, too, have emerged from behind the old-culture veil and run the risk of lapsing. If this sad global situation is taken for a granted side-effect, where does that leave the work we have accomplished as South Asians?
Oh, I agree, don’t get me wrong.
What I was saying was that though women may be the most affected in conflict, they are not the only ones, so calling them the “real” victims is not sound.
Maitri,
can you recommend a good site to get a visual sense of what new orelans is like right now?
since we’re on the topic of the politics of rape, there’s a great article in the NY Times today about the ever-changing details of the duke rape case. personally i haven’t really made up my mind yet about the case but some of the details of the investigation i found pretty disturbing. apparently if a rape victim is hysterical or incoherent w/ detectives after being raped it can be used against him/her.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/us/25duke.html?hp&ex=1156564800&en=2a2bba3c85b57692&ei=5094&partner=homepage
razib,
A lot of us here use Flickr to share the multitude of photos. Just look for pictures under the “new orleans” tag with the most recent dates. You just gave me the great idea of putting together a cluster of NO photographers’ sites for the latest in visuals.
what exactly does this have to do with the desi diaspora?
Umm – OK!
what, you think there are no brown people in Nawlins? beyond that, sexual or emotional violence against women is not a novel concept to a DIASPORA which still thinks that sons are preferable to daughters.
from Maitri’s post above:
from here:
this may reflect cultural differences… but i was surprised to see the word ‘rape’ used so liberally in the article.
the r_ word is used so rarely these days. at least in canada journalists have moved towards referring to the crime as a sexual assault.
the former is a disturbing word to me, to me it implies a loss, a brutalization. the assaulted person shouldnt have to bear the burden of being a victim. it saps strength. the other word is clinical – and implies that the perpetrator did something wrong and is to blame.
out of curiosity i looked up the crime stats reports for Toronto and new orleans.
it seems to bear out my hypothesis of a cultural difference. i do believe it is more than words and has a bearing on how the society views the crime.
i’d be interested in a canadian woman’s perspective – Would you write this post differently?
this isnt a morbid interest in semantics on my part. society is shaped as much by presentation as by words. this is not to say there is a better way, but a cross-cultural communication might be productive.
“The Misogyny of Chaos” is one of the most beautiful phrases to describe an ugly and all-too true concept. Thanks for the post.
Maybe some good ‘ol evopsych/socio/evobio explanations are called upon at this juncture. Like, uh, women are the weaker sex, built for reproduction, not for war. When things go wrong, as they almost always do, the war sex will try for an opportunity to spread his seed in any way possible. This can get brutal as heck.
Summary: It’s a kinda raw deal to be a female in this world. But that’s just me;)
Hardly. I think it has been pretty much proven over and over again that rape is about power, not sex or ‘spreading the seed’. Which is why it is so commonplace in regions were women are considered the inferior sex. Or where one country has been annexed by another during wartime. (Russians in Berlin, anyone?)
Perhaps this is so because of repressed psycho-sexual persons like yourself aren’t too few.
Summary: It’s not a raw deal to be banned on this blog for intolerant, ignorant comments. But that’s just you.
My question is, how does one fix the problem? Yes, education would work. Yes, changing cultural practices would work. But, these are all solutions that will take decades, if not centuries, to take effect. Most of the campaigns against this kind of behavior seem kind of heavy handed to me. I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland and was placed, by a woman’s group, on a list of potential rapists along with every other male in the student directory. This tactic was very offensive and entirely ineffective, in my mind. Short of these attempts to “shock the conscience,” what does one do?
The Misogyny Of Chaos
Thank you for the title. It really says it all, doesnt it?
“the real price of living is borne by its least-enfranchised.”
Enfranchised by WHOM? Are you operating under the assumption that home ownership is a god-given right doled out by powers on high?
If more women were to tell their stories of bad shit that has gone down in their lives, i think a lot of men who have women they care about in their lives would become stone-cold sober about this problem. not that the onus is on women to tell painful stories that may turn the lives of their loved ones upside down, but its kind of up to men to realize what is going on. and not having been in New Orleans i appreciate the perspective Maitri offers to further educate on what’s been going on when our (as men) backs are turned or heads are in the sand. this problem goes into every class, ethnicity, region and nation
This a good place to start. What can we do? Maybe we can continue to link sex in our minds with love and respect, rather than disrespect. we can stop preventing women to express their physicality in ways not designed to titilate men; women should be able to dressed in whatever manner they want without exciting cat-calls and lewd gestures. Men have that right in our society, for the most part. Boys should be socialized to respect women from day one. Misogyny should be recognized for what it is, and turned out on its butt. For us to help change things, we first have to see things. Step one it seems to me, identify misogyny
Enfranchised by WHOM? Are you operating under the assumption that home ownership is a god-given right doled out by powers on high?
Basic human needs are food, clothing and shelter. As a community and a country we need to make sure everyone of our citizens have access to these. Shelter is a necessity even if “home ownership” is not. I feel most of the problem in nowlins was that all of these things disappeared overnight. ppl lost their home, jobs, communities and food. Our government really messed up in its responsibility to take care of these folks at the time of their need. What you saw happening in New Orleans will happen anywhere in the world if the same chaotic atmosphere existed and persisted for as long as it did. No excuse for raping, these are scoundrels who live within our communities praying on women who are left without any security. In a place without any semblence of law and order, Scoundrels have the advantage. Sadly more ofthen than not, they will make use of it.
The title is eloquent; but what does it mean? Doesn’t Chaos itself mean an uncontrollable situation? So is chaos inherently misogynistic? Even if we take it as fact that women and children need more protection during chaos, more than who? Leave the men who are being murdered(drowning in Katrina) in chaotic situations and give priority to protecting women? How do define priorities in chaos? This article is one of the few nonsensical ones I have read on Sepia. Rape whether in chaos or not, is an unjustifiable crime. But until the human nature itself changes, rape cannot be controlled — especially in areas of calamties and war. It has nothing to do with women being disenfranchised like the author pointed out in the comments. Give women two voices for every one for a man, rape would still plague us. It’s another crime where women( predominatntly) as a group can be classified as victims. Is it a bigger crime than a man being murdered? Is it a bigger crime than a woman being murdered? And bear in mind, rape is as hard on the men who are powerless to stop it being perpetrated on their own mothers, wives and sisters as it is on the women who are the victims. One of the commenters suggest education as a solution. Do you really think people rape because they do not have proper education about the suffering of the victim? Absolutely not! In that case you would only see people like Mowgli in the jungle book or Tarzan who grew up in a civilization where there are no women, commit rapes. I think people are educated and aware of scars rape leaves on the victims, but still they do it anyway. I know waxing philosophical about victimization of women in chaos is bound to make you look concerned. But the fact is rape every where is as despicable as it is in calamities but we haven’t yet reached a point in humanity to reduce it.
As I mentioned above, rape is about power. This is where education comes into play, because only if we teach our boys that their sisters are worth no less than them, that women are free to dress what they like without inviting lecherous behaviour and that female sexuality is not something to be repressed, only then can rape be prevented. Of course there is always a minority of sexual deviants who get pleasure out of other people’s fear and pain(you know what I’m talking about), and coupled with a hatred of women this leads to sexual violence. I am not a psychologist – this is only my understanding.
I don’t think it is fair to assume that incidents of rape because incidents of theft went up after the hurricane. If I remember the news reports correctly, most of the “thefts” were actually hungry people rummaging through the abandoned shops for supplies. I don’t think it is fair to compare violent sexual assaults with non-violent theft.
I’m not saying rape wasn’t underreported after Katrina. I’m sure it was. However, I think for a fair estimation of unreported rape we should be looking at how much violent crime increased in New Orleans, not all crime
maybe I’m beating a dead horse here – but Maitri is pointing out something that is perfectly valid, and particularly apt with respect to the South Asian diaspora. It’s as simple as this: in the middle of an already terrible situation, women do get the short pointy end of the stick. To assume that rape is something ‘uncontrollable’ that is perhaps ‘let loose’ in times of calamity is to underpin the mistreatment of women with false justification. Rape is not “human nature”; to assume as much is to assume disrespect for a woman as a human being.
I see this not as part of a “natural” increase in crime post calamity, but as neglect of women in times of crisis (there’s a difference).
Rape boggles the mind especially in the environment of Post-katrina. For most New Orleanians, those of us who had left and those I met in the days afterwards being evacuated into Houston, it was really impossible to function at all. Impossible to sleep, eat, or do anything productive except try to call friends with non-functioning cell phones and scan internet message boards for news. I don’t really understand the emotional and mental state that someone is in when they commit rape but I would think that state would be as far from it as possible. A rape counselor once told me that unlike almost any other crime of violence, the goal of rape isn’t to gain property from another person, its to take power from another person. Apparently in situations where men feel powerless, they often empower themselves by stealing whatever little power the only people who are always less powerful than them, women, possess.
By the way how many desis in New Orleans read this? Two at least I’m guessing.
I’m wondering if it is proven that there is a marked increase in rape and other crimes against women during times of war, or even during times of catastrophy, if there could be a case for increased crimes against women in situations where there is constant day to day dispair and dismalness? Such as in a locale that is sub-par in terms of living conditions? Are there any statistics for that?
Could the argument be made that out of frustration with the grit, grime and stagnation one is surrounded by, men seek relief in the sexual harrassment or even assault of women in the same locale?
That would perhaps help me to understand my experiences more. I’ve been trying to find an explanation for the rampant and continuous sexual harrassment that takes place in my area of residence for years.
The repression theory does not seem to add up.
What he said may have been put in a crude and clumy way, but he was essentially requoting Germaine Greer. If it was said in PoMo academic speak, you wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Doesn’t sound terribly fair.
As clever as your comment almost was, you are wrong. The commenter in question has been pushing the limits of acceptable behavior on this blog for days. We are terribly fair (except for those of us with tans).
Please try and remember that as we moderate these threads, we are looking at a much bigger picture than some of you are, before you make such assumptions.
We are terribly fair (except for those of us with tans).
LOL.
Though this was posted a few days earlier – I came across an article online that reminded me of traveling days in India and what women have to put up with – Train to Chennai. This is furtive abuse, in the dark when you have your guard down, are vulnerable, get confused – did that really happen?
ANNA,
Rolls eyes 😉
I’m glad someone is. Based on extensive past experience, I have complete faith in you and have no doubt that my trust is well-founded.
I wish you blogged on SM as much as you used to. Your presence here has been sorely missed.
spiral-city, that’s exactly how I see it, too.
Again, I do not advocate that men are not saved or paid attention to during times of crisis. However, in shitty times, women have it shittier, and not because they are inherently weaker, but because they don’t have the things that normally defend them namely secure shelter, a working police force and a criminal justice system.
At least, put “the protection of women and children” on the priority list or make them an equal priority.
During the evacuation and flood in New Orleans, many of the drug-addicted lost their supplies and suppliers rendering them menacing than usual. In this time, disenfranchised men physically and sexually assaulted disenfranchised women and children. It was their power, their release, the only thing they could have, and they grabbed.
Education of women is key, too. Our public school system has historically stunk as badly as the bathrooms these poor children have had to use. When poorer black women are pregnant by 15 and Welfare Queen is an occupation, self-esteem is in the pits and it only gets worse during Katrina-like crises.
输送机
Manjula –
I just read that Train to Chennai link you provided and how many times have I experienced exactly the same thing on North Indian transporation! Countless times. It is abuse, plain and simple. And the funny thing is, all the confusion and conflicting emotions that Hemangini expressed are common amongst all us women who bear this type of abuse frequently. The problem in India is that the transportation like busses or tempos are often so crowded that when hands are on you, you really don’t know who they belong to, so you cannot slap anyone without possibly slapping the wrong man. And the abuse also is meted out in a very tricky way, such as an “accidental” brush against the breasts, where you really can’t tell if it was on purpose or not. Just like Hemangini was first thinking. And then there’s the classic pinch or rub on the left buttock by a man walking behind you and to the right. So first reaction is to look left and think it’s somebody on your left side, while “Mr. Right” walks briskly by. Uggggggggh!!!! It’s exasperating. Read any Indian travel guide. They all have a warning to women about this.
When reading Hemangini’s account of her experience and all the, “madam you will ruin my life,” and “madam, rethink this, you will ruin his life” pleas, all I could think was his life NEEDS to be ruined!!! It’s called KARMA PHAL, the just deserts of one’s actions. And the funny thing is – the guy was travelling to take his RAILWAY EXAM. Imagine if he ended up working for the railways what kind of havoc he could wreck on all the women travellers as he roams from carriage to carriage in the wee hours of the night?!?! Perhaps now he will think twice before attempting rape.
If all Indian women and non-Indian women travelling in India stood up for themselves like Hemangini did in similar situations, perhaps India really could be “shining”.
Maitri –
Regarding the above quoted, “Apparently in situations where men feel powerless, they often empower themselves by stealing whatever little power the only people who are always less powerful than them, women, possess.”
My question is, do the conditions of India cause (alot of) it’s men to behave like this? There is a percentage that do not behave like this, even facing the very same conditions.
The only people who do that, are those who feel they have nothing or little to lose, And men in general have larger amygdalas, the reptilian/involuntary controlling of the brain, and visual cortexes as well. These factors coupled with mental states of dispair, helplessness, and anger is my guess as a root cause. None of which is exclusive to India. Let me be clear however I do not condone it, or feel it justifiable in any form, but the tone of PG’s post implies that it’s disproportionate in Indian men. I’m not sure what these nefarious Indian conditions are that PG is referring to, maybe she can elaborate further on it.
I’m waiting for another thinly veiled racist rant from Pardesi Gori camoflaged as feminist rhetoric
I agree with the sentiment. Well said!
All I have to say is “WOW”.
And all I have to say is “WTWWA”
I’ve got to step in here. I (and Manish) banned PG a year ago for this type of idiotic behavior and she STILL doesn’t get it! I’ve been sitting back, trying to be patient but I just can’t do it. She is on a one-woman crusade to over-generalize Indian men and Indian culture. I’m not sure what happened to set you down this path and I frankly no longer care but for the good of my sanity (and this blog) please stop with the nonsense.
Wait. does that mean she’s banned again? Just a little confused.