Althouse: "'It’s wrong to stop girls from going out' of the house... but there’s little choice because the city is so unsafe for women."

December 29, 2012

"'It’s wrong to stop girls from going out' of the house... but there’s little choice because the city is so unsafe for women."

"Revulsion and anger over the rape have galvanized India, where women regularly face sexual harassment and assault, and where neither the police nor the judicial system is seen as adequately protecting them."

67 comments:

Lauderdale Vet said...: "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to the police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound."

The T-Shirt; 12/29/12, 9:23 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: It's undoubtedly true that women are very badly mistreated in India.

The men, especially poor and uneducated men, are probably taking one hell of a beating, too.

It doesn't just go one way.; 12/29/12, 9:31 AM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: What on earth was that all about?

Was there some kind of political aspect to this? That seems extraordinarily brutal and violent for a random street rape.; 12/29/12, 9:34 AM
David said...: Welcome to the rest of the world. It's not just India. The phony rape crisis on US college campuses is nothing compared to what women face in many parts of the world (and not just third world.); 12/29/12, 9:40 AM
pm317 said...: Ann routinely mocks Hillary's work on welfare of women and girls. Ann and her ilk here may not need Hillary. But the rest of the world is a much harsher place for women and they are happy to have a high profile advocate like Hillary on their side talking to their country's politicians, institutions, and at other venues about how it should be. India with all its contradictory developments in technology and economy still is backward in so many ways such as rule of law, civil society especially about women's welfare and security. Delhi is called the rape capital of India -- shame.; 12/29/12, 9:44 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: One of the great awakenings of my life occurred when I first began to talk with my late, great wife, Myrna about the sexual abuse of women in the Philippines. She was born a street kid in a town not too far from Olongopo.

I was carrying on in the usual feminist fashion in which I had been indoctrinated about the historic sufferings of Filipino women, particularly during WWII at the hands of the Japanese.

She interrupted me to ask: "What in the fuck do think happened to Filipino men?"

Surprisingly, I had never thought about that.; 12/29/12, 9:47 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: I realize I have to say this...

I'm not suggesting that the Indians shouldn't aggressive prosecute rape of women.

That might be a good place to start trying to break the cycle of violence, because people naturally feel sympathy for women, and they do not so easily feel sympathy for men.; 12/29/12, 9:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Always remember the etymology of the word 'thug'.; 12/29/12, 9:57 AM
Richard Dolan said...: Most of the problem is in the northern parts of India. In the south, women don't have it quite so bad.; 12/29/12, 10:01 AM
Richard Dolan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/29/12, 10:01 AM
cubanbob said...: pm317 said...
Ann routinely mocks Hillary's work on welfare of women and girls. Ann and her ilk here may not need Hillary. But the rest of the world is a much harsher place for women and they are happy to have a high profile advocate like Hillary on their side talking to their country's politicians, institutions, and at other venues about how it should be. India with all its contradictory developments in technology and economy still is backward in so many ways such as rule of law, civil society especially about women's welfare and security. Delhi is called the rape capital of India -- shame.

12/29/12 9:44 AM

Hillary's pablum is nice but for those woman having a gun would be far more useful.; 12/29/12, 10:52 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: They beat her and raped her so violently that she died. They shoved a metal pipe into her body and destroyed her organs. These are not humans - these violent criminals are cancer and they do not deserve to take in air.
The article states her male companion was beaten as well.

yo American feminists and progressives - this is what an actual war on women looks like.

pm317 - Where are Hillary's results? It's easy to say - hey look at the amazing Hillary!
Other than jet-setting around the globe and spending our money to live large - where are the results?
If Hillary gave up her posh life to work for poor and abused women, I'd applaud her. Words are cheap.; 12/29/12, 10:59 AM
pm317 said...: Where are Hillary's results?

Ludicrous question.. What results do you want to see and approve? How do you even know there are no results? Your fucking hatred shows. And I am not even one of those Hillary worshiping people who thinks she is all amazing and blah, blah. Right now I am just disturbed by what goes on in the rest of world for women and girls. If Hillary stops making it an issue that is one less person talking about it. You want me to show fucking results that you approve of for Hillary?!; 12/29/12, 11:14 AM
pm317 said...: There were six men including the bus driver in this horrifying rape incident and they have all been caught and they will be prosecuted. The rage is felt all over the country and there won't be peace until they are hung and justice brought to the woman who died.; 12/29/12, 11:18 AM
MayBee said...: And Hillary Clinton has made what public statement about it?

What does this have to do with Hillary Clinton?; 12/29/12, 11:22 AM
MayBee said...: This rape and torture horrifies me. My sons are so affected by it. It's impossible to understand.; 12/29/12, 11:24 AM
Mogget said...: I think the problem with Hillary's work in this area arises from thinking that she's accomplished much of anything other than making white Western women feel good. Personally, I don't know, but I'd rather have Smith & Wesson than a speech from Hillary. But maybe women in India, etc., do take comfort and encouragement from her work.; 12/29/12, 11:27 AM
somefeller said...: yo American feminists and progressives - this is what an actual war on women looks like.

What exactly does a statement like this mean? That American liberals shouldn't complain because whatever they are concerned with isn't nearly as bad as what this woman suffered? What a high bar for civil society you are setting, AprilApple!; 12/29/12, 11:43 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Somefeller- Because we are forced by the media to listen to silly spoiled out of touch American feminists like Sandra fluke. It's your party that coined the term "war on women".
Perspective is a bitch.; 12/29/12, 11:56 AM
Oso Negro said...: I guess a few hundred million Boyfriend Bears won't make things much easier for them.; 12/29/12, 12:06 PM
William said...: Perhaps I'm doing Democrats an injustice, but I get the sense that they are far more indignant about anti-abortion activists than they are about rapists....I have read about the prevalence of rape in South Africa (50% of the women). These crimes pass unnoted, undramatized, unprotested, and unpunished. Unlike apartheid, they are not a goad to the conscience of western intellectuals. I'm convinced that there is a subtext of racial superiority to all this. Nothing can be truly evil or wrong unless it is performed by a bourgeois European in pursuit of comfort or money. All other crimes are not worthy of notice.; 12/29/12, 12:16 PM
Craig Landon said...: yo American feminists and progressives - this is what an actual war on women looks like.

What exactly does a statement like this mean?

It means Democrats deliberately corrupted the "war" appellation from a meaning commonly understood as ongoing, life-threatening strife to one including occasional inconvenience. The apparent motive is to encourage us to assign some sort of equivalence, and arbitrarily assign belligerent agency on a partisan basis, which is absurd.; 12/29/12, 12:20 PM
Wince said...: pm317 said...
But the rest of the world is a much harsher place for women and they are happy to have a high profile advocate like Hillary on their side talking to their country's politicians, institutions, and at other venues about how it should be.

Unfortunately, the actual result of Clinton's record as Secretary of State is likely to be delivering additional millions of women to sub-human bondage.; 12/29/12, 12:32 PM
Saint Croix said...: Revulsion and anger over the rape have galvanized India, where women regularly face sexual harassment and assault

I suspect Islam.

Ms. Kaur said the men abducted her sister from a place of worship

I suspect Islam.

Police officials and village elders tried to broker a deal between the men accused of the rape and the victim. In some parts of India, women are commonly married to men who have raped them.

I suspect Islam.

“They kept putting pressure on my family to take money or marry the accused or just somehow settle the matter,” she said.

I suspect Islam.

Maybe it's prejudice on my part, to suspect that these rapists are Islamic. I've just run across this sort of misogyny from the "religion of peace" before. It would be nice if the paper of record would, you know, give us information and facts.

Are they Islamic? Why would you hide this? She was kidnapped from a place of worship, you PC fuckwits. I kinda think some religious hostility is involved.

But never mind, I'm sure our secular liberals are way too busy censoring cartoons.; 12/29/12, 12:38 PM
William said...: When we get out of Afghanistan, it will probably be very good for us and certainly very bad for the women of Afghanistan. Can anyone name a single feminist who has spoken out in support of our presence in Afghanistan?; 12/29/12, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/29/12, 1:02 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I'll eat a tire if I hear the Hollywood feminist prog-left admit with angry gusto that radical Islam is bad for girls.

I suspect I won't be eating any tires.; 12/29/12, 1:17 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Ann didn't mention Hillary.; 12/29/12, 1:17 PM
MayBee said...: First, this has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton.

Second, if you think it is important for the US Secretary of State to talk to politicians in other countries about making their cultures safer for women, it need not be Hillary Clinton. It need not be a woman.

Finally, if you think it is important for Hillary Clinton to continue this work, she is part of a huge global initiative. She does not lose her platform, whatever value it has.; 12/29/12, 1:18 PM
Gahrie said...: yeah...but do they get free birth control or abortions?; 12/29/12, 1:19 PM
somefeller said...: Perspective is a bitch.

It sure is, April. I'll keep this in mind next time I see someone talking about how some minor tax hike or regulatory change is Obama Liberal Fascist Marxism. Thanks, dude!; 12/29/12, 1:25 PM
edutcher said...: Hinduism "celebrates" sex, unlike Christianity and Islam.

Welcome to the downside.

somefeller said...

Perspective is a bitch.

It sure is, April. I'll keep this in mind next time I see someone talking about how some minor tax hike or regulatory change is Obama Liberal Fascist Marxism. Thanks, dude!

Minor?

5% hike in taxes, on top of all the other tax hikes including ObamaTax for a median income family is minor?

Some phony folksy talks like he works for the Feds.; 12/29/12, 1:34 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Somefeller -
Thanks for policing us.
We don't want to call people acting like fascists and socialists, fascists and socialists. Words don't mean anything anymore. Perhaps we can ban those words?

Wait - You mean like this tiny little Obama tax hike?

Or perhaps we can obtain marvelous caring government regulated health care, like the government run system in the UK?; 12/29/12, 1:54 PM
the traveler said...: This fall I traveled all over northwest India by myself. I'm a woman. The only problem I had was in a tiny pharmacy where a young teenaged boy touched my hip. (I turned around and socked him in the chest, much to the approval of the adults in the shop, and he apologized profusely.)

The gang rape in the news wasn't a random street rape. The young woman was traveling, at night, with her boyfriend on what, from the mention of curtains, sounds like a regional bus (some of which are sleepers, like the old Pullman trains). The driver's compartment is completely sealed off from the passenger section.

India's a much more reserved culture when it comes to romance and sex. Although the majority Hindu population is more relaxed about the subject, you just don't see PDAs. And the assailants beat the woman's boyfriend, too. To me, just back from India, it sounds more like a bunch of young Muslim men on a rampage. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.; 12/29/12, 2:51 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: If it was a bunch of Muslim men on a rampage, we will not hear about it from our pathetic media.

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam"
-Barack Obama to the UN assembly; 12/29/12, 3:30 PM
n.n said...: They should impound their dogs. That's the solution proposed in South Africa. Perhaps it will also work in India.

AprilApple:

Women, as men, are merely a semi-cohesive assembly of objects, which retains its integrity until entropy causes their terminal dissociation. Some people would go so far as to claim that we are also devoid of consciousness or freewill. The moral individual will acknowledge individual dignity derived from consciousness is an axiomatic "truth".

Without a moral steward, or ability to wield superior force, we are vulnerable to suffer involuntary exploitation by minority interests (e.g. rapists). The inevitable conclusion of denigrating individual dignity and devaluing human life is a general perception that individuals are disposable and interchangeable from conception to grave. This is the evolution of dysfunction, which is a periodic phenomenon in our imperfect world.; 12/29/12, 3:50 PM
Cedarford said...: cubanbob -

Hillary's pablum is nice but for those woman having a gun would be far more useful.

Liberals want the 3rd world to apparantly devote hundreds of billions in money they don't have for 100s of millions of caring nurturing social workers and lawyers.
Gun nuts see the solution being 100s of millions of great well-oiled, high capacity magazine, high powered firearms being put in the hands of violent peasants globally in lands like S Africa, The Congo, France's black and Muslim slums, Brazil's "no go areas", Mexico, India, Haiti. So those lands can become more like the civil, polite societies like Somalia and Afghanistan, where every Freedom-Loving!! man owns at least one magnificent AK-47 machine gun and RPG with extra rounds, (And where, to gun nuts, the only problem is the failure so far to force the Afghans and Somalis to arm the women and children as well....then they wil be true Paradises on Earth.)

Which is worse, idiot liberals or gun nuts??; 12/29/12, 4:01 PM
Clyde said...: I thought this was just as asshole Muslim thing, like in Egypt. Is it an asshole Hindu thing, too? Or is this happening in areas with a high population of Muslims?; 12/29/12, 4:54 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: n.n
When this “dysfunction” repeats itself within one type of group, (male/Muslim) it doesn't take a PHD in psychiatry to observe as more than random and unfortunate.; 12/29/12, 5:05 PM
Clyde said...: Delhi, where the attack occurred, is 82% Hindu, 11.7% Muslim, according to Wikipedia. It is also the place where 15.4% of the attacks on women have occurred in Indian cities.

Make of that what you will. If the attackers had names like Mohammed, we'll know.; 12/29/12, 5:09 PM
Clyde said...: And I think you can file "Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of Delhi" under the list of unfortunate names.; 12/29/12, 5:13 PM
the traveler said...: It is also the place where 15.4% of the attacks on women have occurred in Indian cities.

And it's also one of India's biggest cities (if not the biggest - I forget). What they don't say is the frequency of rapes per 100K people, for example.

Except for some of the political radicals, IME at least Hindus are pretty laid back about people outside the family network. Inside the family, however - well, family is everything. And God forbid you get a difficult mother-in-law.; 12/29/12, 6:39 PM
pm317 said...: The perpetrators were not muslim but hindu from some poor neiborhood. The driver was freinds with the other perpetrators. They were drunk. The couple were returning home from a movie. It was a city commuter bus.; 12/29/12, 6:59 PM
the traveler said...: Thanks for the info. Can you provide a link? "City commuter"? As in intercity?; 12/29/12, 7:32 PM
pm317 said...: Yeah, intercity..got the impression it was just within the city, local commute kind of thing, not even that late in the evening -- she was a medical student. I don't have a link but this is what I read from various Indian newspapers, Indian Express, Deccan Herald, Hindu... they all have frontpage stories on this.; 12/29/12, 8:39 PM
Saint Croix said...: The perpetrators were not muslim but hindu from some poor neiborhood.

The NYT story talks about two different incidents. The gang rape could be anybody. But the other one, where the legal authorities didn't want to do anything because they wanted the victim to marry the rapist, that sounded way Muslim to me.; 12/29/12, 8:48 PM
Paul said...: And note India has good gun control.

A women on the streets is at the mercy of strong men.; 12/29/12, 9:06 PM
pm317 said...: @Saint Croix.. not Muslim, the second story is about Sikh family (Kaur is a Sikh last name of a woman like Singh is of a man).. If Muslims perpetrate and get involved in this kind of horrific incidents, there would be more hell to pay and they would know that.; 12/29/12, 9:24 PM
Unknown said...: pm317 says : "If Muslims perpetrate and get involved in this kind of horrific incidents, there would be more hell to pay and they would know that."

Don't be silly; Muslims in India too routinely commit very horrific sexual crimes, such as this, without any serious public outrage.; 12/29/12, 11:46 PM
Unknown said...: Ah, the example I gave above is not "sexual" but gender-based nonetheless. Here is a recent horrible by a Muslim (of a Hindu woman), that hardly led to a protest.; 12/29/12, 11:49 PM
Brian G. said...: Bobby Jindal is Indian. With their attitudes towards women, is it any shock that he is a Republican?; 12/29/12, 11:58 PM
nemesis443 said...: Brian G. said...

Bobby Jindal is Indian. With their attitudes towards women, is it any shock that he is a Republican?

12/29/12 11:58 PM

Racist!; 12/30/12, 12:21 AM
David said...: Lesbian gangs should roam the streets. That'll keep the rapists at bay.; 12/30/12, 1:23 AM
Unknown said...: Cedarford said: "Which is worse, idiot liberals or gun nuts??"

I'm going to go with a guy who flings around straw men and non sequitors like a tornado of stupid.

Nobody said you had to arm them all, keep them well oiled or anything like that. Dolt.

All that's asked is that they be free to arm themselves. If you don't know who's armed, you're less likely to attack. If a few people who are armed kill the thugs, the thugs start to think.

ALL predators fear injury. That's why all predators tend to aim for the weak. Because humans don't always go for the weak, you hide the strong among them. Then, they don't know who is weak or strong. They then find honest work, because it pays better than a high risk of being dead.

Jesus Christ, how can anybody so stupid and yet, so smug, figure out how to work the keyboard thing?; 12/30/12, 1:53 AM
Bob Loblaw said...: But the rest of the world is a much harsher place for women and they are happy to have a high profile advocate like Hillary on their side talking to their country's politicians, institutions, and at other venues about how it should be.

Yeah, I'm sure they're overjoyed to have Hillary on their side. Well, if there's a chicken farm to be inspected.

In the real world, people in other countries are surprisingly resistant to hectoring and finger wagging from Western politicians.; 12/30/12, 2:36 AM
Bob Loblaw said...: Wow, Cedarford, that's perhaps the dumbest thing you've ever written. It's a pretty high bar, too.; 12/30/12, 2:49 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Unfortunately, the actual result of Clinton's record as Secretary of State is likely to be delivering additional millions of women to sub-human bondage.

Yes, she had the best of intentions. But the reality is that her (and Obama's) positions and actions over the last four years have pushed a number of countries in the direction of militant Islam, of the less forgiving brand. We have already seen several examples of western women being treated significantly worse now in Egypt, and if they are treated worse, then what about Egyptian Muslims? Ditto, of course in Libya, and likely Syria and Turkey too.

While both are Islamophiles, I would put President Obama as being more anti-third-world-women than Hillary! She at least probably cares. He has shown little indication that his interest in women and their issues is more than a political ploy, with a reputation of having probably the most male chauvinistic White House West Wing in generations.

But, in both their cases, pushing regime change from friendly pro-western regimes to militant Islamic regimes does far more harm to women in those countries than any amount of posturing by Hillary! could ever do. And, probably as bad, consciously reducing America's power throughout the world (while destroying our economy) reduces our attraction to the rest of third world, and with that, reduces the attraction of western liberalism, and, hence women's rights.

But, as usual, what is important to liberals are their feelings and emotions, and, esp. their feelings about themselves, and, for them, the reality that they do a lot more harm than good is, really, irrelevant.; 12/30/12, 4:07 AM
Anonymous said...: I had this idea before watching Penn & Teller. If only somebody would ship thousands of pink, 2-shot, disposable (plastic) guns to women in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan... Make the trigger guard a little too small.; 12/30/12, 5:53 AM
sdharms said...: pm317: read "So many Enemies, so little time" by Elinor Burkett to learn what one BIG LIBERAL woman thinks of the the Clintons efforts to help women in 3rd world countries. WHat you read in the press is all hype. The Clintons only help themselves.; 12/30/12, 8:22 AM
Beth said...: Folks interested in the larger issue of the plight of women and especially girls in India, China and elsewhere might be interested in this: http://www.tugg.com/titles/its-a-girl; 12/30/12, 8:30 AM
Tom Perkins said...: @ pm317

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/its-wrong-to-stop-girls-from-going-out.html?showComment=1356795842685#c3534900005899648718

And Hilary should be mocked. Arming the women, advocating for them the rights respected here--to the extent they are respected--in the 2nd Amendment; that would be effective.; 12/30/12, 9:08 AM
Paul said...: Brian G.,

What a pathetic statement. Bobby is AMERICAN. Gad, are you German? Does that make you a HITLER anti-SEMITE?

What the hell are you saying?

It's little snots like you, thinking they are big making such statements, that shows what Democrats really are like.; 12/30/12, 9:24 AM
Tom Perkins said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/30/12, 9:26 AM
Tom Perkins said...: @ Nemesis443

What Brian G said was exactly racist.

I'm surprised he could type with the hood in the way.; 12/30/12, 9:27 AM
Tom Perkins said...: @somefeller

"That American liberals shouldn't complain because whatever they are concerned with isn't nearly as bad as what this woman suffered?"

American liberals should be ashamed to scream that women have the right to murder babies, for any reason, by any means, at any point in a pregnancy. They should be ashamed to scream for government "freebie for all" contraceptives.

They should be ashamed of a great deal they do, but they are not wise enough at best, and they are evil enough to do those things and more at worst.; 12/30/12, 9:37 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I have not read anything that states the perpetrator's identity.; 12/30/12, 11:20 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Bruce H -

"Yes, she had the best of intentions. But the reality is that her (and Obama's) positions and actions over the last four years have pushed a number of countries in the direction of militant Islam, of the less forgiving brand. We have already seen several examples of western women being treated significantly worse now in Egypt, and if they are treated worse, then what about Egyptian Muslims? Ditto, of course in Libya, and likely Syria and Turkey too. "

Exactly.

Good intensions are worthless when the actual outcome is more radical Islam. Radical Islam is bad for girls.; 12/30/12, 11:21 AM