Horrible rape case in India kills PD arguments.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_case

This sort of puts a damper on the "learn to protect yourself" argument.  The couple in this case had no chance to escape or even fight effectively.

About the only good thing to say about it is the actions of the police following the incident (though not, apparently, in the hours leading up to it).

[Cain]

When I taught self-defense, I actually taught a lot more about awareness than self-defence.  Except in low-level incidents, you're likely to be attacked by someone better armed than you, with far more people on their side than you, and in a place of their choosing, prepared for the attack.

As such, the best tactic is avoidance first and foremost.  And that isn't necessarily always doable, even if you are highly aware.

Even when I was at the height of my fitness, and doing two hour daily martial arts sessions, I couldn't have taken on six armed people in a locked bus.  Certainly not while protecting someone.  Maybe not even with a firearm - in close quarters, a knife often beats a gun, especially if the knife is already in the hand and the gun is still in the holster.  I probably wouldn't have noticed something was wrong until the bus deviated from it's route and locked the doors, either.  In other words, things would have gone as they otherwise did, and all my training and ability in applied violence and the avoidance thereof wouldn't have made the slightest difference.

I've tried to make it clear so often when teaching that if you're at a point that you're actually fighting, then something has already gone terribly wrong.  So many people don't seem to get it though.  "When can we skip this boring shit and get onto the "punching people in the balls" part?"  Trying to impart my mindset on these things is so difficult, though, and I can only believe it's down to people believing they are more skilled at violence than they think (Dunning-Kruger) and that violence they see on TV is like violence in real life (rarely the case).

It's not like there is a magic bullet that can ensure safety.  You can take sensible steps and precautions.  You can learn a martial art or go on some sort of combatives course.  But unless you're psychic, you can never be certain.  And against a sufficiently motivated and intelligent attacker, there may well be no defence.  I mean, if I had an overriding need to attack someone, I wouldn't let them be in a position to be able to defend themselves.  So why assume your potential attacker will be any more generous?

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

That is a horrible thing. It seems to have stirred up a whole shit storm of outrage, I hope the momentum continues and the victims recover. My mind is kind of blown by this. All the shit that has happened in my life, I've never been raped to the point where part of my intestines had to be removed due to such severe damage that gangrene was a potential issue.

I have the petty, bitter thought that the only reason this is such a thing is because the woman was with a man and thus properly escorted and thus - not automatically to blame.

Gotta stop and think about this a little bit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That is a horrible thing. It seems to have stirred up a whole shit storm of outrage, I hope the momentum continues and the victims recover. My mind is kind of blown by this. All the shit that has happened in my life, I've never been raped to the point where part of my intestines had to be removed due to such severe damage that gangrene was a potential issue.

I have the petty, bitter thought that the only reason this is such a thing is because the woman was with a man and thus properly escorted and thus - not automatically to blame.

Gotta stop and think about this a little bit.

Another way to say it is that she was taking reasonable precautions and got caught in a very unreasonable situation.

Nobody blamed her, and there's no reason to expect they would have, had she been on the bus alone.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

That is a horrible thing. It seems to have stirred up a whole shit storm of outrage, I hope the momentum continues and the victims recover. My mind is kind of blown by this. All the shit that has happened in my life, I've never been raped to the point where part of my intestines had to be removed due to such severe damage that gangrene was a potential issue.

I have the petty, bitter thought that the only reason this is such a thing is because the woman was with a man and thus properly escorted and thus - not automatically to blame.

Gotta stop and think about this a little bit.

Another way to say it is that she was taking reasonable precautions and got caught in a very unreasonable situation.

Nobody blamed her, and there's no reason to expect they would have, had she been on the bus alone.

My head is not happy fun times about this. Too much noise.

[deadfong]

My wife's been following this case rather closely.  She's always told me that she's never felt safe in Delhi.

[Pergamos]

It may not be protection, but at least it is revenge.

[Faust]

It may not be protection, but at least it is revenge.

If she had been wearing that she would be dead now, not just in hospital.

[Cain]

My wife's been following this case rather closely.  She's always told me that she's never felt safe in Delhi.

My sister has considered travelling to India, but she has said she would never go there alone, because of the increasingly negative attitude towards women there.  I don't know enough about India to know why this is the case, but I know it wasn't always like that.

[deadfong]

My wife's been following this case rather closely.  She's always told me that she's never felt safe in Delhi.

My sister has considered travelling to India, but she has said she would never go there alone, because of the increasingly negative attitude towards women there.  I don't know enough about India to know why this is the case, but I know it wasn't always like that.

My wife has female friends who say the same thing about Delhi, and she says that she's never felt that way in other parts of India, but only in Delhi and Jaipur, which are both in the north.

While the culture in India is pretty chauvinistic everywhere, she says it's only in the north that she fears for her safety, where the chauvinism seems to be taken to an extreme, and that seems to be the consensus among our friends who are from or who have been to India.

I have to say, I felt a little uncomfortable in Delhi, but that might be because I knew my wife didn't like it there.  However, neither my wife nor I ever felt any concern or fear in Bombay, Pune, or Bangalore - they all seem much more cosmopolitan.  My wife's from Pune, so I've been there several times, and I have to say it seems fairly progressive to me, as Indian cities go.

[Pergamos]

I used to interact with a young woman from Mumbai, as Bombay is called now, online.  I think we were both looking for someone outside our own culture to interact with so we could feel worldly, or something like that.  In any case she said that the streets and public transit are not at all safe for women there.  She has to be very careful not to make eye contact, as it is taken as an invitation to rape, and random groping of women on busses is not uncommon at all.  Apparently the women usually do not react, as reacting can provoke worse.

This is purely anecdotal, and based on what I was told by a young woman who was decidedly dramatic, so I am not claiming it is anything like authoritative, but it does indicate that even if Mumbai is better than Delhi it's still got a lot of problems in those respects.

[Reginald Ret]

It may not be protection, but at least it is revenge.

If she had been wearing that she would be dead now, not just in hospital.

Yep, not a smart choice for people who values their lives.
The cumulative advantages when enough women do it would be worth considering though. All you need is enough women willing to martyr themselves for the cause.

[Cain]

My wife's been following this case rather closely.  She's always told me that she's never felt safe in Delhi.

My sister has considered travelling to India, but she has said she would never go there alone, because of the increasingly negative attitude towards women there.  I don't know enough about India to know why this is the case, but I know it wasn't always like that.

My wife has female friends who say the same thing about Delhi, and she says that she's never felt that way in other parts of India, but only in Delhi and Jaipur, which are both in the north.

While the culture in India is pretty chauvinistic everywhere, she says it's only in the north that she fears for her safety, where the chauvinism seems to be taken to an extreme, and that seems to be the consensus among our friends who are from or who have been to India.

I have to say, I felt a little uncomfortable in Delhi, but that might be because I knew my wife didn't like it there.  However, neither my wife nor I ever felt any concern or fear in Bombay, Pune, or Bangalore - they all seem much more cosmopolitan.  My wife's from Pune, so I've been there several times, and I have to say it seems fairly progressive to me, as Indian cities go.

Interesting, the differences that are there.

Bombay makes sense, as you say, it's much more cosmopolitan.  Hating takes up too much time, which could be used to make money trading with the obese sheiks who oil their beards in Dubai.

I'll definitely recommend those to my sister as a possibility for travel....I wonder if the differences have anything to do with religion/historical strongholds of the British Empire/poverty.  I would guess all those are linked as factors, and no doubt the religious resurgence in India is not evenly distributed...

How are the Naxalite areas for womens rights?  If you know them in any detail, that is.  I would imagine the Maoists would in theory be all for equal rights, but theory is frequently compromised when working with the local culture, especially when one is aiming for a rural insurgency.  I had friends who said the Maoist areas were very clean and safe, but this was nearly a decade ago now, so lots has changed in India.

[Juana]

The victim has died.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The victim has died.

Well, shit.