When women are victimized by violent crimes, often they are blamed for dressing or behaving provocatively. Is it right to blame the victim thus?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Question When women are victimized against their will, often, they themselves are blamed for having worn provocative dresses or provocated their attack in some way.
Isn’t it unfair to blame the victim for the very crime that has victimized her? Answer Certainly, if a woman has had a violent crime perpetrated against her, then she needs support, not judgment and condemnation. Actually, whatever way a woman dresses or acts, nothing justifies violence or physical abuse, or sexual abuse. Nothing at all.
Even if a woman is a prostitute, for whatever reason, if that is the way she has to earn a living, even prostitutes shouldn’t be physically attacked. Prostitutes should be paid. Physical violence, where one person takes control of another person’s body for the sake of one’s own sensual gratification, is abhorrent.
And whatever we have, another person, whatever we definition in nature, violence against a woman is never justified. It’s just very, very clear. That is, even if a woman is an abused character, all of us as individual beings, all of us have free will, and nobody can take advantage of anybody else, physically, sexually, and blame that person, blame the victim for it.
That is misuse of our free will. The person who is abusing is misuse of free will by that person. And even if, by some moral standards, as moral standards, even if a woman is not having the best character, but the misuse of free will by another person, say the woman, in not dressing properly, although whether that is a misuse or not, that’s a different issue.
It is a misuse in one way, but the point is that the misuse of free will by one person does not justify a far greater and far worse misuse of free will by another person. Whoever misuses free will, that person is responsible. So, now, with respect to the view, if somebody is a victim of a crime, he needs our support, and often after such traumatic events, for telling me to reply, to get back one’s emotional bearings, certainly it will be terrible at such time.
The person himself is blamed. In fact, he is not at all controlled by the Vedic tradition. Now, from the male’s perspective, or the attacker’s perspective, the attacker is to be blamed.
Responsible for the crime. Now, from the woman’s perspective, in general, it is important to know that the way we dress, the way we conduct ourselves, sends statements to others about what we think about ourselves and what we want the world to think about us. So, this is not a question of whether we have a right to dress whatever way we like or not.
Yes, we have a right. Whatever way we want to dress, we can dress. But, our actions have consequences.
And the consequence, of course, is not that if we dress revealingly, we will be attacked. That is definitely wrong. But the point is, the way we dress, the consequence will be that we will be perceived in a particular way.
And when women dress revealingly, then that sends a message. It sends a message how that that one wants to be treated as a sex symbol. That is maybe a harsh word.
Now, of course, some people may want to be treated as sex symbols. In the sense, they want attention. But then, once we start provoking attention, then, especially if you read in a play that people can see as signals for taking liberties, then afterwards things can spiral out of control.
In this spiral out of control, the person who attacks and commits violence is responsible. So, it is not a question of whether it is our right or not to dress in a particular way. It is a question of whether we want to send the right message to others or we want to send wrong message to others.
Simple example. A person has money. And the person walks along a dark street, a dark lonely street, with thousand rupee notes protruding from each pocket.
And then that person gets mugged. Somebody will attack and rob that person. Now, who is responsible for the robbery? In all situations, the robbers are responsible.
But, when the person, when the person with the money, if he exposes the money like that, sends a message that, you know, here there is money, here there are rupees, and there are rupees. Now, obviously that person doesn’t want to convey that message. Of course, he doesn’t want to be robbed when the person is exposing the notes in the pocket.
It may well be because of carelessness or it may be because of wanting to show off one’s wealth or whatever. But, unintentionally also, a message is sent over there. The message is that, here there is easy money available.
Now, when they rob, they are responsible. But along with that, a wealthy person can claim that, I have the right to, it’s my money, and I have the right to keep it protruding from my pocket. Yes, it is not beyond the rights of the person to keep it protruding out of his pocket.
But, you recognize that, whether that will send the right message, whether that will likely get the right consequences. So, why provoke the lower human nature, which is so widely present in so many people, in the name of rights? So, now the police, if the ECG person gets robbed, police will naturally, should try to find the thieves and get the money back and punish the thieves. But along with that, the police will also tell the person, why are you exposing the money like that? So, that, keep the money concealed.
And that is entirely a reasonable request. And that is not infringing into the rights of that person. It is just taking necessary precautions.
So, similarly, in spiritual cultures, or the spiritual wisdom traditions, encourage women to dress modestly, to not expose their bodily part too much. Not because it is a matter of suppressing their rights, just as men who expose their money, make themselves more vulnerable to attacks. Similarly, women, who reveal dresses that expose their bodies, they send a message.
Here, there is so much, so much perverse level attraction available, and pleasure available. And especially when it is exposed, that sends a message that these are likely to be easy pickings. And that certainly is not a message that we should send to a human.
So, the important question is not, it is not a question of right or wrong. It is wrong to attack a woman, whatever be the way she dresses. And it is within the rights of a woman to dress whatever way she wants.
But the important point is, what is the message that we want to send to others? And we want to set a message that will trigger other people’s lower nature, and make them take undesirable abilities. If we don’t want to send such messages, and if we don’t want people to get violently provoked, then we should also do our part. I would suggest a wise person will be well advised to keep the money inside, and not expose it to the world.
Similarly, the spiritual culture recommends to the people, to dress modestly, and not expose the bodies to others. So that is not, so this is exposing the body, cannot be blamed for causing crimes. But the important point here is not to find the person to blame, but the important point is to and solving the problem involves definitely dressing properly, and sending the right messages, so that the problem is minimized.
No doubt there will be women, no doubt there will be men who will want to exploit women irrespective of how they dress, just as there will be few who want to rob people, irrespective of how deeply or safely they have kept their wallets. So these are unavoidable problems because of the lower human nature. And they have to be dealt with by proper law and order.
But beyond that, life provokes problems in the name of rights. So we shouldn’t just think of what our rights are, we should think of what is the right message that I want to send to others about myself, about my body, and about my values. And then accordingly, wear a dress.