The sexual assault on women and objectification of women are not the result of sudden moral degradation of men of the 21st century (“Stemming the moral rot within”, Jan.11).
They are centuries-old problems prevailing in India. What has changed is the attitude and sensitivity of women in recent decades towards continued sexual violence, within homes and in public places. Now the “suffering and bearing in silence” attitude of the previous decades’ women has disappeared. It includes even uneducated and rural women. The empowered women of today are aware of their rights to live with dignity, provision of laws to protect them and they have the support of the media, NGOs and parents to expose culprits. The solution lies not in making a few more new laws but in the type of upbringing boys have at home, imparting moral values at the school level, a sensitised police force, a quick justice delivery system and strict control over film-makers who portray women characters as sex objects and as those who will bear all sorts of assault on their dignity and character.
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Rameeza A. Rasheed,
Chennai