My must read of the day is "Delhi Policewoman Finds Tradition Mightier Than The Badge," in the Wall Street Journal:
A year after the gang rape, the Delhi police say stressing enforcement and deploying more policewomen has helped encourage women to report crimes. The city recorded almost 1,500 reported rapes in 2013 through November, according to official data, more than twice the number in the same period last year. And compared with the same period in 2012, reports of sexual harassment jumped fivefold. The police department says it expects to have added 1,600 female officers by 2015.
Still, police and women's-rights activists say such crimes remain vastly underreported.
In India, massive amounts of people were roused to action by the horrific rape, beating, and death of a young student that happened on a bus one year ago today.
I can’t help but read this and think about what is routinely categorized as a "war on women" in America.
In India, the war on women is systemic misogyny where abuse and sexual assaults are common in the public and private sphere; our "war on women" is largely defined by whether taxpayers should pay for birth control and whether abortion rights should be restricted after viability.
When compared with what is happening in India and in other countries, our so-called war on women is not only a cringe worthy misnomer, it's an embarrassing one.
Perhaps it is a backhanded testament to the benefits of American society. We want so badly to stand for something, to stand against injustice at home, that many of us are willing to create a fight that isn't really there—as if through feigning oppression we find our own worth.
You want to see who's actually facing, and standing up to, a war on women? It's people like Preeti Dhaka and the women who are increasingly coming forward to report assaults in the face of social pressures to stay quiet.