For many years, girls and women across the world come together and celebrate International Women's Day (IWD) to promote gender equality and increase the visibility of their social, economic and political achievements. This year, the IWD community would like to advocate for women's equal rights and collectively forge a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination, where positive difference is valued and recognised.
On March 8, many people posted photos of themselves crossing their arms in an "x" shape with the hashtag "Break The Bias" on social media to raise public awareness of gender bias. Although the celebration of IWD happened last Tuesday, I believe we still can celebrate women's equality every day of the year. Otherwise, nothing will change if we only take action for one day.
Very often we see rape scenes that are repeatedly glamorised in romance novels and movies in Thailand like Khun Kam, or Sunset At Chaophraya where a Japanese soldier, Kobori was intoxicated and depressed that his Thai wife, Angsumalin never loved him. After their arranged marriage, he sexually attacked and raped her. Later, she was pregnant and acted cold towards him. But before Kobori died in the war, the girl immediately regretted her angry feelings and mean words, realising how much she loved him. Evidently, this classic love story romanticised the crime by making the female protagonist forgive the rapist at the end.
This falsely educates viewers that non-consensual sex is socially acceptable as long as your partner still likes or eventually falls in love with you. Reading through comments on YouTube, it became clear that some people increasingly become desensitised to this intimate partner violence on television and criticised the female protagonist for betraying her true feelings that she liked the forced sex, or was asking for it. However, one comment horrified me when a male confessed that he once forced a girl he liked to have sex with him in the hope that she would like him back. Eventually, he didn't ravish her and became aware that no woman would love the man who sexually abused her. Still, there must be other naive men like him who believe rape fantasies could play out in real life. In this regard, many scenes of ravishment in soap operas illustrate how men are morally justified in violating women's rights, and this popular misconception about sexual assault provokes victim-blaming.
At the same time, male survivors of rape and sexual violence are somehow neglected and hidden in this patriarchal society. Due to the social stigma and cultural stereotype, men are supposedly strong enough to fight off penetrators. Unsurprisingly, some viewers regarded Bridgerton's sex scene as "a failure to communicate" rather than rape when Daphne gets on top, not letting her husband, Simon use the pull-out method. They rather passed judgement on the male character as he seemed to enjoy ravenous sex with his wife.
In the book, Daphne had sex with drunken Simon as he was in her control. This could be said that she intentionally raped him. However, the plot of this original novel is slightly different from the TV scene, rewritten by Van Dusen. As the creator would like to raise the conversation around sexual consent and make his main female character far from perfect, he explained: "You can only imagine her state when she thinks the man she's been sleeping with this entire time has been manipulating and lying to her about the subject. What she ends up doing is making that incredibly complicated, human choice -- and doing what she believes she has to do."
Sill, the whole series disregards the consent issue and racial justice as Simon has to ask his wife's forgiveness and gain her trust again after that rape incident. In fact, Simon asked Daphne to stop what she was doing by saying "wait". Instead, this black character was made a scapegoat for the sexual violence committed by a white woman, just because he didn't tell the truth that he didn't want children. This is both racial and sexual gaslighting.
Apparently, we cannot uplift gender justice and combat unconscious bias if we keep silent and ignore the sign of rape culture and sexual violence against both men and women.
Punsita Ritthikarn is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.
