Why Won't India Take Care of Its Women??

Her parents reported her missing to the police and the police didn’t act.  This tiny, 5 year old girl was kidnapped, held for two days, raped, and left for dead in an apartment in the same apartment building that she lived in.  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22260209)

She was 23 and had just been to see a movie with her boyfriend.  She had no idea that the men on the bus that she wanted to take to her next destination, would beat her and her friend, rape her repeatedly, and leave them both for dead at the side of the road.  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20765320)

For a better understanding of the subjugation of women in India read this:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20863860.

That article, written by BBC Dehli correspondent Soutik Biswas, spells out the horrors faced every day and in every stage of a woman’s life in India.  The culture in India demonstrates being more vested in men beginning at birth; selective abortion based on gender is commonplace.  Women in India are not regarded as humans; rather they are viewed as property, if that.

India’s very public outrage has brought to light one of the biggest hindrances to protecting the female population; the men of the police forces of India are slow or don’t respond to crimes against women.  The men of India are very well versed in how they currently have very little regard for women, and men have traditionally outnumbered women.  However, women now are starting to catch up to men; in 2011, there were 940 women to every 1000 men in India.  In recent history, women have started holding powerful positions in Indian government and society.  The death of the woman gang-raped on the bus inspired a rush of new legislation to protect women and punish the men that perpetrated these crimes.  (See an outline of new laws in India here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20863860)

Are these changes enough?  Would India need to have its own French Revolution to have any type of social reform needed on such a mass scale?  Tradition and history are hard to escape and even more difficult to change.  India can hope for change, but it needs to work for it, too.