Trigger warning: Mentions of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse
In October 2021, a tweet by Sky News that announced ‘The Great Debate’ on women’s safety started with a question, ‘Do you clutch at your keys while walking home at night?’. Many women replied to the tweet that the defensive posture was now a default part of their life. At the outset, the question seems innocent, sensible even.
But upon pondering, the idea of preventive technology for rape as it exists currently, reveals its biases. A quick look into its foundational principle will help us see the bias in the way both the question and the technology posits the onus on women when it comes to their safety from sexual assault.
Product designs and technological interventions have always been situated around the survivor’s body, with little to no intention of directing them towards the perpetrator. Beginning from the chastity belt, anchored on the patriarchal values assigned to virginity and chastity, preventive devices for sexual assault were always carried in person by the most probable targets, particularly women.
The commodification of women’s protection is unmissable in the technologising of rape prevention. The hyper-normalisation of the fear of sexual assault is, in reality, inextricably linked to gendered lifestyle consumption. The upsurge in self-defense classes both online and offline, as well as the umpteen variations of pepper spray carriers, are examples of this consumerist approach to women’s safety.
The co-founder of the company that launched The Athena Pendant, a rape prevention accessory remarked, “It is a stylish module that can be worn as a necklace, clipped to a bag, attached to a key fob, or any other location that suits the wearer’s lifestyle . . . the ultimate accessory for the everyday woman”. This routinisation of such devices and their usability goes on to normalise the culture of rape, in turn, making the securitising culture for women a sham. Capitalist biases aside, the notion of science being objective and value-neutral is tested through innovations in rape prevention devices.
Technology is socially shaped as sociologist Judy Wajcman establishes through her book, Technofeminism. Many of the suggested or available anti-rape technology represent and replicate particular depictions of sexual assault, which mirror several widely held, gendered rape myths.
This is worrisome in terms of its potential effectiveness at the individual level, as well as the legitimisation of false notions regarding sexual violence. By placing the responsibility on women and other potential targets to remain safe from rape, there is a subtle reinforcement of the idea that rape somehow becomes the survivor’s/victim’s fault.
Many of the clothing technologies that came up in this domain, in case of malfunction, can potentially have a severe impact on the women themselves. For instance, the underwear that emits electricity harbours a chance that the woman will have to choose between getting electrocuted or getting assaulted. In addition, such clothes can be uncomfortable or restricting for women.
Many corporeal devices and their associated rhetorics (e.g., anti-rape underwear, sophisticated locking system buckles) promote the notion of sexual assault as vaginal penetration, implying that a woman is protected as long as an assailant cannot remove her bottoms. Anti-rape products can be exclusive, thus, not only due to economic reasons but also due to their definition of who needs protection and from what.
Also read: Does Marriage Justify Rape?: The Delhi High Court’s Split Verdict On Criminalising Marital Rape
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