High male bias both in India and US: Gender activist Vivian Huelgo

Huelgo is chief counsel to the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence of the American Bar Association.

A prominent American gender activist says India and the United States face similar kinds of challenges in dealing with gender violence as both countries have an inherent streak of male preference and victims of sexual violence in both countries face similarly hostile cross-questioning from cops and judges.

“Strong male privilege/preference is present in much of our society,” said Vivian Huelgo, a lawyer and gender activist currently touring India. “Studies show teachers call boys rather than girls, men make more money for the same jobs. We have women who are very successful but that doesn’t trickle down to all women. There is misogyny in how judges, law enforcement and other kinds of decision makers approach this. Victims are asked what they were wearing, what they were drinking. There is a strong inclination for disbelief in gender crimes. That doesn’t happen with other kinds of crime. When a man says his car is stolen, nobody doubts him.”

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Huelgo is chief counsel to the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence of the American Bar Association. She will address a series of meetings in a number of cities, at the invitation of the American Embassy, to highlight the importance of a community-based integrated approach in tackling gender violence.

In her first meeting with advocates and judges in Jaipur, Huelgo was told about the problem of female foeticide in India. That is not something that the United States has to tackle, she conceded, but the subtle messages about girls being inferior to boys is all -pervasive. Statements like “don’t cry like a girl, don’t run like a girl” reinforce gender stereotypes and notions of gender disparity from a very early age.

She cites the example of the furore over departmental store Target’s decision not to label toys as “boys” and girls” to make the point that the US still has distance to cover. “Data from the Centre for Disease Control shows one in every five women would be raped, sexually assaulted, sometimes by their caregivers. One in every four would face intimate partner violence,” she adds.

The way forward for both India and the US, she says, is to have integrated family justice centres to deal with domestic violence and also rape crisis centres where professionals from diverse sectors such as healthcare, law enforcement, advocates NGOs etc work together with victims.

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