When we hear the word “normal”, we often associate it with things we commonly see, experience, and understand around us. But when something falls outside what we encounter every day, do we automatically label it “abnormal” or “unnatural” simply because it is unfamiliar? We learn what we grow up watching, what generations before us accepted, and what society teaches us not to question. But somewhere along the way, we began confusing what is common with what is right, and what is familiar with what is natural.
According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau data, an average of about 81 registered rape cases are reported per day in 2024, showing 29,536 reported cases that year. However, these figures represent only officially reported cases. Many incidents likely remain unreported because of social stigma, cultural pressures, fear of damaging family reputation, and the desire to protect or avoid bringing shame to the family.
But our society has made such information normal: a child getting raped in broad daylight, a woman getting gang raped by people she trusted, and an innocent old woman likely asking for assistance also falling prey to such incidents have turned out to be normal. But all of this has become NORMAL as the generations have passed.
Normal is any factor that occurs commonly daily, and, in fact, rape cases have become so normal in society, which is definitely not NATURAL. Because nature may contain desire, rape is the deliberate rejection of another person’s autonomy, and it turns intimacy into domination—where one
person’s will is imposed upon another’s; familiarity does not make something natural, and frequency does not make something right.
The world has always been pointing out the many things women could not do. Throughout most of history, women have been second-class citizens. Work roles that provided power or money were limited, while they had less voice in law and were not permitted to vote, as their social expectations of women were different too. Their first and foremost responsibility was to become a good wife, obedient daughter-in-law, and a caring and selfless mother, who always prioritises the family over herself.
Even though generations have progressed and society has changed in many ways, this mindset has remained surprisingly persistent. When a man comes home after a long day, feels exhausted, or needs to rest, it is considered completely normal. But when a woman returns home tired, she is often questioned: “Why did you get married if you couldn’t handle the pressure?”
A man’s exhaustion is seen as the result of a hard day, while a woman’s exhaustion is treated as a failure to fulfil her responsibilities. Somewhere along the way, we have accepted the idea that pressure is simply a normal part of being a married woman—as though marriage comes with an obligation to endure everything silently.
IRUMUDI, a recently released Telugu film starring Ravi Teja, portrays a beautiful yet emotional bond between a father and daughter whose lives take unexpected turns. However, what has sparked my interest is a particular line in the film: “Fear is the most protective shield.”Since when has fear in women resulted in protection, while the same fear in men has resulted in weakness?
Yet, this is precisely the normalcy our society has created. When a woman
walks alone at night, the first questions are often directed at her: Why was she outside so late? Why was she alone? Why did she go there? Her choices, her clothing, her behaviour, and even her character are questioned
Why don’t we ask what made him believe he had the right to violate another person’s safety? Why is his character not questioned with the same intensity? We search for explanations in the woman’s actions rather than holding the perpetrator accountable for his own. We rarely ask a man why he was outside late at night. Yet, when the same thing happens to a woman, her presence at that hour itself becomes part of the interrogation.
Somewhere along the way, we have normalised fear into a responsibility women must carry, instead of making accountability the responsibility of those who cause harm. And perhaps that is the real problem with calling fear a “protective shield”. Because we usually tend to forget that fear is natural; every organism on the planet comes across it when it is in a dangerous situation, triggering its self-defence mechanism to activate, but it should not be normal to be growing up in such an environment where every steps are being judged, every actions you take is degraded due to your gender or everytime you speak up you are considered a hindrance in your society.
We have inherited so many definitions of what a woman is supposed to be that we have forgotten to ask whether those definitions were ever fair in the first place. Because the responsibility of preventing violence should never belong to the person who fears it, but to the person who chooses to cause it. Maybe it is time to stop teaching women how to survive a world that frightens them and start teaching society how to build a world that does not.
So perhaps the change we need is not to redefine what women can do, but to redefine what society is willing to accept as normal. Because normal does not always mean natural. And sometimes, what society calls normal is simply wrong that has been repeated for so long that we stopped questioning it.