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family friend, most likely to stress what a precocious brat I had been, related this to me. Many years ago as a child growing up in Jakarta, I asked my father what “rape” meant. He stopped and thought quickly, then replied, “It’s a very, very bad act, when a man forces a woman to do what he wants.”

I suspect at the time, homosexuality was out of the equation, especially when talking to a child. “Why would a man force a woman? Not the other way around? Or a man forces another man?” I asked further. “Because a woman is usually not as strong as a man,” was his answer.

Decades later, I realized how much was implied in my father’s answer: Cowardice, a bullying mentality and collective social attitudes concerning women. Unfortunately, the picture only fell into place in retrospect. Since rape represented a behavioral aberration, it was very rarely mentioned in polite conversations or family exchanges.

And when I was growing up, the concept that women were physically, mentally, intellectually and emotionally inferior to men was ingrained in society. And for that reason, women should know their place. The ideal woman was one who came across as rather clueless, while a hopeless dependence on men was regarded as the utmost sign of femininity. Moreover, clothes should reflect respectability and unattainable desirability.

Women who did not fit this pattern were judged as weird, vulgar, unfit for respectable society or downright undesirable. Occasionally, when it transpired that a rape victim was one of “those women” who fell through gasps of disapproval and pity, there was always the shrug of the often unstated “what’d you expect?”

This was a form of mental tyranny that was subliminally and successfully planted and nurtured in society; as most people, men and women, naturally wanted to be accepted in the mainstream. And those who had the courage to challenge the notion, ran the risk of being branded as “radical”, thus not be taken seriously. And if they were women, there was an added epithet of “unfeminine” as well.

In reality, this did not do men any good either, because it led patriarchy to the extent of mental and moral torpor, akin to the overall moral degradation of a dynasty that has ruled for too long. The problem is the notion was so insidious it transcended cultural boundaries, because patriarchy became an accepted norm in modern as well as traditional societies albeit to differing degrees.

As a young adult in Australia, I met a larger number of men who showed greater respect for women than those I knew in Indonesia, men who believed that women could be as smart as they were. However even these men, when confronted by really assertively intelligent women, were nonplussed, commenting that they were too aggressive and unfeminine for their own good. It was interesting to note that many of their female peers agreed with them. In other words, you wouldn’t find many friends even among women if you did not vaguely conform to the accepted norms.

I had my share of workplace sexual harassment, which opened my eyes to the complexity of the problem. The offending senior colleague was the husband of a close friend. To the distressing doubts whether I encouraged his behavior was added the fear of upsetting my friend who thought her husband was God’s gift to humanity. I did not even tell my own husband until a long time after the events. I was sure then even if I told people about what this man had done, nobody would have believed me, and worse still, everybody would have blamed me instead.

Fortunately, I was able to dive into my fiction writing and my character died a painful death from being bitten by a scorpion. Needless to say, the fictional death didn’t solve the real-life problem immediately, but somehow it made me see what he really was — a weakling playing the role of a powerful character. And I think my suddenly acquired self-confidence might have disconcerted him and kept him away. Losing the friendship of his wife was the price I had to pay.

Not everyone in my situation has been that lucky. Some have even been raped without having the courage to report the crime because of the well-known odds against having their stories believed, and the added social stigma of being branded “liars” as well.

A decade or so later, I invited a friend and her husband to lunch. They were funny and we laughed a lot. At some stage they told a rape joke. Trying to be a good hostess, I laughed, reluctantly. However, my daughter who was home from college did not. When we were alone, my daughter asked why I’d laughed at such a tasteless joke. I felt uncomfortable and heartened all at once. The grounds had shifted on the issue of rape.

Nonetheless, rape in varying degrees of horridness, continues to be committed throughout the world, though with decreasing impunity. We are shocked now and again, with the most recent despicable incident being the Dec. 16, 2012 gang rape, and the subsequent death, of a young student in New Delhi, which stirred ire and resounding outrage around the world.

The anger had not yet subsided when a judge seeking a seat on Indonesia’s Supreme Court commented that rape should be treated differently from other crimes, because both the perpetrators and the victims enjoyed the act. Then, dismayed by the amount of anger he caused, he tried to redeem himself by showing remorse.

I presume the man has been mentally trapped in the old mind-set, and thought himself very witty in passing off the offensive comment. But the fact that he was hoping to be a Supreme Court judge chills me to the bone. This one was caught thanks to media vigilance, but how many slipped through the net and filled decision-making positions in the country’s power elite? One should wonder.

The writer is a journalist and adjunct research associate at the school of political and social inquiry in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University in Melbourne.