The Hidden Secret: Woman Silence over Rape: A Study Based on a Movie Named Hush! Girls Don’t Scream

Abstract

Rape is what it is and gets riched in its effect as it is not considered a ‘crime’ but a
matter of great shame for women. Rape is supposed to not only physically hurt the woman but
also is considered as an act that damages her ‘honor’ and that of her family or community. Since
such factors of honor and shame continue to be attached to women’s bodies, rape or any
assaults against women will not stop. This paper is a report on the situation of women in the
Third World. The work of Pouran Derakhshandeh; a movie named Hush! Girls don’t scream,
has represented that women are sentenced to tolerate such conditions which are interpreted for
them by the community. In other words, extremely the women of the Third World have survived
without a voice with which to speak their complaint. In fact they are the second sex. They have
endured silence. As our society (Iran or any other Third World Society) is a moral society;
evaluating the hidden subjects are never noted as vital, and instead of speaking, silence
dominates and in some occasions, women have been obsessed by communities for speaking
openly. But in Western societies, many of the victims prefer to talk about their problems before
their hate and disgust pile up, even if the significance of the incidents are greater there in
compare with Iran. Like Ms. Opera who is a victim of a father raping his daughter. Today we
realize that women have restricted themselves with the wrong cultural and social attitudes which
have been injected to their mind from childhood by family and community. This paper is an effort
to remove that mistake.