Indian women, a mere sex object?

The morning dawned with more appalling news. Newspapers were full of those lurid tidings. Boob tubes flashed gory images, virulent and nauseating. Among the hyped reports of heinous bloodshed, conspicuous were news of innumerable cases of rape and other forms of sexual exploitation. Not from some backwoods and boondocks, but from the 'so-sophisticated' squares of cities across the sub-continent.
Teenaged girl being molested by group of thugs on the street, young woman sexually assaulted and thrown out of a moving train, high-ranking bobbies giving vent to their lust on unsuspecting victims, cop on duty copulating forcefully with a girl student inside a police aid-post, girl-back-home being waylaid and gang-raped, fathers and brothers using their daughters and sisters for their carnal pleasures, unfledged students being made sitting ducks by fetish pedagogues and so on and so forth are the glaring news items that I have been forced to read of late.
And where are all those so-called feminists and pro-women activists? I remember my history teacher in St Mary's giving long lessons about the pride and honour Indian women enjoyed in the society from time immemorial.
News of sexual assault was something so unusual and freaky those days. But, now with the changing times, it seems that nobody bothers. Or what does it mean, when whole world knew what had happened at Best Bakery during Godhra carnage, a Teesta Seetalwad had to stand on the dock?
During different phases of history, when Bikhaiji Cama, Begum Hazarath Mahal, Rani Rashmoni, Rani Gaidinleu, Ahilyabai Holker, Aruna Asaf Ali, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Rukmini Laxmipati, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Indira Priyadarshini and many more broke their backs day in and day out, they had other things to do.
Now, with so many women representing millions of Indian people in assemblies and in Parliament and thousands of them fiercely fighting for political ideologies and social status for women, why the atrocities against the fairer sex in an alarming rise?
With so many women political leaders and social activists around, what good a common female has availed from them or what security she has got to live as a decent citizen?
I tend to believe that something is blocking these female politicos and social activists from fighting for the cause of millions of their fellow beings. Because, quiet interestingly, I have never heard of any major feminist movement for any such social cause for a long time. Instead, female ratio is fast coming down and female foeticide is dismayingly high.
Men are, after all, men! Then who should take the cudgel? I am not getting any answers to my questions.
Rule of law, for that matter, never came to the help for those miserable lots.  No wonder an unruly crowd of women hacked a rapist to death on a court premise some time ago.