In urban metro cities, women like to believe they are safe. They watch films, news, shows, read books about harassment of women (sexual or otherwise) and may be disturbed for a while, a few hours, or a few days, at the extreme. They then content themselves going to sleep thinking women are unsafe in the relatively underdeveloped areas, which do not boast of a cosmopolitan population. They believe the men around them, living in homes like theirs, grown up in families like theirs and studied in institutions like theirs, are safe, and unlike the men they read and heard about. Time and again, this fallacy has been shattered.
Delhi, known for its beautiful Lutyens architecture and the hub of political and
judicial power ranked highest among major metropolitan cities on a ‘Crimes Against Women’ report published by the NCRB. However, Delhi residents justify it as mainly being centered around the older areas of the city, closer to Uttar
Pradesh. The recently viral issue of Boys’ locker room proved this to be untrue.
A few boys from South Delhi, one of the most posh and exclusive areas of the
NCR, formed an Instagram group, where they shared nude photos of girls they knew, and discussed raping them, among other things such as passing lewd, derogatory comments.
As has been reported till now, a few of these photos were
sent by the girls to either one of the boys themselves, an activity not uncommon
and unheard of. These boys, without the consent of the mostly underage girls, circulated them on their online group. Moreover, when their chats were leaked, they abused and threatened to post nude photographs of the very women who had
leaked the chats, contemptuously saying, “They want to be feminists, right? They will not be able to show their faces in public”. However, two days after the chats were publicly posted, Delhi Police has identified 22 males involved in the heinous
act, and detained one, a 15-year-old boy.
This case however is not the only one involving young educated boys belonging to rich urban households using crass explicit language to demean women. Eight boys, in their blooming pubescent ages of 13 and 14, were suspended from a top-ranking International Board school in Mumbai, in December 2019 for talking about raping their female classmates. If a young teenage girl is not safe among her fellow classmates, at an age when adolescents have only just started to distinguish between sexes, then who is she safe from?
St. Stephen’s College, considered the most distinguished college in the country, has a clandestine secret under all its brilliance.
The Allnutt North Gentlemen’s Association (ANGA) members i.e. the residential facility of boys, pledge an oath every year, wherein, among other things, they pledge to promote misogyny. This ‘tradition’ has been around for a while now, and attempts to speak up against it have been stifled, rationalising that it is done in jest, and is allegedly harmless and stupid. Having witnessed this, how then can we be dismayed at India being ranked the ‘Most Dangerous Country for Women’ in 2018? If our country’s most brilliant
minds, with the world at their feet, can willingly participate, or be silent spectators to belittling women, then what hope do we commoners have?
News channels, having gotten a break, albeit unfortunate, from the pandemic, are
inviting esteemed panelists to find out the possible causes for well educated boys
to perform this act, and the remedial actions to prevent this from recurring. Sex education in schools is the most common suggestion, but can it really be implemented? Are the students going to stop giggling at the mention of words they
have previously read only on the Internet when it is used by a teacher? Are the parents, who do not allow their teenage kids to watch Hollywood movies, or read ‘adult’ books, while subconsciously aware that their kids know more than they do themselves, willing to permit their children? Most importantly, will the teachers be
comfortable teaching and answering multiple questions of their students in these classes? Until we don’t have a definite answer to these problems, sex education in schools seems utopian.
While the country cannot seem to stop talking about the antics in the boys’ locker
room, and raising issues such as inequality, safety of women, and patriarchy, most women have the same thought over and over in their head, “I am not surprised”. It is shocking, to say the least, and gut-wrenching, but it does not take our breath away. We have been witness to such callousness before, either in the media, or been victims ourselves. For a woman to be a victim, she need not have been raped, or molested, or had her nude photos leaked online. If she has seen boys in her college strut around and unabashedly give points to every girl based on how she looks and dresses, she is a victim. If she has read the joke sent on her family WhatsApp group where the man is constantly stressed by his wife’s alleged nagging, and seen all her family members, male and female alike, laughing, she is a victim. If she has been given the ‘freedom’ to befriend boys, but is told to be back at home before 10:00pm ‘for her own safety’, while her younger brother goes out on sleepovers and camping trips, she is a victim. If she is told to be a nice obedient girl, respectful to everyone, while her brother can push about girls and turn his nose up at them, as her parents laugh it off and say, “Arrey, he is a boy na”, she is a victim. Most of us are victims, in a small way or another. However, to blame every man for this would be to do exactly what feminists are accused of doing. We cannot believe or allow others to believe that every man is a culprit, and
every woman is a damsel in distress. This problem is clearly a humanitarian problem, and dividing ourselves into two, male and female, is simply adding fuel to the already simmering fire.
We can only hope that boys’ locker room keeps us awake at night for more than a few days, and ignites a fire in each of us.
Written by: Shimon Chadha
Literary Sources:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/boyslockerroom-bois-locker-room-delhi-schoolboys-chat-on-gang-rape-on-instagram-2223185
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bois-locker-room-delhi-schoolboys-create-group-to-share-lewd-photos-chats-on-classmates-1674303-2020-05-04
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mumbai-ib-school-students-whatsapp-chat-horror-1629343-2019-12-18
https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/anga-st-stephens-college-misogyny-oath-pledge-sexism-961056-2017-02-16
Image Sources: The Quint, Hindustan Times, Makers India
