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The 'bois locker room' has brought out a number of issues with the society to fore. However, aren't we as a whole a little responsible for it too?
The ‘bois locker room’ has brought out a number of issues with the society to fore. However, aren’t we as a whole a little responsible for it too?
The incident of the ‘boys locker room chat’ has been in the news all week long. It is a group of boys in class 11 and 12 from a reputed school in South Delhi. Their chats are extremely disturbing and paint a picture of how each of us is wrong on so many levels.
And this isn’t just limited to the boys, there were girls involved as well. While they weren’t a part of the group, they were quick to defend the boys. And when one of the girls tried to expose the boys, they retaliated by planning to gang-rape her.
These students are barely legally adults and they are casually talking about gang-raping girls and women. They are just as easily sharing and swapping nudes without consent or even a bit of fear or shame
However, this is not the first time an incident like this has taken place. A few years ago, an underage boy from DPS RK Puram, shot a video of a classmate. The video clip went viral on several porn sites.
Instead of being angry, discussing, and debating, has anyone ever thought what could have done to stop this? First of all, none of us want to believe that our kids can do this. And we are, as a society, raising these kinds of youth. But it isn’t just limited to the kids, each of us is a part of the problem too!
You became a part of it the first time you read and laughed at that casually sexist WhatsApp forward. Whether you reverted or forwarded it, you were a part of it, because you did nothing to stop it!
You let the men feel that it is okay to joke about a woman’s body and label them as ‘hot,’ ‘sexy,’ or say things like, ‘kya maal hai,’ etc. And that was the first step in raising toxic males.
The second time was when your brother, friend, colleague bragged about how he is pursuing a girl, despite her saying no. You sat there listening and maybe laughing and that was a tick in the box that said, ‘It is okay to follow, pursue or harass a girl.’ This birthed the, ‘So what if she says no to all the boys? Bhai ko kaun mana kar sakta hai!’
Later, as a mother, sister or friend you brushed it off when a male member of your family inappropriately touched someone. You pushed it under the rug, saying, he probably was drunk or ‘Ho gayi galati.’ Thus, you made it very clear that it is okay to touch a woman without her consent.
Later, as a mother or a mother-in-law, you asked your daughter to abort her child because it wasn’t a boy, you birthed a toxic male society. When you feel it is okay for men to abuse their wives or kids when they are drunk or ‘exhausted,’ you are definitely telling your kids that this is how men behave.
And saying that it is a part of our society and has been since forever, is another pass. Well, Sati was always a part of our society, child marriage was a normal thing which is now outlaw now.
We as parents need to educate our kids time and again. And we need to stop them when they make even a casual remark on somebody’s attire or the way they look. As much as your kid’s privacy is important you keeping a check on them is equally important, irrespective of age.
Picture credits: Still from Bollywood movie Ranjhaana
I am blogger who pour her heart out through her mighty sword. I blog through lyflikedat.wordpress.com. Everything that I experience, everything that I perceive I blog,I write ,I express. I have also read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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