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The guys have the very famous 'bro-code' that they abide by. But even women have a sis-code. It's time we started abiding by our sis-code too!
The guys have the very famous ‘bro-code’ that they abide by. But even women have a sis-code. It’s time we started abiding by our sis-code too!
As women, we are taught to endure a lot of things that we are not proud of. Let me narrate some examples for you:
Priya’s story: My friend Manya told me that her boyfriend took her to meet his sister in an informal meeting. Their discussion went from dowry to appearances to everything else in between. Somewhere in their conversation, her boyfriend told his sister that I was the same height as my friend.
Well, I am around 5’3 and my friend is 4’11. Her boyfriend had done this once earlier too when he told me that was too short and compared my height with Manya. I tried to ignore it but this simply showed that he wasn’t ‘satisfied’ with Manya’s height and tried to project his thoughts onto me. For the record, Manya’s boyfriend is a CA.
In a related incident, another friend, Riya, and I were discussing a guy who was a really a petty person in our group. He would often say stupid stuff and use certain disturbing phrases and said a lot of problematic things. This person was Riya’s boyfriend’s friend.
When Riya tried telling her boyfriend this, he simply shrugged her off and scolded her saying, ‘When you and Priya needed favours, he was supposedly the good guy, wasn’t he?’ But what her boyfriend failed to understand was that asking for a pen or even a biscuit wasn’t any kind of favour and didn’t give anyone the right to abuse anyone. Now, this boyfriend is from IIM.
A while ago, I went on a friendly lunch and hike with a guy. I was upset that day and decided to go out and asked him to join me since he was also available. Once we reached the top, he held my hand and brought me closer to kiss him and I was, naturally, upset. He said that if I didn’t want things to escalate further, why did I go out with him? Does a girl always want to be involved sexually in order to go get lunch?
When will we get over this ‘ladka aur ladki bas acche dost nahi ho sakte’ (A girl and a guy can never be only friends) mentality? The few friends to whom I narrated this story failed to take my side. Apparently, if I go out with a guy and don’t let him touch me, why did I even go out with him? Also, this guy was from BITS.
I was in the 12th standard and staying in a PG. Since we had those little phones and my friend Senu had a smartphone, I would borrow it whenever she was free and gave it to me willingly. One day, a message from her boyfriend popped on the screen. It read, ‘Jitna nasha tumhare hothon mein hai, utna Priya ki puri body mein bhi nahi hoga,’ (The amount of appeal you have in your lips, Priya doesn’t even have that in her entire body.)
I was shaken and disgusted. And though I’d never done it until then and haven’t done it since then, I scrolled through her messages. I found out that she said I emotionally blackmailed her into given her phone. She even asked her boyfriend if Priya was prettier than her, to which he replied, ‘Priya looked like a potato!’ Her boyfriend was an engineer.
Manya has told me, multiple times, that her boyfriend often thinks she is as immature as Priya. Taking another friend as a standard is never okay!
Now let us take this reference from the TV series F.R.I.E.N.D.S, to all the women out there, ‘have you ever stolen someone else’s wind?’
When your boyfriend behaves like this, why would you ever support him? Why would you bitch about your friends to him? If you have a problem with your friends, solve it with them or leave the friend completely! Or maybe try pinning blame on his friends, the way men abide the ‘bro-code’ might show some of us what ‘fraternity’ means! (But that’s just what I think!)
Why would you compare your looks with that of your friend’s? Meanwhile, let’s also try normalising girls and boys being just friends! And most importantly, try and be ‘your own wind-keeper!’
Ps. The only reason I mentioned the education was that it tells you the level of imbalance and the regressive thoughts that even this generation carries. Please let’s not become the people we hate and let’s just show compassion and sympathy toward everyone. Show equality and learn to shout out for the right thing, always!
Picture credits: Still from Dice Media’s series Adulting on YouTube
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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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