“You speak a lot!”
“Why are you so loud?”
“You are so dominating!”
“Try to act like a girl.”
“Don’t swear, it looks vulgar.”
Have you ever heard one of these statements being spoken to you, or someone else, in your supposedly enriching college years? If you are a woman, then probably yes. Such casual remarks trying to appropriate women and construct them into the conventional norms of feminine identity are fairly common in our day to day lives.
In more simpler terms: sexist remarks telling women how they should behave are still fairly prominent, only they are better disguised, but still just as obvious and damaging.
Our male classmates often roll their eyes when a woman speaks or answers. We often catch them sharing a high five over some crude, but silent, double meaning joke made at a woman’s expense, or sharing sexist memes among themselves which shows pretty girls with smaller brains. They try to ignore, or make faces, whenever issues of gender discrimination are raised in the classrooms. In fact, a lot of women students who are active and outspoken in class are often made to feel like unwanted insufferable know-it-alls.
Even the logic of abuse follows the same orthodox double standards. In addition to the fact that the medium of abuse are often women and majority of the swear words are misogynistic in nature, men who swear are often seen as cool, fun and friendly. They have the licence to use abusive language as casually as punctuation. However, on the other hand, when a woman swears, it is reflected poorly on her image. She is called unsophisticated, vulgar, manner less, shameless, and other synonyms.
And it’s funny, because men want to be friends with women who tolerate their swearing, their jokes, and all their innuendos, and if she does not do that then she is either “too sensitive,” “no fun at all,” or “fussy,” or “she has no sense of humour.”
“Every single gender discussion forum includes at least two people out of four who wonder why ‘you can’t take it as a joke.’” says Malvika Ravi in an article about everyday sexism while discussing the Ted Talk by Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project.
If one tries to correct or point out such behaviour then they are called the ‘feminist types,’ and not in a good way. In fact, the contempt with which ‘feminist types’ are seen in colleges almost makes women want to cringe or shy away from any kind of discussion. The disdain with which the term is used sometimes, is as if they are referring to some militant organisation and not an inclusive idea which believes in equality.
A lot of women even try to overlook such behaviour to try and fit in with their peers, even if they feel uncomfortable about it, because openly defying it is as good as putting a full stop to their social lives.
Interestingly, “when asked in a class about the number of people who considered themselves feminists (a class of 3 men and 16 women); only 2 women raised their hands,” says Malvika Ravi.
And this underhanded sexist appropriation is not limited to one gender. Men who are sensitive, emotional, or have any traits that are characterised as feminine in general, are labelled as either girly or gay, and none of the terms are used in a respectable fashion, which is another kind of sexism altogether. Men who do not adhere to such toxic language are seen as “stuck up,” “goody-two-shoes,” “geeks,” “boring,” and whatnot.
What’s sad is that all this toxicity is not occurring in some remote shady area which people often call unsafe, and all these men are not criminal minds. They are normal everyday people, who go to esteemed universities, who sit with us, talk to us, are in the same class and may be even in the same peer group with us. And it’s worse because these ‘normal’ men are casually and flippantly sexist and they do not feel that anything is wrong with that kind of behaviour. It’s just so ‘normal’ and everyday for them and for us, and it’s this normality of it that is more sickening, because it trivialises the seriousness of the problem.
To present an analogy, they are racist and do not see anything wrong with that.
The fact that men can make sexist jokes and remarks and not get frowned upon is just unacceptable. Because the first step to eradicating a discriminatory practise is to make people realise that the practise is wrong. But, that is not the case here because they do not feel that what they are saying should not be said in polite company or at all. And mostly, even if men are considerate about their language, a lot of times it’s not because they know it’s wrong, its because they think that they would “set the girl off.”
All that is happening now is, instead of accepting the error of their ways, people have turned it into a private joke which is still very much in continuous circulation.
In a survey conducted by IIT Bombay (where 75% of the respondents were heterosexual males, 20% were heterosexual females, and 5% from LGBTQ community) 76% females and 63% males agree that casual sexism exists. Not to mention that resolving this deep rooted issue is more problematic than the others, as it is more ingrained and inconspicuous.
And let’s not just blame all the men here, because women’s own misogyny is just as much to blame. Phrases like “ew, she is so girly!” or “how can someone not like pink?” or “she is so fake, just look at the amount of makeup she puts on!” or “she is just popular because she dresses like a slut!” or the most damning of all, “act like a girl, there are guys around.”
One should realise that the world has truly gone down the drain when girls see “you are not like other girls” as a compliment.
Or maybe it did not go down the drain. It may have been there all along; it just refuses to pull out of the gutter!
Vicious, is it not? Where the voices raised against oppression are met with oppression of another kind. Patriarchy has a multi-layered counter offensive system indeed. But then again, its been building since antiquity.
Finally, I do not know how to fight this, or how to put a stop to everyday sexism or what is the right approach to this situation, but I do agree with Malvika Ravi when she says “when the very basic ideal of feminism means equality; it would mean that in that class if you did not raise your hand, then you believe that gender equality should not exist.”
So try and be a feminist if you want to, even if the world says you can’t.