Looking at a person and thinking that they are really attractive or hot is not wrong. I have and so have most of us. There is nothing wrong to express or feel that emotion. It is a basic human reaction for men and women. But if your feeling is tinged with thoughts of unpleasant behaviour bordering on crude language, obscene signs and worst of all violence (grab, assault, rape), that is totally and completely wrong. Your action, maybe reaction, can cause physical and mental harm, even trauma and long-term damage to the victim. That is something to be always avoided. Hence, the current justified outrage towards The Bois Locker Room group.
Must we punish these boys- rusticate them from school, impose heavy fines, maybe even imprison them? I am not too sure, as I am not schooled in Law or Psychology. These boys are teenagers with high testosterone levels. But they can be tutored, taught, mentored to better mould their behaviour to meet accepted social standards and norms. Do we ever ask ourselves, why they even have such violence in thoughts when we all recognize violence is against basic civilizational norms? Such thoughts followed by action can occur because of an in-built frustration, basic insecurity or a traumatic past. Therapy and counselling can help rectify such behaviour and thoughts.
“Rape Jokes Are Not Okay”
Many people argue that comments on chat groups are just innocent banter to raise a few smiles and not to be taken seriously. Everyone knows a rape joke. That does not mean they are prone to do it! Let me, first of all, clarify the basic difference between a Rape Joke and a Sex Joke. Sex jokes do not demean any gender. They can be enjoyed by both sexes and are usually wholesome and clean. The narrator enjoys them as much as the receiver. They can be told in a large gathering, openly and freely. It is best sex jokes are left to a bare minimum and are not used either to start a conversation, keep people amused or get some personal and unwelcome popularity.
Rape jokes, on the other hand, are brutal and savage and are always ringed with dark humour. They almost always are against the female gender – rarely against males. Rape is not to be trivialized or made fun of. It is not a light topic. When everyone knows this, why are rape jokes communicated so frequently? Why do not more people object? Why are they dismissed as just another playful wisecrack? And if someone does, he/she is dismissed as being needlessly sensitive or paranoid.
Once someone has unfortunately been exposed to such life-changing destructive trauma, it takes a very heavy and deep toll on the mental and physical health of the individual. Healing is a long painful process. Mixing with or meeting the opposite sex is not easy. Trust is something that doesn’t return for most victims. This is not something we can wish on anyone. Let us be aware of this subject and spread this to our colleagues.
Anyone who’s on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or any other social site would know that people were attacking and accusing these boys of all kinds of things. Especially the one boy who suggested ‘how easy’ it was to rape a girl. During this time, suddenly everyone was a policeman and a judge, making their own verdicts on what should be done. And it was all in a hurry to get their own opinions out.
Why should we wait for an investigation when we have the platform to thrash anyone and everyone, let’s just all make assumptions and base our entire opinions on them? After the ‘actual’ investigation took place, it was revealed that the person who suggested to rape the girl, was actually the girl herself in an attempt to ‘test’ her friend. After this was revealed, I noticed three things happening.
- A majority of boys would post on their stories, “what happened to all the feminists, why are they quiet now?”. To this, I would simply reply that yes, “I completely agree with you the girl should be definitely held accountable, as it just shows that some women take rape lightly as well”. I would also add that they shouldn’t confuse feminists with pseudo/toxic feminists. We don’t ‘hate’ men or think that they are simply driven by testosterone. To this reply, most of the boys were astounded and thought I was baiting them so that I could take a screenshot of their chats and put it up on my story.
Really? Is that what we’ve come down to? If we truly want equality for all genders in every field, we will always need to support each other. If men still don’t believe or trust us, we’ll never be able to make it to the finish line. Believe or not, I think there are so many guys out there who want the best for their mother, sister and girl-friends.
- The emergence of a girls’ locker room. After this, again, everyone started to charge against the ‘feminists’. The thing is if a group of boys can do something so atrocious, then so can girls and this is not a gender problem it’s a human problem that everyone needs to understand.
- The boy who suggested to rape the girl turned out to be the girl herself and that was a huge shock to me. I agree, most of us went wrong there. But how conveniently everyone forgot about the other boys in the group who were morphing pictures, commenting on body parts and even those who threatened to rape every girl who spoke against them. Now I know as a teenage girl myself the insecurities that most of us have, maybe not every girl but yes, most of us do have insecurities about something. Now if I find out that someone commented on my body or morphed my picture never mind the gender, it will take a toll on me and some of my close friends and family know how anxious I can get. For everyone, it can’t only be anxiety; it could be an extreme level of body dysmorphia, depression, anorexia and many others.
Did you notice something common in these three points? Each point shows that a majority of people are turning against feminism, but why?
Setting The Record Straight: What Is Feminism All About?
Before I get into this, let’s define feminism. When I asked some of my friends this question most of them said, equality for women or equality for both genders. Yes, this is definitely a part of the definition, but one that I really can see eye to eye is, “Feminism is not about individual men and women but about understanding ways in which ‘men’ and ‘women’ are produced and inserted into patriarchies which differ according to time and place”. ( ‘Seeing Like a Feminist’ by Nivedita Menon ).
Why do some people dislike feminists so passionately?
There are 7.8 billion people in this world, different culture, background experiences. They all will interpret the definition of feminism in different ways whether you like it or not. Hence, there are so many different groups of feminists, so that you can always identify with at least one.
I, for one, don’t hate men or think they are trash or that they are driven by hormones, and I know if I think that many other people will also have the same idea as me. Just because you have encountered some extremists (pseudo/toxic feminists), please do not generalize us. If I see anyone being treated wrongly or unjustly, I will fight for them, and you should too because, at the end of the day, that is our duty as humans.
Some people think that we have gained equality in the world, it’s far from it. Are we in a better state than yesterday? Yes, much better, but we haven’t fulfilled our objective. Every day a new problem arises, new obstacles, you can’t say we don’t need feminism either. Can you change the face of feminism to fit your description and understanding of the world? Right now, one of the obstacles that we are facing is misandry which is masked as feminism, eventually, we will have to overcome it.
There is still a lot of injustice in the world, much worse than what we think, and not only among gender but caste, creed, religion, colour as well. As I said before, it is our duty as humans to fight against these atrocities.