boys/girls lockerroom and the sickness of it
'read about the bois locker room?'
i sent to 5 friends as i processed the details, and pasted a slip of paper on my laptop's camera hole.
someone said 'oh so they can't even talk like this on personal chat or what?'
same person said 'what if 5 girls talk like that about men?'
no, i couldn't. i just, can't anymore, no.
it was for the first time in anurag kashyap's DevD that a similar case was brought to light. and i felt solace in having found company. in college, from blank calls, to calls asking me what i charge for one night, to calls offering me a ride in a Merc in return for one 'meeting', there was a lot that used to be shoved on me.
but the topic here, more importantly is that EVERY BOYS GROUP TALKS THIS WAY.
thanks to social media, and its power today we can expose a bunch of them, but what about those innocent looking, sweet, smooth talking, funny bastards who talk this way not just about girls/women they know/have met, but also about passersby, about our mothers, about the mothers of their friends, and sisters?
how fair is it to think about girls in no other terms but a girl's physical attributes?
i know a friend who had sex for the first time, and his friends had stood on stool and ladders, falling over each other, trying to get a peek at him and his girlfriend from a skylight in his room. he knew of it, in fact, he informed them of the time.
what about the sneaky bastards on the metro clicking photographs, and those on the bike jauntily caressing/slapping a woman's breasts?
how will we find them all? and then, what do we do with them?
a couple of years ago, i was in an off and on relationship with a guy from JNU. i told him once about what my morning workout was that day, and his reply: 'oh your breasts must've bounced up and down'.
then there was an uncle who, when i'd turned 10, commented on my lack of breasts. another one, who said that i was not growing up enough because the delay in hormonal growth.
the female friends from school who would exclude me from all the chitchat calling me a 'kiddo' because i didn't get pimples and hadn't got my periods when they got.
i'll end this rant with a small incident from 3 weeks ago, when during the lockdown one evening i'd gone to CR park market 4 to get groceries. the shop was small, and 2-3 people were allowed at a time. i waited behind one man in the queue, at what i thought was apt distance. he turned around for god knows what, saw me and stepped back a couple of metres (literally) to nudge on me on my breasts using his elbow. i stood there stunned, waiting for him to leave, waiting to not create a scene, waiting for it all to end. all i could do was shout at him, while the all male staff of the store collectively rolled their eyes at me.
so you know, one group taken down isn't the point. the point is, just like in the case of this virus, tending to the mindsets of all around us. one at a time. and letting them know what's okay and what's not.
maybe then too it won't be enough...
https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk