Siya: Is the sensitive portrayal of rape enough to change the mentality of the people?

In an era where we fetishize opinions we don’t own, the weekly ‘Moderate Mahila Mandate’ presents unadulterated and non-partisan views on what’s happening to women in India today.

Why the most teachable moment of the Chandigarh University debacle is to subvert gender-reductive phrases like ‘boys will be boys’. I remember way back in the early 90’s I was in karate class with twenty other kids. The class was held in a small hall on the ground floor of my old building. The hall had one small window. Two girls from my class would change there afterwards, as they had a long commute back home. Our Karate Sir would put up a sheet across the window for their comfort. We were a close-knit batch, laughing and joking with one another. A few months later, one of our classmates Pratik––a soft-spoken nerd with glasses­­––was caught peeking into the window, sheet slyly lifted, leering at the girls as they changed. On confrontation, he confessed he’d been doing this for months. The spirit of our class broke. The two girls left the class, despite reassurances from everyone, while Pratik eventually begged and cajoled his way back to class, despite no one talking to him ever after. Because boys will be boys.

And, ‘girls will be girls’ our Sir told us. I was around 10-11 years old at that time. I had no idea what Sir meant. But I never forgot how problematic I found this situation. I never forgot those two windows. For the next three years, as I earned my brown belt, my eyes would inadvertently move to the windows, missing the sheet that was never put up again, wondering what the girls felt, wondering why our own friend would do something so shameful. More so, I wondered why the girls were paying the price for something they didn’t do. Why were they so ashamed?

The incident changed me forever. Even today, thirty years later, before changing my clothes, even in my own room, I lock the door, and then go back to make sure it’s locked. I double-check windows and doors at friend’s places and hotels, or anywhere I go, where I have to change. My eyes scrutinise every little hole in changing rooms at stores to make sure some sleazy proprietor is not watching. I’m never completely comfortable changing, even when I’m alone, safe and sequestered. I always feel a pair of eyes on me that don’t exist. Double locking doors, checking for hidden cams, and changing as quickly as I can, to avoid the remotest probability of even an accidental peek, have become a way of life, a habit I can’t unlearn. This is all despite the fact that I do not think of my body as a performative monolith to society––a mere tool for reproduction and objectification.

This is what my Sir had meant. Girls will be girls: normalising being repositories of shame in matters of subjugation, harassment and sexual violence, no matter who the culprit is. That’s why the Chandigarh University incident hit close to home. For me and millions of women around our country. It’s so easily assumed that shame will again be the monkey on a woman’s back that people’s voyeurism was immediately appeased by rumours of suicides. Twitter was filled with men and women chuffed about stating the obvious: the onus was on the perpetrators, not the victims. What no one spoke about is that the ultimate price will be paid by girls across ALL hostels in India, when administrators use Chandigarh University as a cautionary tale to further curb girls’ already dwindling freedom and independence. We can barely occupy public spaces, but now even our private spaces are inaccessible. One big misstep in misogyny, one giant leap in regression.

The image of progress cannot be used as a counterfoil for the reality of regression. Even though our movies have come a long way from the glorification of sexual misdemeanours in movies like ‘Insaaf Ka Tarazu’ or ‘Madhumati’, to sensitive portrayals in recent films like ‘Siya’ or ‘Pink’, is it enough? Will a few armchair protests change women’s reality? We cannot ‘tell’ men to respect women. Most men in India already respect their mother, wife, sister and daughter. Who they don’t respect is someone else’s mother, wife, sister and daughter. Do men seek our consent before they stalk us, grope us, eve-tease us and masturbate in front of us? No. That’s why 72 women are raped every single day in our country.

So, let’s change the way we speak. Because what we speak is what we do. What we do is what we become. Begin by subverting the meaning of gender-reductive phrases like ‘boys will be boys’ and ‘girls will be girls’.

Let this tripe ‘boys will be boys’ connote boys whose parents did not raise them as men but as humans. Boys who don’t expect the nation to grant them impunity and indemnification for their misdemeanours. Boys who’d rather not step out of their house after 7 pm, instead of telling girls to do so. Boys who wear a guard over their private parts, so they can’t use it when frisky. Boys who instead of teaching women how to avoid rape, teach men not to rape. Boys who advocate state machinery to take a stringent call-to-action, and instill strict and draconian disciplinary measures that prevent men from harassing women. Boys who ask to reform our penal code for crimes of rape and sexual assault, and assign retribution. That should be the new meaning of ‘boys will be boys’­­––boys who are respectful to all women, not just the women in their households, and boys who know there will be strict consequences to their negative actions. Let the boys in ‘boys will be boys’ be boys who believe that men and women are different, but would not take advantage of that difference. Let it carry a positive connotation.

Similarly, the phrase ‘girls will be girls’ should also be reprogrammed. It should connote girls who do not feel small when faced with molestation, eve-teasing, domestic violence, dowry harassment, rape, rape threats, unequal wage, glass ceilings, slut shaming, body shaming and fat shaming. Girls who direct their families to convert sites of violence to sites of love. Girls who don’t answer when someone asks how they’re dressed, but how they’re making themselves financially independent. Girls who unabashedly ask for women to be granted basic rights from education to wage equality to the right to live. Girls who call for the participation of all stakeholders: institutional or not, marginalized or not, gendered or not. Girls who deconstruct internalised patriarchy one tweet at a time. Let ‘girls will be girls’ mean girls who are their most fabulous fiercest and best selves.

When we speak of the good fight for gender equality, let’s move beyond preaching to the converted to converting the preachy.

Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning and bestselling author, screenwriter, columnist and speaker, whose latest novel BOYS DON’T CRY (Penguin Random House) will soon be seen on screen.

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