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Journalism of Courage
I would have been 10 years old. Trudging back after a late sports practice in school. Hitting that one stone with my hockey stick all the way home. I was about 100 metres away from my home when I heard a rumble that sent a cold shiver into the pit of my stomach. I had forgotten the rule that I should not be anywhere on this hill when the boys’ school got over at 4 pm. Frozen with fear, my eyes darted to see a blue uniformed wave hurtling down. Shouting, pushing like a feral beast escaping from an enclosure. Some presence of mind got me out of their way just in time to run down a tiny pathway off the road. I am not sure how long I hid there but once I stepped back, only a few stragglers were left. Removed from the mob, they were oblivious to my presence.
It was not as if I was not used to being with boys. I studied in a co-ed school, I had an older brother and loved joining boys in rough play whether it was cricket, pithu, gulli-danda, or hanging upside down the trees. But this 4 pm mob fear was different. Anyone who has ever experienced the frenzy of a mob would know what I am talking about. There is a menacing ugliness to it that evokes visceral fear. Irrespective of age.
Fredrich Nietzsche said, “Insanity in individuals is rare — but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” If I had met any of the boys in other situations, they might not have been very different from the boys from my school. Or even from me. I would have been struck by the familiarities in our lives that pulled us back home. Sibling squabbles, rushed homework, play time and loving indifference that marked the parenting style of that time. Indoctrination into gender roles, patriarchy and misogyny existed as local and visible beasts in some spaces. Giving young girls like me tiny pathways to hide from the mob whenever possible.
It is different now. The mob has reached our homes and recruited our boys. It is not just influencing them but radically shaping their identities. It has happened so insidiously that we have been caught unawares. The impact of toxic masculinity and powerful voices that are gaining ground through podcasts and social media can be dismissed as ‘happening in the West’ only at our own peril. We have enough desi-style patriarchy swirling around in the virtual world to make the culture ripe to ‘catch them young’.
No wonder the Netflix show Adolescence has gained so much popularity in the last few weeks in India despite its non-formulaic theme and cinematic style. It has skilfully rendered visible what our children are up against. Body shaming, slut-shaming, the shame at the core of the ‘incel’ (involuntary celibate) subculture, parent-shaming, race-shaming. Shame sits at the centre of it. And that’s what the tentacles of the mob use to recruit and, in turn, weaponise against each other. The confounding thing is that there are no villains. Not the parents, not the 13-year-old girl who was murdered and not even the 13-year-old boy who killed her.
There has been so much buzz after Adolescence about how parents are to blame and that they should be spending more time with their children, monitoring the virtual world they are consuming and so on. If you are a parent of young children you would know that you are up against a shapeshifting mob. Individualistic efforts are going to be like the iconic line from the Eagles song Hotel California, “You can stab it with your steely knives but you just can’t kill the beast!”
“My mother asked for it. She is such a nag. If I was in his place, I would hit her too.” These words from a 14-year-old made my heart freeze. He went on to explain how his father was going through stress as he had been fired from his job a few months ago. “She should be more understanding towards him, shouldn’t she?” He had earlier shared with me that he was an Andrew Tate fan. So rather than answering his question or reasoning with him, I gently steered the conversation to talking about his sister. He talked about how proud he was of her as she was the school captain, and starting college soon. I asked him what was it about her that he valued and he told me, “She is smart and does not take nonsense from anyone.” Taking a bit of a risk, I asked him, “Do you think it would be fair on her if her boyfriend expected her to take nonsense from her just because he was stressed?” Covering his face with his hands, he muttered, “I guess not.”
The only way the gender justice movement can move forward is if schools and colleges make conversations on gender, safety and consent the core of their curriculum. So that boys understand the politics of power and patriarchy. Not just for their sisters but for every girl they encounter in their lives. So we invite them to think about ways that they can make this world a safer place for all. So that they learn real-life skills to dodge the mob so that girls don’t have to. So that they learn that the seeds of gender criminality have their roots in our everyday language — for example, the stereotype of boys as smarter, tougher and deserving, and girls as gentler, softer and nicer. What if they can learn to flip that? That might be the most important lesson they take into the world.
Women have carried the weight of this beast for too long. Through generations we have tried to speak up despite the violence, misogyny and threat to our dignity and lives. Now it is time for men to take up this responsibility. The beast is not just damaging the women, it is damaging our men and most importantly, it is eroding our children’s lives. Our boys are stuck in a maze of cultural cliches of narrow masculinity and we have no idea how to get them out of it.
I resonate deeply with these words by bell hooks, the black feminist writer, “For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”
Composite stories and pseudonyms are used to maintain confidentiality
