Pannaa Priyam Das

Ryan Gosling is one of my favourite actors and I recently watched a movie where his character casually says, “Let’s face it, Cal, all right? The war between the sexes is over, and we won, okay?” Now, I don’t hate the movie, infact, I really did like it, it was a light hearted Romantic Comedy, and I don’t want to over analyse and criticize it and make it into something it wasn’t meant to be in the first place, but how far is it justifiable to not critic when a supposed role model makes a statement like the one made by Gosling’s character? How far is not too far?

A few days back, I woke up to some distressing news- a bunch of teenage boys objectifying underage girls and their chats leaked over social media. And further investigation on that same, revealed that one of the vile admins of the group chat was a girl. And at times like these, we really start questioning ourselves. And I found myself questioning, is the war between the sexes really over? And have we been really defeated?

I have come across people who have called each other names, and one of them, is ‘Feminist.’ It baffles me that Feminist is a word which people use as an insult. Furthermore, many don’t even know what being a Feminist really means. The Oxford Dictionary describes a Feminist, as “a person who supports the belief that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men.” But the limited knowledge the average mind gathers from mass media, ages old societal stereotypes, deeply rooted patriarchal upbringing and even literature or history for that matter, is that Feminist is a quasi-liberal, supposedly free thinking individual who indulges in man hate and has queer sexuality.

I’ve seen and experienced inherent prejudices that prevail based on gender throughout my life. And to be honest, I don’t feel very uncomfortable with them, so much so, that I ignore most of them. I don’t question when the students living in the Girls’ Hostel are given an In Time of 5pm and the students living in the Boys’ Hostel can literally go out even at 1am in the morning. I don’t question when in the last 119 years of my University’s existence, there hasn’t been one female General Secretary of the Students’ Union. I don’t question when boys’ sports is given more importance than girls’ sports in Varsity Week. 

To be fair, it is not always the men, at fault. We women continuously work, consciously or otherwise, to be vessels of self-fulfilling prophesies. We talk of empowerment and pull each other down. We talk of companionship and chose competition. We sham toxic masculinity and indulge in shaming women based on their appearance. We are constantly paradoxical, we are constantly misogynistic. We are all products of patriarchal archetypes which are not to be easily eradicated.

We are  living in a time where boys as  young as 16,17 and 18 feel it justifiable to sexualize and objectify girls as young as 14, and girls as adamant as going out of their way to protect the supposed “reputation” of the aforementioned boys and even be a part of such a vicious practice themselves (in reference to the Boys Locker Room Group Chat incident).

To be fighting against an massive operating system which has programmed in us the intrinsic idea that “Men are better” is easier said than done. But we need to do it, nevertheless. To consciously question every sexist act, that just happens to fall in front of us is a way to do it. The act needn’t be of heinous nature; a mindless joke, a silly rumour, a harmless comment, these should be questioned, for they are the very pebbles that go on in making of the walls of ignorance, mysogyny, patriarchy, and every other condemnable things that go on in society. For indeed, the war is not between the sexes, it is between the humans you and I are, and the humans we ought to be.