Women’s safety has been a topic that garners opinions and debates for decades now. Owing to the widespread discrimination and inequality embedded against women in the society already, it wasn’t enough for them to be subjected to violence and abuse offline, that the same commenced being replicated online as well. Harassment directed at women based on their gender is a sad reality of the current times.
Social media platforms proved to be boon worldwide for enabling people to learn, share, and grow. But the same platforms have lately become everything but a safe space for women. The mediums which were meant to lend voices even to the voiceless, as we saw in the #metoo movement, are turning into a breeding ground for misogyny and extend all the offline sexism and objectification that prevails, online. These unprecedented ways of violence against women online is also a hurdle in their freedom of expression and the right to equality. Online abuse can exist in different ways including threats of violence, privacy violations (picture morphing and much more) or sexist and misogynistic comments, and can also have serious psychological impacts on female users. It can be anything, stress, anxiety, or even worse, panic attacks.
Recently a series of disturbing tweets, Instagram stories, and screenshots came forward. A boys chat group named as “boys or bois locker room” got busted for repeatedly objectifying girls, morphing their images and passing offensive comments. A screengrab was also shared where a boy could be seen convincing others to gangrape a girl. Though it should be noted that these are two different cases as the mediums are different – Instagram and Snapchat. The tweets and instagram stories have received a lot of responses, some of the people who have commented have also identified a few boys as their classmates, schoolmates or knowns. Police intervention is currently being sought in the situation.
Later on, participants of the said group anonymously resorted to warning the girl who busted them.The boys involved in the said case should be dealt with under the following sections sternly: Section 345A of IPC, which holds them accountable for one-year imprisonment- for posting lewd comments on social media.Section 507 of IPC holds them punishable for 2 years threatening a woman by any kind of anonymous communication which is also intimidating. Section 509 of IPC- 3 years of imprisonment with a fine for posting sexual pictures or remarks or videos including sexual insinuations on social media.Section 503 of IPC- 2 years of imprisonment for threatening a woman by either alarming or malign her reputation.Section 499 of IPC- 2 years of imprisonment for defaming a woman online.
This instance also poses a chain of questions as to what led these boys belonging to the age bracket of 15-18 to resort to this. Is it the deep-rooted male toxicity and privilege? Is it unnecessary access to internet facility?
-Shikhar Swami
sad ,this really question our morals n ethics