Hostel Timings for Women- A Cage That Needs To Be Broken.
By: Sagar Suresh Kumar
Tags: India, Rules And Regulations, Sexism, Feminism, Rape

Hostel Timings for Women- A Cage That Needs To Be Broken.

Sexism wrapped in the cover of “Safety concerns”

The dearth of women’s safety in India doesn’t need any introduction. Protests against such nefarious activities are a common sight and there has been an increase in the safety measures for women including women police patrols, help lines etc.

But the question one must ask is, whether the goal should be just the physical protection of women or perhaps the complete emotional, educational and opportune empowerment of women? I am referring to of course the unfair and discriminatory hostel timings for women in colleges across India, under the guise of ‘safety’.

“A couple of days back, one of my college mates told me they have to be back to their hostel by 6pm!! Mind you our class ends only at 4:30 pm, so basically they have only one and a half hours to use the library, take an extra class, chill out with their friends or perhaps just LIVE!!”

College life isn’t just about the classes. What is the point of waking up, going to class, coming back and continuing this cycle? The obvious answer used by the hostel wardens or even society is the concern for their safety. This notion of ‘safety’ or concern is basically a wolf in a sheep’s clothing.

For this ‘safety’ is what has been robbing the Indian woman of her rights every now and then. The ‘safety’ for a woman’s honor resulted in uncountable honor killings. Girls have had to quit school because of miscreants harassing them on their way, thus compromising their ‘safety’. This ‘safety’ also holds certain conditions where if a woman who wears skimpy clothes or goes out in the night gets raped, then it’s her fault and she ‘deserved’ it.

“The ‘safety’ achieved at the cost of equality and opportunity is no safety”

The government has taken several steps to ensure the safety of women as I stated earlier, but this effort must come from each and every one of us including schools, colleges, teachers etc. “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao par Bheti ko pinjra mei bhand karo” should not be our motto.

Are women really safer in the morning than at night? If a 50 year old woman can be raped during daylight and there are countless other daylight molestation and rape cases, do the ‘safety’ standards of hostels hold any meaning? And even if there is a greater chance for such crimes during the night, whose fault is it? Is it the attacker’s fault or the victim’s fault? Cause on one side there are several cases where such predators roam free and even repeat such crimes, but on the other hand, the victim is harassed for the crimes against her and meets with a bunch of prison-esque rules like being locked up in her cages after 6 pm.

A year back or so, when a 22-year-old woman was raped in Chandigarh while sharing an auto rickshaw, Member of Parliament Kiron Kher advised young girls that “when you see there are already three men sitting in an auto, you should not be getting inside it”, a case of sheer victim blaming from a representative of the people!

Not only does she absolve the culprits of their crimes through her comments but it also shows she hasn’t accessed public space in a long time. Not all women have the luxury of private AC cars at their disposal.

Most of these working or studying middle-class women have to wait in queues to board the rickshaw or taxi that pulls up first. Usually, there is no time to look inside and people are waiting behind you. They too want to get home or to work. Women prefer to use shared means of transportation firstly due to economic reasons and secondly due to the risks that travelling alone may pose.

As per an MP’s account of ‘safety concerns’, suppose the 22-year-old girl doesn’t enter the rickshaw with 3 other men and instead boards an empty rickshaw. What if the driver rapes her then too since she is all alone? Or suppose she waits on the streets for a bit longer and then faces the wrath of some perverted bystanders? The pictures above show the hypocrisy of not only the ministers that rule us today but also of society. On one hand we have knee-jerk reactions on hearing such crimes but on the other hand, we shame and blame the victim for the same. Our ‘machismo’ for giving capital punishments to rapists outweighs any sort of sympathy for the victims, evidently.

The true notion of ‘safety’ can’t be attained by only giving capital punishment to all rapists; a thorough change in people’s mentality is required. We must tell our boys not to rape instead of telling our girls not to get raped. We must make sure, that the clothes a woman wears or the time when she is outside can never be used to justify rape.

Is a woman safe in any sort of environment? Well-renowned actresses as the Dileep case has shown, aren’t or even those in a ‘holier’ arena too, like the nun who was allegedly raped by the Bishop of Jalandhar, aren’t. Only when such a proposed lack of ‘safety’ is not used as an excuse for the crimes against women, can there be true safety. As long as we see rape as the consequence of an action, we fail as a society. Do we really want a society where all men are dubbed as potential rapists after the sun sets and one in which a women’s dreams and hopes end after 7 pm?