Woman in a suitcase – The Hindu

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Years ago, a friend, who was studying at a reputed technical institute in Chennai, called me one weekday afternoon, sounding both annoyed and amused. He said he had suddenly been given the gift of time, having just been suspended from college for a few days. Would I be free for lunch?

That morning he had taken the college bus, where men and women were always segregated. And then, unthinkingly, he had leaned across the aisle to talk to a female batchmate — a violation of the college’s Victorian code of conduct. The college promptly suspended him.

I remembered this incident earlier this week when a video went viral on social media. In Haryana, in a private college known for its liberal values, a man had tried to sneak a woman into a hostel inside a suitcase. When he dropped the suitcase near a stairway, the poor woman, who was curled up inside, let out a scream. Security guards rushed to open the suitcase as people whipped out their phones and recorded her crawling out. I first laughed watching this video, but then immediately began feeling sorry for both of them.

Sorry because college life can be painfully restrictive for many in India. In 2014, a university in Uttar Pradesh barred undergraduate students from the women’s college campus from using the library on the institute’s main campus. In 2017, in Mumbai — a city often touted to be more liberal than many others — male and female students were asked to sit separately in the canteen. In a reputed college in Tamil Nadu, men called ‘whistle annas’ are appointed just to blow whistles to warn women and men found walking together on campus.

The reason given for these conservative rules is to protect women from harassment. But this takes away agency from women, who are not given the right to choose whether or not they want to sit next to a man or talk to him. Other reasons include preventing romantic relationships, unwanted pregnancies, and pre-marital sex.

It is evidently easier to separate women and men in India than talk to them about respect, consent, and the importance of protected sex. College administrations also sometimes argue that gendered interactions “distract” students from studies — which says more about the quality of education than the students themselves. There is also no evidence to back this claim.

When institutions act as proxy parents, it comes with a host of problems. As Chayanika Shah, who edited the book Space, Segregation, Discrimination, wrote in The Wire, “Constant segregation in a world that is binary-gendered means that I can only look at people of ‘the other gender’ through the eye of sex and sexuality. I can’t make non-sexual friendships with them.” Researchers also say segregation can lead to feelings of awkwardness with people of other genders, as well as suppressed emotions, and can prevent students from developing enriching relationships. Further, it is often framed as a male-female issue, leaving out the concerns of non-binary people.

But things are changing, observes Bhavya J. Menon, a teacher. She writes, “Mixed seating arrangements are a start to a generation with healthier relationships.” She attributes the change partly to the influence of social media and the “resulting smaller world, bigger ideas, and broader mindsets.” Another piece published this week says, “Interactive classroom sessions, which focus on inculcating gender-progressive attitudes in students, will lead to gender-equitable behaviour and perceptions.”

College is not where students should be treated as kids on tricycles; it is where they typically learn adulting with training wheels.

Toolkit

Khabar Lahariya, a newspaper in Hindi brought out by women from Dalit, Adivasi, and Muslim communities from the Bundelkhand region, has been looking at news from a feminist lens for the last 23 years. A film was made on Khabar Lahariya, titled Writing with Fire, and shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2022. Back then, Khabar Lahariya had published a statement saying the film inaccurately depicts the women-led collective as “having a particular and consuming focus of reporting on one party”, but also called it a “powerful and moving documentary.” Last week, the film was screened in Mumbai. It has also been shown at multiple festivals such as the Dharamshala International Film Festival and spaces such as the Kochi Biennale. Watch this film if it comes to your city.

Wordsworth

Pride parade: An outdoor event celebrating queer people’s social and self-acceptance, rights, and achievements. Pride parades are part celebration of diverse identities and part protest against historical discrimination. Recently, Hungary passed a constitutional amendment to ban Pride events. The Guardian reports that the draconian law enables the use of facial recognition technology to identify those who attend Pride events and potentially fine them. The law also enshrines the recognition of only two sexes, which the U.K.’s top court also ruled this week. In India too, following protests from religious groups, a Pride march in Amritsar scheduled for April 27 has been cancelled.

Somewhere someone said something stupid

Any lonely, single mother who is still having her period — let me be clear, she should still be having her period — I will sleep with her for one night.

Christian Sia, Philippines politician

People we met

Vanitha, who used to work as a domestic help, is unhappy. Her two sons have asked her to move from one end of Mumbai to the other, stop working, and look after their children instead. Vanitha does not want that. “I want to work,” she says. “Being independent is important for me.” But she’s also scared. “Who will look after me when I grow old? I have only my sons. So I suppose I have to listen to them,” she says.