With the recent Moumita Debnath case in Kolkata, once again, people are being vocal about 'consent.' While students gather to express solidarity with the Kolkata protest, arguments, counter-arguments, and even memes are floating around on social media about this issue. Many of these memes are inappropriate, with some being too controversial to begin with.
That old trend of victim blaming is still spot on. The idea of consent is probably still foreign to this country's men. And most importantly, few people change their perspective after a certain age. Most of us stay put with the beliefs we grow up with. That is why a question arises among everyone: is it too hard to raise kids as gender sensitive? Is it too hard to teach the male children the ideas of consent, good touch, and bad touch as much as we tend to teach the female children?
In our society, families, specifically parents, teach their daughters why they shouldn't go to that place, stay outside at night, wear some particular dress, or talk to that particular boy. Parents want to teach these to protect the girls from unwanted situations, harassment, or sexual abuse of any sort. Yet, they do not teach their sons about any of these. In most cases, the mothers are uncomfortable, and the fathers are reluctant. Then again, who will teach the sons? Are the fathers aware of the consent themselves?
"As a grown up man, now I realize how badly boys need those teaching in their childhood. Our parents never discussed anything about bad touch and harassment. It seems, gender orientation was all about teaching the girls how to protect themselves but never teaching the boys how not to make any girls uncomfortable," shared Shahriar Tanjim, a communication manager at a renowned multinational company in Dhaka.
Following a recent Facebook post that became viral, titled "How old were you guys?" a group of girls shared the age at which they first encountered sexual harassment. Many mentioned facing such horrors as early as five years old only, while the majority range goes up to 11/12. Most of these experiences occurred with some father figure-either the father's friend, brother or any other family relative. If so many girls feel unsafe within their families, what are we missing?
Srabonti Rahman (pseudonym) is now a university student. She faced such an ordeal when she was in class 6 only. Stating that she can never get over those experiences, she shared, "The problem with our parents is that they are too naive about family members and trust their children with them blindly. I want this to change. Parents should always be skeptic about anyone around their children."
Mrs Kamrun Nahar, a mother of two from the Banasree residential area, explained her realization: "When I come across men's posts about consent and comments on those, I clearly see they lack a basic understanding of consent and empathy toward women. I must instill those understandings in my boy so that he learns to respect women."
To teach consent, proper education on sexual orientation is necessary from both family and school. In our society, when a boy sees a packet of sanitary pads, his mother tells him it is 'medicine.' When sixth-seventh grades' books included period, ninth-tenth grades' books included a bit more, and eleventh-twelfth grades' textbooks included a whole chapter on sexual orientation, the teachers avoided those chapters from the beginning. Even after completing 12th, many students don't have the entire idea about it. As things become mysterious and curiosity grows among the students, they take help from the internet, leading to porn addiction.
"Everyone knows that porn addiction is growing among youth. You just cannot monitor all of their internet activities, it's impossible. Also, taking away their devices is not a solution either, it will hamper their career in this age of digitalization. So what should we do? We should give them a sensible and age-appropriate sexual orientation," remarked Mrs Nahar.
The mothers are the best teachers to their sons in this case, especially if they become comfortable enough to share horrific stories of themselves. The sons may understand the profound effects of bad touch and any other forms of molestation. Even a bad touch can traumatize a woman for years. That trauma in a mother should be visible to her children, especially her son, to some extent so that they realize the gravity.
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