The last semester brought onto LUMS a dark, Lahori smog-esque cloud that seemed to be looming over my female colleagues and I throughout and continues to do so even through the summer break.
With the curtains opening to the exposé of Dankpuna – the private Facebook group containing grotesquely misogynistic memes with 600 male members (both current students and alumni), elections drama and allegations revolving around the running candidates, the curtain finally falls as we prepare to welcome the incoming first-years with alleged harassers and hard to trust men on board the O-Week committee. Hits in the ever varying forms of sexual harassment just keep on coming.
While MangoBaaz and the likes found their way into LUMS like gossip aunties and put out articles, the public statements released by the administration expressed regret regarding the incident and promises of furthering conversation on campus were made. However, little has been done to address the toll every incident has taken on the mental health of the female population of the student body.
Coming to LUMS from toxic patriarchal family settings, from high schools where the headmistress advises the student body to “stay away from the cancerous #MeToo movement” after allegations were made against a teacher because it tarnishes the name of the reputable private institution to beginning to call LUMS ‘home’ – this semester has failed many students who saw LUMS as an escape from all that they left behind.
It is a rather saddening experience to suddenly become distrusting of the environment around you – of the friends you saw as allies, the seniors you looked up to as mentors, the instructors you trusted to fall back on for support and guidance, seeing the female friends you never thought could betray you standing up to protect harassers and rapists (I’d like to call them what I believe them to be but also what they’ve been proven to be), witnessing the people you grew up with to suddenly be on the other side- it all converges to the boiling point when everyone comes up to you for the affirmation of their reality when your own is pretty much shaken up.
The recent incidents have left me disappointed, to say the very least, because somehow the whispers around khokha, and sometimes not even whispers but loud LDF posts ‘BUMP’ed far and wide for “someone finally spoke some sense” find their pointing fingers at none other than the victims of the misogynistic environment themselves.
The over politicization of LDF has also been a huge contributor towards the deterioration of mental health because after a few hundred hits and likes, a post maker becomes the messiah of the masses for being “liberal” enough to see through the “libel overreach” and attempt to put an end to it. But imagine this: apparently, the women who support each other to be brave enough to report against their abusers are blamed for “seeding the idea of harassment” and have confused poor little “harassment” to be RAPE. Gasp. Add victim blaming by bringing in the girl’s alcohol intake and partying background and you have a 180 degree shift in the blame. The fact that these posts are also written by women who have either internalized this abuse or do so to protect their friends who have been accused, just gives a validation to the hidden sexist people on LDF. Comments about how these are the “good feminists” compared to the “feminazis” that campaign to take these harassers to the disciplinary committee create a huge gulf. Debates about this dichotomy become the real issue while the victims do not get justice.
I realize I’ve taken a somber tone but that’s not why I wanted to write this. I regained hope because of all the strong women who stood up for all of us, who braved ugly storms and kicked down shut doors. They bore the burden of the hundreds of us, sacrificed their mental wellbeing to raise their voice and speak for all of us who were silently enduring the torture. The protest and drafted emails and proposals marked a refusal to be passive. I know this hardly suffices but I would like to thank you all – you know who you are.
For all the male allies, who stood by us, protested and facilitated us with great numbers and the instructors who used their position to allow their students to take part in the sit-in, who emailed and spoke out when necessary – you give us hope when there’s little to find.
For the rest of us, the silent victims of the increasingly threatening environment we are beginning to face at LUMS – stay strong. Stand by each other in these tormenting times and for the sake of whatever God there is that and if you believe in, enable each other instead of putting each other down. We need each other far more than we realize.