The Bois Locker Room incident has quite literally shaken almost all adults and most adolescents. I say MOST, as some of the kids I interacted with opened up and told me something that immediately sent a CHILL DOWN MY SPINE! “It’s no big deal! Rating girls has been around for ages, this is just our way of doing it and what’s the use of rating babes when you can’t illustrate the reason for it? The fetish of some chaps got mixed up in this activity and that’s how this has been blown out of proportion” was the gist of it all.
This worried me so much that I’ve just not been able to put my finger on the root cause yet! Whom should we blame for this ‘CULTURE? Social Media? The entertainment industry? Parents? Teachers? Boys? Or our society? Not just that... How do we work towards ensuring that something like this NEVER REPEATS?
In my opinion, three aspects hit me hard instantly. One, the attitude that Gen Z has developed greatly worries me.
The COMPULSORY COOL FACTOR linked to peer pressure is forcing them to learn, imbibe and maintain behaviour which is greatly BLURRING THE LINES between moral values and sociopathic behaviour.
Two, lack of awareness between ACTIONS and CONSEQUENCES! I’m at my wit’s end sometimes when I have to drive some sense into the heads of teens and start thinking if I’m ageing rapidly or developing a GENERATION GAP already. Another IMPORTANT POINT, I have to mention here. Some of the kids feel that just because they are studying with the children of influential families, they too are EQUALLY PROTECTED and expect that their friends will HELP. Here’s the BITTER TRUTH, nobody... I REPEAT, NOBODY will stick their necks out for you apart from parents!
Three, the BLATANT OBJECTIFICATION of the opposite sex by boys nowadays. This incident is enough and I don’t have to spell it out to you all but the point I’d like to emphasise on is the shift in the culture of what used to be ‘SHE IS MINE’ during my adolescent years which meant that I want that girl to FALL IN LOVE with me... To “I OWN HER A##” which just sounds like a line said by a SEX TRAFFICKER in a crime documentary. Beat this... I’ve heard school boys talk like this!
This column isn’t about ME TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO. It’s about WHAT WE ALL CAN DO. But, due to the lack of space, I’ve iterated the most important aspects that we all need to focus on changing according to my opinion. How we’ll do it? I’ll leave it to you all as there’s more than one way to skin a cat. But what we need to figure out is a multi-pronged, holistic approach and to start working with that.
