The article aims to address the many challenges faced by women on college campuses, especially in a third-tier city and how they negotiate social control through multiple ways both within and outside the campus. While addressing the gendered reality of college campuses, one looks at the social control over female students and on the other hand, it also seeks to explore how female students, as active agents, negotiate their mobility and the right to higher education in their everyday lives.

The campus is a fluid space. The mundane everyday social actions that occur within college premises have detrimental effects on women in their homes and neighbourhoods. Being part of a mixed-gender education system, they encounter young male students socialized in patriarchal familial settings and socialized in a culture of submissive media portrayal of women.

Instances of sexual misbehaviour or unwanted attention by male students towards female students, both within and outside the campus, have repercussions for women in their own homes since they face restrictions over their physical mobility and even access to their mobile phones. In a semi-urban space, material social change occurs at a much higher rate compared to the non-material forces of social change (Ogburn, 1922). Therefore, though there is increased visibility of women in urban spaces with the inclusion of women in the education system and workspace, there is a rising crime against women. Women share stories of unwanted attention they receive over social media from their male classmates. Sometimes, instances of stalking outside the campus after college hours, and forms of verbal and non-verbal harassment against women in public spaces induce fear and anxiety in them.

In addition, a gendered-biased campus neglects the facility of hygienic clean toilets along with the provision of free menstrual products for the healthy mental and physical well-being of female students. Women travel long distances due to the paucity of quality higher education systems in their areas. Such travel for young women is another cause of concern for their physical health and security. This way gender and power interplay with each other, as due to socially marginalized gender identities, women are coerced back into private spaces through submission.

It has also been witnessed that women remain silent over issues of gender harassment and misbehaviour in their own families and households. Silence stems from patriarchal norms of shame, modesty and honour that surround them. They also refrain from sharing stories of harassment with their family members, since many a time, they are blamed and made responsible for acts conducted by the young male students. In addition, there is increased surveillance of their everyday mobility. The politics of silencing women against harassment emerges from the larger socio-cultural reality wherein women are shamed both within and outside the households in cases of gender violence.

Remaining silent while handling such a crisis on their own must also be seen as an act of ‘agency’ since women negotiate in their everyday lives for their aspirations towards higher education. The acts of self-surveillance wherein they remain isolated and share their contact numbers with due caution over Whatsapp for any academic purpose, must also be analyzed as capacities to ascertain power and take responsible decisions. These are the mechanisms through which they negotiate the structures of social control through their acts of everyday decision makings so that their education is not impacted. Female students in large numbers are active participants of the National Cadet Corps, especially in semi-urban spaces, which also creates a sense of courage and self-belief among those who remain active participants in campus life.

To ‘protect’ women against gendered violence there is a systemic institutionalization of gendered norms. The codification of behavioural rules for female students on the campus is driven by patriarchal norms of gendering spaces that restrict their mobility while sharing paternalistic ideas over morality and modesty. In this regard, the ‘protectors’ of female modesty and chastity lay down codes of behaviour for women on college premises.

They are isolated in fixed spaces within the campus entrenching the patriarchal dichotomy of private-public spaces based on gendered division. In such college campuses, regressive spaces like ‘Saraswati Mandir’ have been established which act as cells of prison forcing women into institutionalized iron cages. Women are segregated in private spaces on the campus during breaks whereas male students venture throughout the campus except the very few private spaces categorized for women. Such forms of segregation to separate men and women re-create the patriarchal categories where the private spaces are associated with ‘femininity’ including domesticity and subordination, whereas the public spaces are associated with ‘masculinity’ including mobility and dominance. Women are also reprimanded for sitting alone in public spaces and strict directions are given to move around the campus, only if needed, in groups. Since such norms are gendered forms of repressive social control, women do flout the rules and protest in their ways against regressive rules.

Female students in various urban spaces have been protesting against the gendered nature of campus i.e. the socialization of campus according to the dominant gender norms. Protests against restrictions and securitization in female residential spaces in metropolitan cities have taken the form of Pinjra Tod (break the cage) to reclaim the public spaces where in the name of ‘safety’ and ‘security’ for women, they are controlled through surveillance. Even female students at Banaras Hindu University have been actively protesting against sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination on their campuses. This has been strongly condemned by female students through marches and protests reclaiming public spaces through assertive means.

By all means, the campus needs to be restructured in an inclusive egalitarian form of social space. But as Phadke (2007) asserts, as long as public safety for women remains the responsibility of state agents, there will be a reduction of accessibility of public spaces for women.  The process of stigmatization and securitization against women must be replaced with the process of sensitization amongst all gender categories through dialogues and interactions. Such restrictive taboos against healthy intermixing between gender categories must be discouraged. Rather the campus must be a vibrant all-gender space for individuals seeking holistic development through interactions and social critical learning. For mutual respect, dialogues should be encouraged and not condemned.

For a gender-sensitive campus, the experiences of female students must be taken into account and adequate grievance redressal measures need to be taken. Gender awareness has to be developed at the family and close social network level as well.  A concerted awareness of women’s rights needs to be built while condemning stigma and strictures of morality.

References:

Ogburn, W.F. (1922). Social Change with respect to Culture and Original Nature. Huebsch: New York.

Phadke, S. (2007). Dangerous Liaisons: Women and Men; Risk and Reputation in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly. 42(17): 1510-1518.

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Pragya Tripathi works as an Assistant Professor in a college affiliated with Kanpur University.