Metastasis of social tumours

From online harassment to street stalking to TV misogyny, the disease comes in all forms and disgusting intensities

Cancer statistics tell us that it is not the occurrence of a tumour, but the spread of the disease to other parts of the body that leads to the end. Nearly all cancer-related fatalities are due to metastasis, or spreading of the disease. The battle with an invasive and aggressive cancer is sometimes won and sometimes lost, but the worst thing to do is to ignore it, particularly at an early stage, for the best hope of survival comes from early detection and appropriate intervention.

A social health check-up of society is long overdue. Perhaps, it is the dread of finding what we fear most, or perhaps, it is collective denial, but our insistence on ignoring certain social vices is not only perplexing, it also has catastrophic consequences. Harassment of girls and women has grown from street corners, college gates and marketplaces into the world of mobile phones, internet and Facebook. Harassment was too big to be contained in the physical world, so now it has expanded into the virtual as well. Both are flourishing and thriving. Instead of confronting the problem within our families, among our friends and social circles, we don’t bother discussing it. And when we do, we argue for ‘ignoring it’. As if ignoring is somehow equal to resolving the core issues of misogyny and harassment.



Collectively, we do not believe in evolution, except in social causes, or when it suits us the most. We have come to believe that if we ignore misogynists and harassers, they will somehow evolve and move on to other things in life. Well, I do not want them to move on to the other target or take shots at their next prey. Nor do I think that this is somehow a phase in their life, a jawani period, or a temporary imbalance of emotions. What makes us believe that someone who has little respect or regard for a woman would somehow become a model citizen with the passage of time? I would love to see the data supporting that argument.

From online harassment to street stalking to on-TV misogyny to acid attacks to the outright burning of girls and women, the disease comes in all forms and disgusting intensities. These are not isolated incidents, as some would like to argue. It is instead an ugly manifestation of our rapidly metastasising social cancer. It is reflective of our deeply-rooted social tumour — or values, as some would argue — where if you are the right gender, you can get away with quite a bit. Add a little bit of money and fame, and you have immunity even from criticism.

We are told that we have bigger problems in society, and this is not worth fighting for when we have other important concerns to deal with. Really? And who gets to make that scale of social priorities? I would like to see the grade of our social ills, where only men get to define what gets the status of an ‘Grade-A problem’ and what is a lowly ‘Grade-C problem’ that is never going to be a priority. I can make a decent guess, but an official list would be very handy to have. It is not to say that this is our only problem, but if social justice, dignity, respect and equality are not worth fighting for, what is?

We are reminded, time and again, that solutions to all our problems require resources. Resources that are scarce, and hard to find in the homeland. That is indeed true. We are a resource-limited country, where we lack some of the most basic resources to fight our challenges, even when the only resource needed sometimes is humanity and belief in human dignity.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd,  2015.

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