Symbiosis has a culture of institutional sexism

Symbiosis Center for Media and Communication, Pune | Facebook

Small incidents of misogyny by students and staff, and shutting down of women, enable abuse and harassment in an otherwise liberal college.

Most students come to Symbiosis Center for Media and Communication (SCMC) in Pune for its coveted ‘film and television’ specialisation, commonly known among students as the AV batch.

At the end of the second year in the three-year degree course, 150 students fill a form to choose their specialisation. If a specialisation has been chosen by over 40 students, the ones with the highest grades are picked. A lot of times, more students pick AV as a specialisation than there are slots. This leaves about 5-6 students (who were mostly male at least during the time I studied there) unjustly aggrieved. My batch had 8.

On the day that we picked our specialisations, 4 students – two female and two male – decided to pick AV, while most people thought that they would pick ‘journalism’. Both women who chose to pick AV as a specialisation were then, at the receiving end of the ‘aggrieved’, who felt entitled to those seats. One of the women was accused of “robbing others’ seats” and her indecisiveness ruining others’ lives.

The two men faced nothing.

This is SCMC, a college that prides itself as the #1 in the country, and students who pride themselves as liberals. Both these farces were ripped apart the by the #MeToo movement with fierce, baring teeth.

Sexism

Introduction to sexism in college comes quite early, from both students and staff. It could include a female professor telling you that leaving your hair open attracts boys, or detention for wearing nail polish/leaving your hair loose/hugging someone who does not belong to the same gender, and so on. (The boys even get detention for not shaving.)

If you’re really unlucky, it comes when you’re learning to develop a photo in the dark room and the professor tries to touch you inappropriately.

It’s common occurrence. Rape jokes, casual slut shaming (both of which I used to indulge in) and victim-shaming pepper everyday life, which the institute makes no effort to curb. Eighteen year olds exhibiting problematic behaviour isn’t a surprise. But a well-reputed institute allowing and encouraging this behaviour to thrive should be.

Students in SCMC have been complicit in building this culture. Especially the male students, whose male-only friend groups (with one token female friend/girlfriend) have encouraged misbehaviour and abuse, or even commonplace sexism.

In a college where we spent more than 40% of classes watching films, we barely had any female filmmakers as role models. I recollect this one incident where we were analysing Indian filmmakers in class. We were done early and the professor suggested we could study another filmmaker. A female friend suggested that we study a woman filmmaker. When I seconded this, a male classmate turned around to ask me who was good enough.

I suggested Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair. He complained to say they were too commercial.

We went on to study Anurag Kashyap.

Undermining potential

Women can’t be entirely absolved here.

The most openly sexually abusive person from my batch was a woman. She would go around groping others’ breasts and spanking their butt in broad daylight. No amount of telling her that she is causing discomfort would make her stop. When I called her out last year, two of her female friends (both extremely vocal feminists) defended her ferociously while accusing me of grasping at the straws.

That is the issue. SCMC is not a college that thinks women can only be feminine and soft. But it is a college – with a majority of female students that undermines women. It undermines our right to our bodies, our talent and even how dangerous we can be.

It also undermines our potential. When I joined college, I knew at least 9 women from my batch who were deeply interested in photography and videography. By the end of college, only two of us were still invested in camera. Over the years the others moved to editing, production and some even advertising and PR. This isn’t because of a lack of talent. It’s because the reality of the industry is drilled into us constantly. And we know that this industry is not too fond of women who handle cameras.

The allegations and callouts in the recent light of #MeToo are not isolated incidents of abuse and harassment in an otherwise liberal college. Enabling this abuse are small incidents of misogyny by students and staff, and shutting down of women, which pile up to a general disregard for women’s consent and well-being. I cannot say that this attitude towards female students is exclusive to SCMC. But I can say that the women of SCMC have had enough of this.

Footnote: The #MeToo movement in SCMC has resulted in large scale solidarity by students, particularly women, and alumni. After social media bashing and petitions, the college has set up an ICC and initiated action against professors accused of sexual misconduct. They have cancelled classes by an external faculty who was recently accused of sexual misconduct himself. They also put out an anonymous survey asking students and alumni for suggestions to improve campus safety.

Vaishnavi Suresh is a documentary photographer and a campaigner on environmental issues. She is an SCMC alumna who filed a petition with the director to make campus safer after talking to over a 100 students from the college.