Author: Sia Jyoti

By Sia Jyoti.

I have come to accept that someone with my level of faith in humanity is destined to feel  perpetually disappointed with reality. A recent example of this emotion being triggered was in my  Law, Gender and Society lecture when despite being in a lull from my lack of caffeination, I noticed  the fact that not one man took this module. Initially, my peers and I laughed at our mutual  realisation but it was only until the seminar that I was met with my underlying rage. In a discussion  about the ways in which the legal system would disappoint us, both as future practising lawyers  and as potential victims of the system, it struck me why no man was enrolled in this module. It  boiled down to the privilege of not having to educate yourself on the systematic inequalities that  we, as women, are bound to face.  

Now, whilst I can write a paper on this subject alone, I would like to move on to the current event  that reignited this notion of the oppressed educating themselves on their oppressor for me: Andrew  Tate and the rise in incels. The first time I came across the term incels (involuntary celibate) was in  a New Yorker article in 2018. The article discussed the circumstances in which groups from both  genders were unable to be intimate despite a desire to do so, yet differentiated in the way they dealt  with this. Women, thanks to greater attention towards female liberation in the forms of education  and empowerment, sought to raise their self-esteem through other forms of validation. This  inevitably meant that men no longer became the primary source for a woman to feel worthy in  society. This for me is modern-day liberation; the ability for a woman to define herself without the  perception of any man.  

Yet, since we continue to exist in patriarchy, our little wins are quickly met with massive losses: and  here we see the rise in incels. When women found their worth and were no longer available to men  that were below their standards, a group of men found themselves generating an ideology  embedded in pure misogyny which they deemed a suitable response to their inability to be decent  human beings. In the 2018 article, they recorded the existence of at least sixteen deaths in the US  alone that had occurred in the pursuit of incel ideology. This could be easily summarised by a quote  from one of the murderers in 2014 that declared that his actions were in the hopes of starting a  war, not against, but ‘on women’ for ‘depriving’ him of sex. The attention I have drawn on his  choice of ‘War on Women’ as opposed to a ‘War against women’ is to illustrate the power dynamic  he subconsciously shares he holds. A war against someone is in opposition to them, it assumes  fairness and a starting point of equality. On, in contrast, already assumes that one group will be  above another. A visual image of an attempt to crush the rise of something is what I imagined when  I saw this quote. Now, eight years since Elliot Rogers’s misogyny-fuelled murders took place, I feel  we have made limited progress as a society.  

At the point of his peak in social media presence, Andrew Tate had made apparent his views on  women. Whilst the utter absurdity of some of these views made them laughable to the general  public, I had hoped that the corresponding rumours of his alleged sex trafficking and rape  allegations reduced his normalisation. Unfortunately, as I mentioned at the start of this article or  what some might see as an organised rant, hopeful people are often disappointed. After a casual dig  at him in a funny manner so that I wasn’t called a crazy feminist (I’m so crazy for being scared of  my biggest natural predator aren’t I?), my messages were flooded with defensive responses from so  many university friends. What surprised me most was the number of objectively normal, sweet,  and educated boys in my DM’s who shared in their feeling that “not everything he says is bad, he  has a point a lot of the time”.  

For my own sanity and the limited word count on this, I refuse to unravel the many problems with  that statement. Additionally, I find myself mentally exhausted from having to justify  disappointment in the male desire to find rational points made by a man who openly tweets that  women are responsible for their sexual assault. If you are happy to do this, then how come my,  actually researched and now proven defence for Amber Heard is met with literal barbaric rage and  an unfounded accusation that I don’t care about male issues when I can positively list the boys I have offered therapy to for free? For now, I will cut down on my charity work. Meanwhile, naively, I  yet again hope that this year we won’t offer our platforms up to lunatics, who can convince more  lunatics to spend their money on something as laughable as Hustlers University.

By Sia Jyoti.

Raised in a traditional, well-mannered household, the idea of smoking was introduced to me as wholly  unacceptable. Cigarettes took the shape of shame and failure, for reasons not entirely related to the  physical side effects, and I accepted this at face value. Yet, in noticing when and where smoking could  be seen as glamour raised questions on duality and classicism for me. Does an action’s acceptability  defer from class to class? What is it that makes a practice chic for some and degrading for others? Now,  detached from the views instilled in me through the insulation of ‘home,’ I can unravel the act of  smoking through an objective lens. 

In its raw form, smoking causes cancer. Early death with a chance of blindness and a side of blackened  lips; smoking is not your friend. This aspect does not change, for everyone is aware of smoking’s side  effects. Yet that very disinterest in side effects shared amongst all smokers is either seen as an  embarrassingly active rejection of improvement in some, or a rebellious charm in others. In seeing a  man smoking by a bus stop and a girl rolling by a racecourse, the likelihood of similar conclusions being  drawn borders on impossible. Whether a woman on a sidewalk wears the same eyeliner as a girl in  Jimmy’s smoking area does in no way leads to a similar categorisation of them. For our bias is not  rooted in objective reasoning but in class perception which is inherently tied to the acceptability of our  actions.  

As ill-informed as a teenager may be in smoking to fit in, one would likely forgive them for their naivety.  In assuming that their future is bright and that the occasional secret cig in their friend’s garden will not  hinder their success, the action is deemed harmless; almost bordering on cute. In an equally naive frame  of mind, youth smoking in a less established area will instantaneously lead to the correlation of  addiction, and failure — with a subtle undertone of disgust. Both scenarios mirror one another in their  isolated events — but for the possibility of the latter’s bright future. I have come to realise that plenty  is excused when people believe that you’re likely to succeed in the future. Whether based on selfish  gains or purely on the human instinct to trust what is ‘good’. In our current society, goodness is  associated with pretence and wealth. In our failed attempt to associate what is good with what is  meaningful, acceptance has manifested itself in wealth-induced social integration.  

It is for this reason that classism presents a cloud over smoking. Whilst the action of rolling in an  African American community will blindly correlate to ‘illegal’ marijuana consumption, it takes the form  of artistic technique at a predominantly privately educated university. It seems our judgement is not on  the stamina of one’s lungs but on the inevitable winner of the race that is born ahead of everyone else  on the track. Where economic differences differentiate so widely between the starting point of one’s  career path, smoking is only injurious to those who find the finish line to be further away. 

Nonetheless, I find it fascinating. Not the class perception or the injurious side effects, but the  communal side of it. Whether one smokes on the patio of their beach house or in the melancholy of  their relentless clerical job, both breathe it in for a moment of calm. Despite the social fragmentation  of humans, we share in our yearning for a moment of peace. A second of giving into a weakness which  collectivises irrespective of one’s class or background. Perhaps the next time I see a cloud of smoke, I’ll  leave it at that — unfazed by the person behind it.