If you know teenagers within your family/other circles, I encourage you to talk to them. Talk to them about their stressors, struggles, relationships, sex, school, college, build a relationship with them. Try. Reassure them that they have a safe space for honest communication.
I am talking about this for all gender and sexual identities. Violence is a structural issue and vulnerability to violence is much higher with the hyperconnectedness that the internet allows for, these days.
Cis gendered boys are conditioned into believing that being violent in language and behaviour is an exercise of dominance and a display of power, and rape culture creates a very helpful environment for this to become an ideological belief.
Homes are not safe spaces, often. They become spaces where children are often strategising ways to not be in trouble and to means to protect themselves from their own families.
On your phone instead of studying? Hide the phone before mom catches you. Watching porn on your dad's laptop? Ensure that its on incognito mode/conjure ways in which you won't get caught.These are activities of shame and guilt you are supposed to hide from people as you engage in
These are the environments children grow into teenagers in. Information is policed from an authoritarian lens and they find other sources to learn from - unreliable, untrustworthy, poorly structured, one sided resources from the internet.
These unreliable sources teach boys what kind of men they should be, how women should be treated, how their masculinity won't be tested in front of their peers. It's easily accessible, they know their friends are doing it too. This is their normal.
They also learn from seeing systemic inequities in their families - how do their parents fight, how do their uncles treat aunts, what is the language that dad's friends' use while talking about actresses and models, how do the women in their families talk to each/about each other
Are the #boyslockerroom folx to be held accountable? YES. Should there be grave consequences? YES. But this issue is bigger. Teenage brains are still developing + highly impressionable. I know they don't command empathy, but they're also vulnerable to a larger system of violence.
I worked with teenage perpetrators and teenagers who have been victimised by gender based violence. There is such a pressure to perform with social media - the gossip trains, rumours, slut shaming, fat shaming, relationship scandals.
There is so much stress here and such a distance from non-virtual social support systems under the assumption that 'they won't understand' or they will trivialise it or scold them. This is highly dangerous.
Their vulnerability to trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use, STIs, pregnancy, suicidality and more is increasing by the day because they're a part of this surveillance system culture where they have to keep performing and they're constantly rated on it.
Please talk to them so they have reliable sources for education, support systems they can count on and reflective spaces to grow in that are offline and intimate.
