An Ode To Women’s Colleges: Our Safe Space That Society Is Hellbent On Stealing

The kind of people I met at university changed my perspective and shaped me into who I am.

Who would have thought that when I graduate three years later, I’d proudly proclaim that I am what I am because of a women’s college? Certainly not me.

(Photo: Garima Sadhwani/The Quint)

When I first walked into the Delhi University campus, just a little short of six years ago, it was an almost-dream-come-true moment for me. For one year before that, I had given my all to secure a decent-enough percentage to get into the prestigious North Campus.

I say an almost-dream-come-true moment because I had gotten enrolled into a women’s college and that was already a damper on all the dreams I had come to DU with.

Before my college life even began, I was starting to give up on my Bollywood dreams of a guitar-playing dude sitting in the college lawns falling in love with me in slow motion. 

But, who would have thought that when I graduate three years later, I’d proudly proclaim that I am what I am because of a women’s college? Certainly not me.

For someone who realised the value of these safe spaces by getting to be in one, it's hurtful to know that women students are being snatched that opportunity – almost every time a fest is held in their campuses.

More Than Just Infuriating: DU’s Inaction To Men Infringing On Our Spaces

Random men climbing the walls of women’s colleges in DU during the fest season is something that happens every year. It is so normalised that it is sold as a DU experience, almost.

Incidents of drunk men molesting women during these cultural events have become so commonplace – that it is the first thing that we think and worry about, when we think of college fests.

Not how we'll celebrate, but how women students will stay safe.

• It happened in Gargi College in February 2020 during singer Jubin Nautiyal's concert. Intoxicated men allegedly barged into the campus, shouting slogans, harassing women as if the college premises was a playground of molestation for them.

• The same thing happened in October 2022 at Miranda House's Diwali Mela. Men scaled the walls of the campus, entered classrooms, restricted areas in the college, and behaved like hooligans.

• This year, yet again, almost as a taunt to our short public memory, men terrorised women at the Indraprastha College For Women. Several accounts of women in news reports have stated how they were left alone by authorities to fend for themselves against a crowd of unruly men.

Finding classmates and teachers who cheered me on every step of my journey alike, I often wonder why the administrative authorities at DU are time and time again hellbent on stealing our safe spaces from us. They don’t seem to mind when men infringe on these spaces either.

To be fair, this is not new. But does that mean that the college has no responsibility towards its students?

Does it make it okay for the college authorities to "enjoy the concert and dance" (as has been alleged in media reports) while students run from men creating a ruckus in the very campus that was supposed to be their safe space?

Lessons From Organising College Fests

Placing the blame on the victim and asking them to change is not something this society was ever uncomfortable doing.

When I was a member of my college fest's organising committee, there were suggestions from some faculty members to only allow students of the college (and not of the entire university) to attend the fest.

What was also ‘normal’ was organising committees being told to wrap up the events before sunset if they didn’t want to create an unsafe environment for other women. 

I also remember how when the concert at our fest was delayed a little and ended up going past the hostel's curfew time, the very girls who had given their all to organise the fest were relayed to their hostel balconies, where they only got to enjoy in the background.

...And My Greatest Lesson in Feminism

The university and college authorities should be held accountable, made to apologise to the students who have been wronged, and make concrete efforts to make the college fests safe spaces.

And by this, I don't mean locking these women up in their hostels but by actually taking action against hooligans. 

I say this as someone for whom being in a women's college has been the greatest lesson in feminism. College was a place where the phrase "Who run the world? Girls" took real meaning for me.

When I was a school kid, I remember how if there was ever a task that required strength or force, the teachers would always ask the boys in the class to do it – this could be anything from pulling a chair from another room to help carry a huge bundle of notebooks to the staffroom. 

But in college, I saw girls my age do everything, from fighting elections to organising fests. All of this, while also acing academics, extra-curricular activities, and having the most fun social lives.

My college taught me not to judge. It taught me the significance of choice. It taught me that when all goes haywire in life, the most reliable sources of comfort and strength you can find will often be from the women closest to you. More importantly, it taught me how to enjoy the best of times.

A Safe Space In The Truest Sense

However, being in a women’s college was not like living in a utopia of course. Fighting with internalised misogyny, patriarchy, and homophobia was an everyday thing there too.

But there, I had the support of hundreds of other women like me. A shared sense of lived experiences trumped all the other notions that might have been keeping us tied.

If I told a friend about how I felt unsafe in the metro the other day or how someone made me uncomfortable in another instance, I didn’t have to deal with the balanced take of how not all men are creeps or how men are molested too. Instead, I’d be offered a sense of understanding, that I knew came from an honest place.

College became the safe space I could never have imagined. So let our college fests also remain just that.

Let it be a celebration of the talents of women students, let it be about being on the sidelines and cheering everyone on, let it be about colourful photos and fantastic memories. May it not be about drunk men invading our personal spaces. May it not be about molestation.

May it not be one more safe space the society is hellbent on stealing from us.