10. Toxic Masculinity and Inherent Misogyny on Social Media: Preventive Laws and Indian Judicial Approach

Since last two decades the term masculinity has become a catchword all over the world. It may be seen with reference to social political, economic, and cultural as well. This has been expressed with reference to the manhood and gender equality most of the times. Inherent misogyny is an idea which defines social relationship of patriarchal society. Some of the prominent and progressive criminologists contradict the statement. Indeed, the term is coined with the social media as the platform has changed observing application and existence of virtual world. Deep rooted gender inequalities thinking has been shown on Social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram etc. Nowadays people have started using these platforms for destructive purposes. The example is “Bois locker room” a group created by some teenagers and later disclosed using nude pictures, offensive comments, sexual violence against women (Bose in BOIS locker room, Khan, Nakshab. BOIS locker room.). Author referred to the term toxic as bullying and sexual harassment that has reflected through different platform on social media. Indian judiciary during 1980s has given a judgment indicating the approach of gender equality and manhood (1997). Later on Indian legislature came with legislation and one of the major legislation which may be like a prevention, i.e., Information Technology Act, India (The Information Technology Act (2000). The Indian judiciary has proactively dealt with such emerging problems in the virtual world. In this chapter, authors try to analyze the developing approaches of toxic masculinity, inherent misogyny on social media and preventive laws and judicial approaches in India.