Misogynistic and queerphobic posters have infiltrated the stream of other funny posters at the Cockroach Janta Party protests. Gen Z has been extremely creative — with posters, reels and memes — in demanding accountability for exam paper leaks and the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The protest site is full of satirical placards, pop-culture references, and costumes.
However, this new generation’s creativity has paved the way for the same old boomer humour rooted in patriarchy. Many of these posters put Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pradhan in dresses, bikinis, or feminised drag — as if dressing like a “woman” is the worst thing that could happen to them. The posters borrow the idea that femininity is a costume of humiliation. It not only perpetuates misogyny but also pushes cisgender binaries linked to gender expression. A man wore a dress, and we are all supposed to find that funny.
These posters, which were supposed to demand accountability from the government, instead reveal fault lines in our own understanding of gender. Gen-Z prides itself on being better than former generations. We claim to be more “woke”, but the ease with which these images travel shows how shallow that claim often is.Another poster at the protest reads, “Biwi Nahi Hai Toh Bacho Ki Maroge?” (If you don’t have a wife, are you going to screw children over?), echoing the same husband-wife boomer humour forwarded in family WhatsApp groups. The idea was for us to dismantle patriarchy, but we have seemingly given in to it. These jokes assume that power in a household always runs one way, and that the absence of a wife simply redirects the same force externally. It pushes the institution of marriage as a compulsory choice. A number of posters at the protest site are also targeted toward sex workers. The placards sometimes compare the minister to unfaithful girlfriends and wives. The visuals depict the politicians with long pink nails and a bright neon lipstick – symbolic of them being incompetent “divas.” The language of the slogans is often full of gendered slurs.
