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Every day a fresh case of violence against women perpetrated by men comes to notice. Let's talk of what these violent men can do differently, instead of victim blaming.
Trigger warning: This speaks of intimate partner violence, and gaslighting and victim shaming of women, and may be triggering for survivors.
I respect the Government and the representatives working for all of us but some comments from the people who call themselves the government make me think about what mentality people have nowadays. Shraddha’s murder is very unfortunate but using it to generalize a personal issue is disgusting. Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Kaushal Kishore, referring to the horrifying Shraddha Walker’s murder case stated that “well-educated girls” are responsible for leaving their parents and hence being in a live-in relationship leads to crime.
God damn it, whether it’s live-in or court marriage, will the person change? I will not take Shraddha’s example, but if some person is violent or has the intention to kill, whether it’s live-in or marriage, the person will eventually do so.
As far as live-in relationships are considered in general, it has nothing to do with education. Incidents like this are really unfortunate but generalizing it doesn’t make sense at all. I come across so many headlines these days: woman killed for a cigarette, killed for chapati, killed for saying no to trip and many more unbelievable reasons.
Social media made a lot of memes on Shraddha Walkar but nothing on the killer Aftab Poonawalla, but why? “She did wrong, she left her parents, she was in a live-in relationship,” she…, she… – yes, all talk is about the woman, but why is there no reference of the culprit? Why is the victim being blamed? Just because she is a female and hence a soft target?
I know some men will comment, “Don’t become a feminist now!” Please understand that blaming a girl for everything is not justified, and as I have mentioned, if a person has a criminal motive, he will commit the crime irrespective of the relationship – whether married or in a live-in.
Parents do think for their children’s good always, their decisions are in the best of our interest, but their child is not wrong every time. And parents can’t shrug off responsibility to a child – after all, they decided to bring them into the world.
It is high time, we all should stop accusing women, start acclaiming them! Open your eyes to reality instead of being blind towards what’s happening around us.
First published here.
Smriti Malhotra is a Delhi girl and an avid dreamer. She works at the Embassy of the Republic of Congo by profession but is a writer by passion. She began writing while at school and read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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