On Short Skirts, Smoking and Shaming Sexists

Indian social media had a video go viral recently, made by some young women in Gurgaon. In the video, they’re following a middle-aged woman, demanding an apology. The older woman had earlier shamed one of them for wearing a short skirt. She then went on to tell some men in the restaurant that they should rape such women.

The release of this video on social media led to all sorts of responses and raging debates, including whether the video ought to have been uploaded in the first place? Is public shaming an appropriate response when someone is misogynistic? Legal action is appropriate perhaps, and sometimes, maybe, deflecting the situation using conversation perhaps is appropriate. As per reports, the younger women did both.

I remember when a random man once accosted me. This was in Calcutta, and I remember he was old, and out on his evening walk. He stopped me on the street because he wanted to inform me that it was wrong of me to smoke, because I’m a woman, and I was dishonoring my parents by smoking. I told him to ‘Fuck Off’, sucked on my cigarette for effect and sauntered away. I was barely out of my teens, brash, abrasive and not very articulate. The old dude doddered away in horror at being told to fuck off by a woman younger than his granddaughter.

I knew the old dude was right about smoking being a shitty habit, but was pissed off about the honor angle he tried on me. Sure my parents would have slapped the shite outta me then, if they’d known that not only was I smoking, but also was doing so in public! Over the years, as I traipsed through various cities, I was given the same advise by more random strangers…most would begin with, “ek sawaal puchhu?” (May I ask you a question?), and would go on to berate me for ruining my chances of having children. Most of these random strangers would be men, most would be polite initially, and then increasingly get aggressive in their demands that I don’t smoke.  

Currently, smoking in public is illegal, and my parents have reluctantly resigned themselves to the fact that I need to make the choice to stop smoking… to the few who genuinely pointed out health concerns in general, I would sheepishly acknowledge that I’m stupid. One or two astute ones actually worked out the economics of smoking for me, and finally, it was only when a colleague’s young daughter pointed out the environmental hazards of smoking, did I actually, really change my smoking habits.

Over the years I learnt to quietly walk away from the random strangers who approach me “ek sawaal puchhu?” Arguing with them was pointless, evidently they didn’t give a damn about my health and were only interested in giving out their shitty sexist opinions out for free... I’ve amplified my arsenal of ‘How to say Fuck Off to Patriarchal Pigs’,and perhaps the women did right to upload the video demanding an apology, because the video resonated with many of us, who have been subjected to intrusive behavior by random strangers... misogyny will just never be appropriate. 

What was grossly inappropriate in the case of the viral video was the response from several people on the Internet and some media outlets. Several headlines and memes chose to comment on how a woman was so horrible to other women, i.e. women are their worst enemies. Instead of focusing on the offensive conduct, and the illegality of the older woman’s actions, people made public the offending lady’s Facebook profile.  Instead of further educating and empowering general public by quoting relevant sections of the IPC violated, people released memes of the offending lady herself in a short dress. Instead of accepting that the offending lady herself is a product of patriarchy, people wrote her messages telling her she ought to be raped.

I’m all for shaming misogynistic strangers, what one ought to remember as a general rule when trying to shame the sexists is not to be a little patriarchal piglet yourself! Sometimes, just a nice loud ‘Fuck Off’ works just fine.