http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bloody-mary/why-maneka-gandhis-bid-to-take-on-cyber-bullies-has-got-likes/#_ga=1.71596755.159886563.1468725016
Why Maneka Gandhi’s bid to take on cyber bullies has got ‘likes’ July 17, 2016, 6:18 AM IST Sagarika Ghose in Bloody Mary | Edit Page, India | TOI Dear Maneka Gandhi, As minister for women and child development you have introduced a brave new initiative. Women savagely abused on social media can now seek help by tweeting with the hashtag #IamTrolledHelp. In fact, women battered online is a worldwide phenomenon, and many are now calling for a “feminist internet”. British MP Yvette Cooper has launched a campaign, ‘Reclaim The Internet’. Cooper believes online attacks can be compared to domestic violence. Not so long ago, husbands beating wives wasn’t taken seriously. Today, thankfully, it is recognized for the crime it is. Similarly, misogynism on the net is often laughed away. Yet the internet is now like a virtual khap panchayat where an “immoral” woman (or one with opinions) is brought to book by campaigns resembling a public stoning. You have yourself faced a volley of abuse for your action. Internet Hindus or Bhakts have attacked you for depriving them of the freedom to freely abuse “sickularists” or anyone not echoing their Tarzan-style nationalism. Many of those who insult women in the name of deshbhakti are supporters of your party. Will you have the guts to rein them in? Women are fair game in this WWF-type “Hindu” patriotism, and civility is a sign of weakness. After all the collective self-esteem has been a tad bruised by bearded neighbours from Ghazni thundering in and diminishing Hindu civilization through murder and pillage. Now, ten centuries later, they want revenge from history: to stop being “tolerant Hindus” and give back as good as we got. How different these gen next Hindutva cyber pugilists are from the older generation of RSS. The old guard held to a puritanical worldview and expressed themselves with moralistic decorum. It was that austere and disciplined RSS which built the Hindu movement and made it so attractive to many. The RSS’s patriarchal view of women may have never evolved beyond the ‘devi-dayan’ binary, but senior swayamsevaks would never publicly abuse women. Today the discourse of the Sangh is represented by a cyber version of the Bajrang Dal, where aggression and vulgarity is seen as a legitimate flaunting of male power, a lashing out that doesn’t spare even the ruling party. Angoorlata Deka, the newly elected BJP MLA in Assam, was horrifyingly humiliated recently. Her photos were shared online with brazenly sexist captions. So why has the internet given birth to this new tidal wave of misogyny? Why is it that from actor Anushka Sharma to political activists Khushboo Sundar and Kavita Krishnan, and from former VJ Shruti Seth to women journalists, women in the public eye are attacked so fiercely? Target : Women like BJP MLA Angoorlata Deka are being trolled because of a gathering social backlash Men, and indeed many women (women can be misogynist trolls too), are lashing out against successful women not just because of their own insecurities but because of a gathering social backlash against female empowerment. Post Nirbhaya, new awareness and new gender justice laws have created a driving hatred of the ‘successful’ woman. It’s fashionable to hunt down feminists because they seem to have it so easy and have so much institutional support. But in fact they don’t, and the battle for gender justice is going to be long and hard. Indian society is still a brutally unequal battleground where however ostentatiously we celebrate Women’s Day, sex ratios are falling alarmingly, with women literally disappearing off the map. There are reportedly 30-70 million missing women in India. Witness the herculean battles of Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalithaa to see how women have to literally claw their way up against implacably hostile and closed boys’ clubs at every level. The internet, by contrast, is a place where everyone, including the woman, can be uniquely free — free of the strictures of family, community and male superiors. In almost every other space, home, or workplace, the woman is determinedly second grade. But the internet is one place where there are no gender hierarchies and the woman is as free as a man. It is precisely this freedom the trolls want to destroy. And they feel they can. Under cover of anonymity a woman can be called a ‘randi’ and ‘slut’ , threatened with gangrape and often silenced because so far the net has not been subject to any gender justice laws. Men with bottled up rage against assertive womanhood can vent only on the internet. The internet has become misogyny’s last refuge. Mrs Gandhi, without resorting to policing, you’ve introduced an element of vigilance so essential for liberty. Social media is tearing society apart with its raging extremisms and sometimes a timely corrective is needed to ensure the internet remains what it was promised to be: a place where everyone is free. And safe from abuse. Yours sincerely, A trolled woman. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
