Badlega India

Social media is rotting. Next level of harassment faced by Journalist Barkha Dutt.

On Wednesday morning, journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted about an abuse campaign that targets her by mass-sharing her contact details, filling her inbox and life with sexual slurs which are very unpleasant.

 

This dose of misogynistic vitriol comes on the heels of activist Kavita Krishnan’s mother’s take-down of a troll who wanted to know if she had “free sex”. As women who choose to work in the public eye and who have the audacity to hold opinions, Krishnan and Dutt are exposed to the possible attack of anyone with opposable thumbs and access to the internet. In an ideal world, this would contribute to a healthy democratic debate where everyone went home with their horizons expanded. However, in the immoral and dishonorable reality we have to make do with, internet anonymity and mob mentality combine to birth evils like these:

While Dutt’s male contemporaries come under attack as well, they are targeted for political bias and journalistic ethics, rather than their imagined sexual antics.
It is no accident that most of the Twitter accounts cited above belong to men. A patriarchy like ours teaches men to view women as fragmented body parts, their worth always counted on how much efforts she putting as a homemaker. Other aspects of woman’s identity like humor or intelligence are considered secondary or never taken seriously as it should be.

Only in a culture so warped by casual misogyny does a troll’s psyche become clearer. Disagree with a female activist? Threaten to rape her. Don’t like a female political candidate? Accuse her of sleeping around. Find a female journalist annoying? Organise a mass campaign to circulate her number on the internet so you can call her a whore. Now that you have dragged her sexuality out into the world and made free with it, you have destroyed her personhood, because those two are clearly one and the same thing.

 

(News Source : thequint)

Bhawna Chandel
Bhawna Chandel
I am a writer, lover, traveler and a human who is very optimistic. Graduate in Mass Communication, advertising and journalism. I love to pen down my views on diverse subjects. I am very curious and love grabbing knowledge even from the places least expected. I am a traveling freak. I believe ‘travel is the only thing you buy, that makes you richer’.

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