Kalki Koechlin gets trolled for a 3-year-old tweet that stands true even today
Way back in 2014, when India was just begging to grasp the fact that things always get worse online, actor Kalki Koechlin had tweeted a suggestion for the Indian government.
The government had announced plans to build a grand statue to pay tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Called the Statue of Unity, the project had an estimated cost of Rs 2,000 crore, something that was later reported to exceed Rs 2,500 crore. Of course, this is money that could have been spent on developing amenities and infrastructure, but thankfully the NDA government has already "solved" all of that.
The 33-year-old feminist actor had tweeted her apparent displeasure towards both the statue and the rampant prevalance of sexual violence in India, by suggesting: “If we are going to make a Rs 200-crore statue, I think it should be one of a giant, sexy woman so men can stare at her instead of at us...”
If we are going to make a 200 cr statue I think it should be one of a giant, sexy woman so men can stare at her instead of at us...
— Kalki Koechlin (@kalkikanmani) July 12, 2014
Kalki, for her wise words (despite getting the figure wrong), was trolled back in the day as well. Hypernationalistic men, even three years ago, knew how to equate a woman’s opinions to her obvious lack of character.
But that’s almost ancient history. Why is this relevant now?
Just a day after hundreds of sanskaari Bharatwasis got offended by the length of Priyanka Chopra’s dress when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi (incidentally the same people who would happily don the khaki, leg-revealing shorts of RSS’s summer collection, and would also happily call out Islam’s "regressive" facets like the niqab), people found it prudent to shame Kalki’s opinion on the basis of her looks.
A Twitter user had uploaded a photo of a newspaper clip that featured Kalki’s tweet (meta), saw an onslaught of hypernationalistic and sexist attack on the actor.
Well said @kalkikanmani pic.twitter.com/mcZPjA6qyM
— Ankur Bhardwaj (@Bhayankur) May 31, 2017
Intelligent responses from the male Homo sapiens included stuff like, “So, Kalki speaking for all women, eh? Most girls wud die of frustration if they don't get attention. This is d truth. Dunno y she's in denial”, and “I seriously doubt if people stare at you”.
It is not really difficult to imagine Indian men making ad hominem remarks at independant women with strong opinions. After all, we have seen so many examples of this. Gurmehar Kaur, Karuna Nundy, Rana Ayyub, Barkha Dutt, Swara Bhaskar and many more; any woman who raises her voice against the entrenchment of misogynistic values in the Indian culture, or the nationalistic masturbation the masses participate in, is rewarded with rape threats, sexual harassment online and casual slut-shaming.
Nothing is a bigger proof of how we encourage this behaviour than the sheer number of people who tweeted their support for the singer Abhijit Bhattacharya, who has been known to be venomous and foul-mouthed to women online, and had recently called JNU student-activist Shehla Rashid a prostitute. Classy!
The silver lining, of course, is the fact that more and more women are standing up to this. Women are no longer afraid to call out sexism, neither on the internet nor in real life.
Confidence of an Indian man, version 2.fuckthis pic.twitter.com/vo5t5mUqnz
— Cathartic Screams (@Just_Screams) June 1, 2017
The replies to this are so toxic and asinine. You don't need a Meninist page when we have these men replying here. https://t.co/y5NsUup43G
— covfefeelings (@floweraldehyde) May 31, 2017
Women would rather die in the most painful fashion than receive your attention https://t.co/qEIM4WPlFz
— covfefeelings (@floweraldehyde) May 31, 2017
Read replies to this tweet.Why do men think getting stared at is a privilege?What makes them think that women want to be stared at? https://t.co/FUlLGCrB9L
— Shruti (@Physio_Shruti) June 1, 2017
Down with patriarchy!