The recent viral video about a middle aged woman, who had blamed girls wearing short dresses for Rape, has left the entire country in shock. It did bust the myth that education improves human mentality. The fact that an educated urban woman living in the national capital believes that girls are liable to be raped just for wearing short clothes, raises several question-marks on our evolution as a society.
This ordeal of Shivani Gupta, a Delhi based copyrighter, tells a lot about why Rape Incidents are always rising in our country. The lady, who was later identified as Soma Chakrabarty, made those remarks at a restaurant where the girls were having food with their colleagues. Instead of creating a scene, they confronted her later at a nearby Shopping Center and demanded an apology, but she refused.
Singer Soumita Saha, who has been supporting Shivani and her friends during the entire episode, posted an open letter describing how Chakrabarty’s comments on the Shivani were terribly disheartening. However there was something even more cruel, which most people failed to notice. In defence, Shivani and her friends resorted body-shaming Soma Chakrabarty. They can be heard in the video saying, “concentrate on your own body†and â€let her flaunt if she has the body to flaunt”, “you don’t have a body to flaunt.â€, which are undeniably body shaming.Â
If Soma encouraged rape, Shivani and her friends encouraged body shaming of women. A vast majority of women don’t posses an ideal body. Their comments are equally insulting to womanhood.
“Do we really need to combat misogyny with double dose of misogyny?”, lambasted the famed Singer. “I strongly oppose Chakrabarty’s rape remarks, but that barely means body-shaming her was justified”, she added.
She pointed out that what happened during the incident wasn’t about Feminism but was a classic example of opportunism. It shows that none of the parties involved truly cared about women. Feminism has no place for any sort of inequality and considering someone inferior because of her body shape is something which goes against the very foundation of Feminism.