Recently, a woman came out in the open to talk about sexual harassment in comedy circles, Bollywood, and even in media. The credit goes to a Twitter thread started by Sandhya Menon. Her effort was widely appreciated, and many women have come out to narrate their experiences since then.
Another journalist, Rituparna Chatterjee got trolled for her soft stance in one of her tweets criticising former AIB comic Utsav Chakraborty, accused of sending explicit messages to women, including minors, on social media.
https://twitter.com/MasalaBai/status/1047882801608122368
https://twitter.com/AapChorHain/status/1047962816471339009
Scrolling through all the tweets, I could see a similar pattern to what happened in the case of author Harnidh Kaur. The issue no longer was about the tweet to Utsav; people turned it around to attack her mindlessly. Twitterati also accused her of being soft on Utsav’s ‘pro-feminist’ stance.
https://twitter.com/MasalaBai/status/1048044199491325960
Rapist are Dear to her🤣🤣🤣 #Feminist
— Mrityunjay Singh (@indomitablesoul) October 4, 2018
Harindh Kaur, known for her strong stance on women empowerment issues, has faced hatred online too. She had to deactivate her account owing to the abuse she received when her close friend took advantage of his position to exploit teenage girls, which she was unaware of. Though she clarified that she calls out predators irrespective of their ideology or stance on issues; people were not ready to buy her arguments.
People are going to compare on Social media and will call out your feminism when it treats 2 criminals differently for the same crime against women. You don't want judgement, better keep it to yourself instead of venting out on social media. His objection is valid.
— Hound (@vabskrishna) October 4, 2018
Earlier, it was Anna Vetticad, Parvathy, Swara Bhaskar, Harnidh Kaur, Rituparna Chakraborty facing harassment for voicing their opinion on social media. It’s no longer about questioning Chatterjee’s soft stance on Utsav – it’s all about patronising a woman who expresses a strong opinion on various issues. The reason is the inability of a group of people to tolerate a strong, independent woman with an opinion.