Kanak Sarkar, a professor at Jadavpur University at the International Relations department, shamelessly compared virgin women to ‘sealed bottles’ or ‘packets’ in his Facebook post and went further to justify his comment. However, such occurrences are not new and we get a flavor of such gross incidents daily with varying intensity. This goes on to say a lot about the victim shaming and blaming culture we live in.
Most of us have not fully recovered from the Hardik Pandya nightmare and then this is thrown at our faces. Not fair, men! I mean, shouldn’t we get a fair chance to get over one round of bullshit to move to the next?
The important point that strikes me is the fact that two men with polar opposite educational qualifications have equally disturbing and demeaning views on women and the audacity to make such views public without giving it a second thought, clearly because they do not see anything wrong with it.
Education is important for everybody and it helps us build a strong foundation on which we can base our lives. But it is times like these that force us to make a stark comparison between an education and a qualification, because people like Kanak Sarkar are highly qualified with a PhD, but are they educated? No.
The question that we have in front of us is if a professor with a PhD and a Class-9-pass cricketer see women with the same lens then there is a huge problem that needs to addressed and sadly the problem is age old. Reading thousands of books and clearing multiple exams will not be able to solve this problem if we continue with the gender stereotyping and conditioning that has been practiced till date and support the nonsensical ‘men will be men but women need to grow up’ theory.
It is sad to see that the people on whom we entrust the responsibility for imparting education to the youth themselves have such shallow views on women. It makes me cringe with pain and question whether the future is in the right hands?
It is good that Kanak Sarkar has been divested of his duties and removed from the university. I hope this step by the officials at least make others like Sarkar if not change their mindset, at least think ten times before sharing outright misogynistic views on public platforms. Till then, let us keep the struggle on to make this world a better place in every possible way and free from such creeps.