“She asked for it.“
A recent incident at the Nukkadwala restaurant on Sohna Road, Gurgaon, came to light when it was shared by one Shivani Gupta via a video on her Facebook profile. The video has led to outrage on social media, with some people alleging that the women in the video were verbally abused in public by a much older woman.
“Today my friend and I were harassed by a woman at a restaurant because I was wearing a short dress. The middle-aged woman you’ll see in the video even addressed seven men present there to rape us because she felt we deserved it,” Shivani wrote in her Facebook post.
In the video, the woman seems adamant and refuses to budge from her point of view. However, another woman who was probably of similar age can be seen defending the girls. The video isn’t about just one woman or a single incident. It perfectly captures our society’s point of view, where a woman’s clothing is used as an excuse to avoid answering the more important question—why do men rape?
I believe, for officials, it is easier to simply blame a woman for wearing what they consider ‘provocative‘ clothes or for going out late at night. Because they often make it seem like the perpetrator is a mere victim in the scheme of things. Unfortunately, the woman in this video is a representation of our society and her statement only seeks to affirm the notion that women ‘ask for it’ every time someone advances to rape her, a notion as old as the hills.
The video’s comment section is proof of how toxic social media can be, in essence, reaffirming what the woman in question said.
Soon after the video went viral, a photo of the same woman wearing a short dress started to spread like wildfire on social media. Needless to say, the photo was taken from her profile without her consent. How is this alright?