The fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS) released its report on 24 November, revealing that at least 30% of women respondents across India from 14 states and Union Territories justified men beating their wives under certain circumstances.
In the face of the dismal data given by NFHS on women across these 14 states, local digital media thrived with click-bait headlines that stated, “50% women in Kerala justifying women getting beaten up by men”.
Now, the major question sprawled around is why such headlines are tagged as “clickbait headlines”. The answer to this is succinctly clear with the statement one reads in the headline itself.
Kerala, a state much fledged and prosperous, is currently the only state that provides the best data on women. Be it sex ratio, literacy, development, employment or any other considerable factor that empowers women, Kerala is a state that stands out amongst the rest of the states in India.
It is, therefore, a rare instance for women being subjected to the evils of society in Kerala. It is certainly not 100% void of such instances. However, given the facts and data in the NFHS report, the digital media is in the blink of accountability as it fails to report facts in numbers and precision.
Mostly, the local digital media sensationalised misleading headlines to generate more clicks as a gimmick to engage more traffic on their websites.
The glaring numbers given out on the digital platform somehow fail to provide the fact that the NFHS-5 study indicated more than 75% of these women respondents were from three states — Telangana (84%), Andhra Pradesh (84%) and Karnataka (77%). Manipur (66%), Kerala (52%), Jammu and Kashmir (49%), Maharashtra (44%) and West Bengal (42%) are indexed following the three states down the list.
Certain reasons put forth by the female respondents were neglecting the house or children and being disrespectful towards in-laws. Other reasons like suspicion of being unfaithful, refusal to have sexual intercourse, being argumentative, going out without informing the husband, neglecting the household and not cooking good food add up to the many reasons women responded with.
When the facts are pieced together, the data does not paint a very pleasing picture of the state of women in our country. Looking at the outright scenario, be it in any part of the country, any state, or any place, one may simply oppose the prevailing idea of domestic violence being justified.
The clickbait headlines by the online media have not just dampened the sobriety of the situation, but it also led netizens to think that the highest number ends at 50% in Kerala. Surprisingly, it all starts from here and goes up to 84% in other states.
The human psychology of following the unusual may dismantle several truths from being conveyed online. However, one must check the data for themselves before being host to such click-bait headlines.