If you surfed social media even cursorily yesterday, you would have come across the video of a woman of middle age and some younger women having an acrimonious exchange in a store. I call her the ‘aunty made for memes’ – she apparently thinks that short clothes invite rape. There were several young women who decided to set her straight about her regressive views. Though part of me applauded, the whole episode left me feeling very unsettled.
Facebook user Shivani Gupta posted this video with a short write-up about a middle-aged woman confronting her and her friends in a restaurant. Apparently, the older woman offered her unsolicited advice about their clothing and about how short clothes are an invitation to rape. It is absolutely befuddling that his archaic and regressive mindset still exists in our society. And it exists in what appears to be an educated and – looking at where she is shopping – an undeniably privileged strata of society.
The mindset that the middle-aged woman displays is deeply troubling for so many reasons. One, she slut shames and victim shames without thought. She clearly has no idea about consent and what it constitutes. The activism of women and enlightened men who have been agitating to educate and inform people about these and other concepts such as privacy and personal space and legal provisions relating to harassment and abuse appear to have passed with woman by completely.
She doesn’t seem to understand that if one carries her views to their logical end, having a big house or a flashy car are all ‘invitations’ for theft and vandalism. Her limited and myopic world view completely discounts the fact that when females (and males!) of all ages are attacked; this is regardless of, not because of what they are wearing or not wearing. She doesn’t get the fact that sex crimes are not crimes of passion but of dominance and violence. She doesn’t get that the victim’s conduct, her clothing, her history are all irrelevant in crimes such as rape; only the attacker’s conduct is relevant. If, as Gupta's post says, the older woman invited 7 men to rape the women in short clothes, this is beyond horrifying!
Against slut-shaming
This episode reflects so much – firstly there is the self-righteous, ill-informed, puritanical mindset of a person who believes that it is the victim’s responsibility to avoid being attacked; that it is somehow their fault for getting attacked. There is also a dogged determination to defend a viewpoint even when it is demonstrably wrong.
However, there is also something wrong with the aggressive self-assurance that counters that regressive mindset. The women who countered her were confrontational. They threatened and, hectored her; trying to get her to apologise. This is not the way to make anyone see the error of their ways. Gupta and her friends could have been clear and firm but civil in the way they went about schooling her. By taunting and at one point even body shaming her (“oh your Kurta is too tight aunty” one of them says at one point) attacking her, they made her feel bullied rather than regretful for her horrible comments.
There is a difference between being self-confident and aggressive. By reacting the way they did, those young women actually detracted from the very important point they were trying to make. Their aggression rendered their moral victory hollow. Rather than educating and correcting someone’s false beliefs, they made her feel bullied; like a victim. She should have been made to feel ashamed for her words and beliefs. However here, she would have felt that she was being attacked; the one wronged for the way she was treated.
While Shivani and her friends were absolutely right in what they said, perhaps they could have said what they said a little less aggressively. Maybe they could have used an allegory like this image to drive home their point? Their combative stance seems to reflect the aggression and violence that has recently crept into our public discourse and our personal dealings. (Increased road rage is one example of this.) We have to be able to make space for basic decency in our interpersonal dealings even when confronted with egregiously offensive people/ideas and rank ignorance.
That said, this viral video has started a welcome discussion around concepts such as slut-shaming and body positivity making people think along more progressive lines. People have been getting away with shaming and controlling with their regressive beliefs for too long. Youth has answered unequivocally and said what really needed to be said. They could have been politer, but hey! It’s not a perfect world.
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