He is one of India’s best known and most respected industrialists. Harsh Goenka is very active on Twitter, sharing funny or interesting content, offering life advice and tweeting homilies; sometimes triggering debate. He has a lot of people appreciating his every word. However this time, one of his ‘jokes’ did not strike the right note. Here’s what happened:
The ‘joke’ was with reference to the recent news about the divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates and the divorce of uber-rich men like Jeff Bezos before this. The implication is that women marry men for money and divorce them for the same reason. For some reason, this is supposed to be so very funny.
People expected better of Harsh Goenka and there was a significant pushback against a tweet that was seen to be both sexist and unfunny. Goenka deleted the tweet, but nothing on the internet can ever be erased; not really. His objectionable tweet was screenshotted and published by several publications. Many commentators expressed their disappointment with Goenka, his sense of ‘humour’ and why people in his position have to be more responsible about what they say.
This image is typical of the kind of thing that Indian uncles love to forward on WhatsApp; the sort of nudge-nudge-wink-wink misogyny that passes for humour. It is not only unfunny but is also unoriginal and rather unintelligent. The implication here is that women are demanding and domineering and expect their husbands to be meek and obedient - and that if a husband is agreeable with his wife, he is somehow less a man. This is unfunny precisely because it is so exactly the reverse of the situation in most homes. Power and decision making rests overwhelmingly with the men of the family; particularly in our country.
Goenka’s joke seems to indicate that he too prescribes to the mentality that finds ‘jokes’ about avaricious, grasping women funny. Some of the responses to Goenka’s tweet expressed disappointment that like Goenka with so many who look to him for inspiration (he has 1.6 million Twitter followers) thought it was OK to express such casual sexism. What people like Goenka do not understand is that ‘jokes’ like these are micro-aggressions that serve to normalise and perpetuate everyday sexism and casual misogyny. No, this is not just a joke. This sort of joke punches down – for something to be funny, it must be able to punch up.
It becomes doubly problematic when someone of Goenka’s stature seems to endorse such a mindset – because he is influential and seen as someone to emulate. There is the presumption that married women who don’t have a paid job are somehow freeloaders. On the one hand, women are glorified for the many sacrifices they make for their families as wives and mothers; daughters and daughters in law. On the other hand, women are demeaned for expecting alimony or support when a marriage breaks down.
Unfortunately, there rarely any acknowledgement of the fact that by virtue of being married, many women forsake possible earning opportunities. We are only now beginning to understand the concept of unpaid labour in the home. Caregiving duties fall overwhelmingly upon the shoulders of women – even those women who work outside the home. We are only now beginning to understand that women need to be compensated or paid for in some way for this unpaid labour.
For someone like Goenka to make a ‘joke’ like this is telling. Does it mean that when shorn of the money and sophistication he undoubtedly has, he is just another WhatsApp uncle who makes jokes at the cost of women? If he finds this funny, he may seem to harbour the same sort of misogynistic views that views women as predatory and greedy beings out to fleece hapless men for money. Scratch the surface and there may well be an unfunny misogynist here – even if his name is Harsh Goenka and even if he decided to cut his losses by belatedly deleting his tweet. The damage is done, Mr. Goenka.
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