My husband came back home the other day, looking a little perplexed. He handed me the grocery bags, not saying anything, but I couldn’t miss that look on his face. “What is it,” I asked him.
“There was a lady, you know, slapping a man left, right and centre. She said he’d tried to pour some liquid on her head. She was indeed clutching a small bottle. The man looked helpless, he said he hadn’t done anything. No one was taking any side, you know, the girl could have been bluffing. I informed a policeman and came back,” he disclosed.
I understood. Remember when the whole internet broke when a foreigner tweeted the picture of a man apparently masturbating on her? We didn’t even bother to look at the other side. We began shaming him until he came out in the open clarifying that he had been urinating on the streets when this lady clicked his picture and tweeted it. We don’t really know how much truth there is in his version, but he should be given the benefit of doubt, right?
Since then, we have been exposed to one reality. Shaming a guy on the basis of one lady’s claims might not be the right way. I mean, yes, there are numerous cases of crimes against women emerging from different parts of the country, which makes the outrage absolutely valid. However, not everything we see and hear should be taken on face value.
Another example when such claims by a lady had her biting the dust is that of Jasleen Kaur, who became a celebrity overnight when she posted the picture of a man apparently passing lewd comments and then saying, ‘do whatever you want’. She became a rage, trending and all, the face that every news channel wanted to have on its screens.
After a day or so, the man in question told his side of the story. The fact that the lady was the one who started the trouble and the man was nowhere at fault was also confirmed by many present there. She went underground. Jasleen Kaur hasn’t been trending anymore.
Social networking sites have become a tool, a knife. A double-edged one, mind you. While it’s taken women empowerment to a whole, whole new level, we can’t really ignore the other side it presents.
One of my friends shared a post the other day which got me into the thinking mode. “Saw a girl in a deserted part of a road at night. There was some problem with her scooty — guess it had broken down. She looked vulnerable, and I wanted to help. But I didn’t. What if she would click my picture and accuse me of molesting her? Unlike Jasleen Kaur’s case where there were witnesses, in this case, there would be no one to help me prove my innocence. My fear got the better of me. I simply drove off.”
You know what, this trend of taking feminism to another extreme might spell a lot of trouble. When good men start hesitating before helping women fearing being victimised, times will become tougher ahead indeed. Therefore, let’s be a little critical before passing our verdict as soon as something goes viral. There’s mostly more than what meets the eye.