Is Being A Feminist A Criminal Offence?

Gemma Arterton, the British Actress, once said, “It’s a male-dominated society; You can be a Feminist, It’s just difficult, because sometimes it just comes back at you,” and these words so aptly summarises that if a woman tries to fight for her own rights or for others, she is drawn under the category of a feminist, which ultimately acts as a threat to the male dominant society.

The most recent and disgusting example of the male chauvinist society was seen on twitter when, Jessica Valenti, the author of “Sex Object” and a columnist at The Guardian (US), and an inspiring woman, received rape and murder threats against her five-year-old daughter by some anonymous man, after which she was forced to abandon social media.

This is an extremely shameful incident which displays how even top inspiring women are abused when they try to voice their opinions. Jessica was threatened because she is a feminist and speaks on women eccentric issues and the most disgusting part is that the threats have been made against her ‘five-year-old’ daughter. How misogynistic someone has to be to stoop down to such a low level.

But this is not the first time, our patriarchal society has shown its true colours. There have been many cases where many Indian women achievers have been abused on social media platforms for merely speaking out on certain issues or events.

Recently, the famous singer, Sona Mohapatra, spoke against the comment made by Superstar Salman Khan, which triggered the outrage of Salman fans and made her land in the territory of rape threats, death threats and innumerous abuses.

Also, a journalist from Asianet News TV, a Malayalam News Channel, was attacked and abused for calling Goddess Durga a sex worker during her show. Her number was distributed in Whatsapp groups and people gave her threats and called her terms like ‘prostitute.’

This is a sad reality that successful stories of women achievers are neglected in our society. Whenever a woman speaks up, she is dragged down or tried to. She is considered a disgrace to the society and culture and all this happens because women empowerment is actually a threat to the male dominant pattern that our society follows.

There needs to be more strictness in online laws and the responsible authorities should take immediate action against such social media goons so that women can freely access the social media and voice out their opinions.