Then next came an explosive interview featuring Suchitra, where people spoke about her mental health, commented on her character and went as low as they could to character-assassinate her. You wonder what’s common between the two incidents, its ‘women’ and how the world is ready with axes to take jabs at her, as soon as an opportunity presents itself.
The conversation about mental health on social media is commendable, it has made it more acceptable for people to come out and talk about what they are going through. But the flip side of the coin is that it is being used as a weapon. Anyone and everyone on social media behave as if they are experts in the field, they know how to identify mental illnesses, and how disturbed a person is and pass judgments on them not realizing the effect of their words.
On April 28th, an incident that took place in a neighbourhood in Avadi caught everyone’s attention. A 7-month-old child fell from the balcony of their home on the 4th floor on to a sunshade on the first floor. People from in and around the homes came to help rescue the helpless child. A man can be seen standing on the balcony below to help in catching the fallen child while one could also see many others gathered downstairs with a bedsheet in hand. Luckily, the child was rescued but the video certainly went viral.
Yes, the video does make you ask questions like “How did the kid land up there? Or Where are the adults watching over this child? But the most frequently asked question was ‘Where was the mother? How irresponsible could she have been? This quickly changed to comments like women like her shouldn’t be allowed to have children, they shredded her piece by piece, and this was only online. The mother was humiliated by people online, they took the liberty to comment on her capabilities as a mother, a woman and even a human being. The comments on the videos and the discussions around it became brutal and highly toxic.
The mother ended up committing suicide after all the hate she received online and offline. People, whether on the internet or the friends and family around put her on trial, not understanding what she would have been put through. And the child has lost his mother forever. When can we, as a society, learn to empathise with a woman for what she is enduring rather than bringing her down and pushing her to her limits? Why is everyone so quick to question a mother, and not the father? People wait for women to make a mistake, an error in judgement, and are waiting to cut their throats for it. In this particular ‘incident’, the kid was rescued and was safe, isn’t that the most important?
Just a week before, an interview surfaced online, an interview that caused a stir. Yes, the conversations and names that were part of the interview were controversial, but what people started to do was shame her. They commented on her mental well-being, integrity and her character. Everyone is ready to jump on the bandwagon and squeeze out content. Women get called names for the way they look, talk, and conduct themselves. Who are these nameless, faceless people who sit behind their phones and devices, enjoy their ‘content’ and then immediately type their 2 cents on the subject?
Targeting women on social media is normalised to such a toxic extent that no one seems to find a problem with it. The society has stricter norms for women when they make a mistake, they are quickly put under the spotlight and grilled by whoever sees fit. It’s the deep-rooted misogyny that makes it ok to belittle and attack women, especially on social media where anonymity is an armour.
