Bengaluru woke up to the horrible news of the mass molestation of women during New Year’s eve celebrations. The Karnataka Home Minister was quick to remind us that ‘such incidents do happen’ on and around Christmas and New Year.
While the Kerala Home Minister became the first to grab the opportunity to trivialize the issue, Abu Azmi was not one to be left behind. He made it very clear that the women’s attire at the time was to be blamed for what they went through.
As if this complacency regarding such crimes against women was not enough, a Twitter hashtag #NotAllMen soon joined the club. This hashtag soon took up a position in the trending slot and men began defending themselves and were very sure that somehow the issue was not molestation but that men were being blamed for the crime.
Not to say that all men are rapists, of course they are not. That’s a fact that barely needs any recognition. However the fact that such a discussion even started on Twitter and men felt the need to jump onto the bandwagon to tell us something on the lines of ‘not all drivers run people over’, is disturbing and appalling at the same time. At a time when it was important for society to stand up against the molestation of women revellers in Bengaluru, a hashtag like NotAllMen barely made any sense.
Even though several men on Twitter put on their sheep mask and followed the trend blindly, fortunately some drilled sense into the matter and took over to make the trend stop.
#NotAllMen? Indeed. But yes all women. ALL women have been molested or assaulted or groped or catcalled at least once. #YESALLWOMEN
— Kapoor Neha (@PWNeha) January 2, 2017
#notallmen trending shows how fragile our egos are. Time we admit that there is an issue & try to fix it. Stop making it about urself FFS
My cat is literally the only evidence I have that #NotAllMen might be a real thing
— Anne (@TheBookOfAnne) December 28, 2016
What #notallmen really does… #lifeinleggings pic.twitter.com/Km2JDzsLQB
— Ronelle King (@IAmXilomen) December 26, 2016
It is mention-worthy that people from both genders came ahead and made sure the hashtag stopped trending, but the fact that such trends even come into being shows we as a society have a long way to go in addressing issues women face and even crimes against them
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