Sonam Raghuvanshi, Jolly, Greeshma… these are some names that will forever be in the minds of our people, and definitely not for the right reasons. As the antagonists, women antagonists specifically, of some of the most shocking murder cases we have seen in our times – the honeymoon killing in Meghalaya; the cyanide killings in Koodathayi, Kerala; and the ruthless slow poisoning and killing of a young man in the guise of love, yet again in Kerala – these women have definitely etched their names in history.
I remember these names and their faces because there is no way I will forget these with the sheer number of times they have come up on social media feeds; they still do, months and years after the case. In a way, there was a celebration of sorts among a huge section of people when these cases came to light, solely for the reason that the “bad guys” in these cases were not men, but women. And there were paragraphs and paragraphs on how these women were the representation of the absolute evil that women are, what they do to helpless men, how our legal system is totally women-centric and biased to the extent of letting women go, no matter what they do, and punishing only men in all sorts of fake cases.
I then tried to recollect the names of the “bad guys” from other sensational cases – the deaths of Uthra, Vismaya, Athulya, Shraddha Walker, and countless others. But I failed, as I just couldn’t think of the names of these men, for the simple reason that, while the victims’ names were sensationalized for a while, unlike Sonam, Jolly, or Greeshma, these men didn’t have their names or photos plastered across every post and every comment on social media even weeks, months, or years after the heinous crimes they committed.
Anyone who has read my blogs over the years knows that I am a true feminist, one who believes in equality of the genders, not one who hates or bashes men in general or one who desperately, shamelessly defends women who have done something wrong, only to prove solidarity to my gender. But while I do not support horrible women like Sonam, Jolly, or Greeshma, I also do not believe in the “Do you see now that women commit equal or even more crimes compared to men? Do you see now that poor men are the victims?” propaganda that is shoved down our throats using these women and their crimes. Simply because it is wrong – factually and otherwise.
Yes, our legal system SEEMS TO BE women-centric, and yes, there are women who ruin it for other women by misusing the laws. But if our judicial system was really women-centric, we wouldn’t be seeing countless assaults and deaths of women, a handful of them making the headlines, another handful making it to tiny news columns, and so many daily incidents never even reaching the outside world and buried within four walls. And while to the believers of the “women are the real evil” propaganda this fact might seem like an attempt at self-victimization, it isn’t – it is just the plain truth that whether you like it or not, crimes against women are so unimaginably higher that if it was a competition, we would walk away the winners without so much as even a fight. Not that we are happy about it, mind you.
And like I had written in a blog last year, if our system was indeed women-centric, a woman who was stabbed and killed in her bed by a guy who broke into her home, armed with a knife, wouldn’t have been slut-shamed by the very judge who was supposed to get her justice. In the judge’s words, the accused was aroused by the skimpy clothing of the woman. Yes, he was talking about the clothes she was wearing in HER home while she was ALONE. Breaking in with a knife in hand with the intention of raping and murdering her – not so much a problem, and no motive whatsoever there. But the clothes she was wearing when he broke into her home? Now, that definitely is motive, and one that was the victim’s fault! Bravo!
None of this means that crimes against men do not matter or that all men are brutes. But when you use the names and pictures of a handful of women from crimes spaced out across years to make out a picture that simply isn’t true and twist the narrative, we are forced to ask – what about all those male perpetrators from all those crimes against women that happen every single day across the country and across the world? The very same perpetrators whose names we do not even remember – because a man committing a crime is so damn normalized that it does not warrant any real attention.
So the next time you think of posting these women’s names and pictures as a weapon against all women to prove your point, maybe do a quick Google search with “assault” or “murder” as the keywords and based on the search results, decide who the real winner is in this senseless competition that we never sought out. That won’t open your eyes though because you are “conveniently blind,” aren’t you?
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Also published on Medium.
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