Kerala Woman Slams Slut-Shaming Internet Trolls

Kerala Woman Slams Slut-Shaming Internet Trolls

Mangalore Today News Network

Aug 27, 2016: In a recent statement that garnered a lot of ridicule, Rishiraj Singh, a senior IPS officer and Excise Commissioner of Kerala, said that a man who stares at a woman continuously for 14 seconds can be jailed.

Among the many people who shared their views, Vanaja Vasudev, a resident of Alappuzha district in Kerala, also wrote a Facebook post about how she finds the statement ludicrous. But she was bombarded with obscene and derogatory remarks on the social media platform.

A strong-willed woman, Vanaja decided against remaining silent and letting the trolls win. She lashed out against those commentators in an elaborate Facebook post, which went viral.

"If a boy stares at a girl for 14 seconds, just 14 seconds, the girl can file a FIR and have the boy in the lock up," Rishiraj Singh had said on August 16. Vanaja took to Facebook to share her views on the issue. She wrote that she was bemused by the comment because it is quite natural for men and women to look at each other and that she too enjoys looking at handsome men in public places. She added that she sometimes felt good when men looked at her in the past and pointed out the sexism and double standards in the statement by addressing the fact that it applies only to men.

 One of the most pressing questions in her post was about how such offences will be measured? But not everyone was empathetic of the stand Vanaja chose to take. The comment section on her post that sought to equalise both the genders was flooded with several negative and problematic responses. Since Vanaja chose to mention that she enjoys selective male attention, people immediately tagged her as a “whore” and some even had the audacity to ask for “the rate” that she charges to perform sexual favours. Through her second post that later went viral, she addressed all the vulgar messages that were being sent to her through private messages as well.


The post mentions how the trolls mustn’t assume a morally superior stand because she hasn’t replied to them individually and it isn’t because of her inability to come up with a scathing response. “Don’t measure my life or confidence with your 4-inch scales,” she told the commenters, adding that none of them know about the hardships she had to live through as the daughter of a widow in Kerala. Her father passed away when she and her brother were very young and their mother raised them alone. She talks about how she had to deal with her mother’s insecurities and loneliness, because of which her mother soon became short-tempered and physically abusive. After hitting her repeatedly, she would come to Vanaja while she lay in bed and would touch the welts left from the beating, as she was filled with remorse.

She addressed the fact that her mother chose not to be in a relationship with a man again because of the stigma surrounding widow remarriage. A self-made woman, Vanaja juggled various jobs until she finished her education. She slowly realized that she had a lot of bitterness inside her that she wanted to get rid of in a conscious manner. Soon this hatred turned into love and it is this approach to life that is apparent in her first Facebook post. Before concluding, she asks various chetans (elder brothers) not to try and teach her Bharat Sanskar (Indian culture) while speaking about her private parts.