The sexist remarks by a couple of politicians on the eve of India’s 68th Republic Day celebrations are not to be seen in isolation. They are part of a distinct pattern of an undesirable kind of rightist populism that seems to be taking over the world and against which an estimated two million women in 60 countries, including India and a region as remote as Antarctica, demonstrated last weekend. Such misogynist sexism seems to have found further impetus in the new US President Donald Trump who, as candidate, had boasted of the worst kind of sexual chauvinism aimed against women, denigrating them in such crude terms that they hardly bear repeating. In latest executive action, Mr Trump also reintroduced the “global gag rule” which denies family planning funding to foreign groups that advise women about abortion.
Compared to Mr Trump’s words and actions, the likes of JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav, who believes the honour of the ballot is more sacred than that of a woman and BJP’s Vinay Katiyar, who tried to objectify Priyanka Gandhi Vadra by comparing her looks to that of women in his party when asked about the effect she may have on the UP campaign trail, may appear almost staid. But they only carry sinister warnings about where we are going as a society when people in power are freely maligning half the population with outright male chauvinism. Such comments strung together constitute an attack on human rights, which is also about women’s rights. Gender equality suffers each time a politician mouths off such despicable portrayals of women because the media relays it in such graphic detail as to encourage copycats as well as emboldens those fringe elements who sexually harass and attack women. It’s time vilifying of women is also seen as “hate speech” and perpetrators made to face the law, if indeed those who police it are not chauvinists themselves.
