Woman: Sex object or free spirit?

When Marlon Brando said, “Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite,” he probably did not foresee how true his words would appear in the current Indian scenario. On the one hand, social media has been abuzz with praises and laurels for young actress Emma Watson, who as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, gave an impassioned speech on feminism and gender to launch the HeForShe campaign which aims to encourage men and boys as advocates for feminism and to end the inequalities that women face every day, globally. On the other hand, closer home, The Times of India has faced harsh criticism for circulating a picture of actress Deepika Padukone’s cleavage, with a headline that said OMG Deepika’s cleavage show.

While Watson’s speech is inspiring, electric and absolutely relevant in the current scenario, where women all over the world are being abused, molested and raped, the newspaper has, many feel, stooped to a new low. When Deepika wrote an open letter clarifying her stance on the topic, she hit the nail on the head by saying “Digging out an old article and headlining it OMG: Deepika’s Cleavage Show! to attract readers is using the power of influence to proliferate recessive thought.” All that the The Times of India, which calls itself the ‘leading daily’ in the country, had to do, was publish a public apology, especially when they knew how much traction the issue had received on social media and other platforms. But instead of accepting their error, the TOI chose to take the high moral ground and ‘hit back’, justifying their use of the picture with regressive statements such as “Deepika, who began her career as a ‘calendar girl’ for a liquor brand…” (Referring to her stint as a model who posed for the Kingfisher calendar). So? Does that means you can objectify her? This seems to be a vindictive and personal attack by the TOI who, obviously, does not seem to have any strong justification on the issue. As the saying goes, the best defence is a good offence, and TOI seems to be following this strategy to the T.

As if that was not enough, the article goes on to take a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, saying that Deepika has, in the past, posed for many magazine cover shoots that show her cleavage and much more, so it does not really matter if the TOI showed it, too. What the TOI seems to forget is that the magazine cover shoots were done with Deepika’s consent. She posed for them voluntarily, while the zoomed-in, top-angle shot of her cleavage was done without her consent. The TOI, who championed the cause of the victims of the recent phone tapping scam, stating that it was a violation of their privacy, have no qualms about the violation of privacy that occurs in this case. It is the TOI that is being hypocritical here, not Deepika!

(Read TOI's response here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Dear-Deepika-our-point-of-view/articleshow/43084705.cms) 

While the TOI has gone to town with story packages on women’s safety and how the rape victim does not ‘deserve it’ irrespective of what she is wearing, they seem, in this case, to be following the same mentality that khap panchayats do when they say the rape victim is at fault; or the Taliban, who stone women who commit adultery, but spare the man. By saying that Deepika posed as a ‘calendar girl’, the unwritten, hidden implication is that ‘she asked for it’ and that ‘if she poses as a calendar girl, she should not object to our picture showing her cleavage’. The analogy the TOI seems to be drawing here is similar to the rhetoric that sex workers can be raped, because selling their bodies is, after all, their profession. Of course, let’s not even get into the insinuations that the phrase ‘a liquor brand’ makes on Deepika’s morality.

However, what is most appalling, disturbing and disappointing is that the article is written by a woman. This does not go to say that it would have been alright had it been written by a man (absolutely not!), but the fact that even a woman cannot understand that another woman’s body is her own and she can do what she chooses to do with it, is to say the very least, shameful!

The TOI’s justification that “the online world… is chaotic and cluttered — and sensational headlines are far from uncommon,” is shallow and base, so is the line that says other publications should not have carried Deepika’s picture while reporting about the issue. 

What the TOI fails to (or has deliberately decided not to) understand is that Deepika had absolutely no problem with the picture of her cleavage being shown. She says as much in her response to TOI, where she writes, “It is not about breasts, penises or any other body part being reported. It is a matter of context and how out-of-context the reportage is just to sell a headline.”

As Watson says, “I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body… I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly, I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.”

Emma Watson would shake her head in disgust at TOI’s antics. As so many of us are doing.