Sexist social media

When actress Rashmika Mandanna uploaded a poster of her upcoming Telugu film Geetha Govindam, in which actor Vijay Devarakonda is seen carrying her on his back, little did she know that she’d face ridiculous backlash from some of her 

followers. She was lectured and reminded her that she was engaged to actor Rakshit Shetty and what she was doing was absolutely wrong! “When I uploaded this particular poster of Geetha Govindam, a bunch of people started posting mean comments. What I’ve noticed is that they create fake accounts and comment just to get a reply from me. I did reply to some of them and they apologised saying they just wanted to talk to me. They need to realise that we’re human beings too. Some of us are targeted when they see our growth as an actor and since they’re fans of other actors, they post such comments,” laments Rashmika.

The actress also faced several comments from social media users who asked her to not romance another man as she was Rakshit Shetty’s fiancé! “Male actors romance other heroines even after getting married, but people have no problem with that just because they’re men! It’s like if a woman romances a guy onscreen after marriage, she loses her respect. It’s disgusting that people think this way. I left the trollers a message asking them to DM me 

personally and not annoy my fans. There were many who were jealous that I was acting with Vijay and that I’m engaged to Rakshit!” she reveals.

Actress Sruthi Hariharan reveals that she had to face a great deal of misogynistic comments too. “I’ve had diverse sexist experiences. I seldom go to the comments section, but when I do, it’s disheartening as people are commenting about how fake you are or saying things like ‘How can you talk about women empowerment when all you do is sleep around?’ They’re such regressive comments and most of them are from men,” says Sruthi. The actress’ biggest tryst with misogyny was when she spoke openly about the casting couch. “People would say things like she’s doing it for 

publicity and completely overlook the fact that it exists. This comes from a space of misogyny where people cannot take a woman calling a spade a spade. They want you to surrender and go along with the system.”