Mindsets need to be changed

The recent horrific rape and murder of 27-year- old veterinarian Priyanka Reddy’s has taken the nation by storm. But unfortunately, there continue to be some insensitive men like filmmaker Daniel Shravan, who need to be dealt with firmly for expressing senseless opinions. He posted degrading comments about women on his Facebook wall which were found to be very distasteful. The now-deleted Facebook and Twitter posts sounded highly misogynistic which said, women must carry condoms and cooperate while being raped rather dialing 100. He also has the audacity to insist that rape is not a serious issue but murder of the victim is inexcusable.

Chinmayi Sripaada, playback singer in South India shared the screenshots of his posts. Soon many angry celebrities and netizens slammed Daniel with their responses over the social media. Many youngsters found  Daniel’s post barbarous.

Nisha Khanna, a psychologist condemns the post as, “extremely senseless and a heartless statement. His emotional quotient seems to be very poor and it appears like he is using this incident to seek publicity for himself. It appears like he has no  respect for women and  it reflects poorly on his upbringing.”

Meghana Vakada, a restaurateur stresses the importance of awareness about the term ‘consent’ when it comes to sex. “This extremely misogynistic statement indicates that the man does not understand that the act of rape has a life-long damaging impact on the survivor. Men like him need a good dose of education on what consensual sex is about. They need to be sensitised more on taking up a stand against such heinous acts instead of being bystanders or worse making such insensitive or callous statements, says Meghana and adds, “This extremely dangerous statement comes out as an endorsement for the rape and murder and indirectly encourages young men to assume that it is okay to violate a woman’s body.”

Subham Mukhopadhyay, a market research analyst feels that the remarks made by the director and some ministers indicate that the abhorrent perspective is not just due to lack of an education. “It is a greater and more complicated perspective problem. It is sad that sensitising such educated people on how rape is different from engaging in intimacy seems to be the primary necessity of the hour.”

He also adds, “These people (directors and politicians) are public influencers. Be it through their art or speech, it is their ideas that the public consumes. These irresponsible statements establish a very flawed perspective which is critically detrimental to the younger generation today. They grow up with a normalised attitude towards a barbaric crime.”

Pratheek Ponnappa, an IT Consultant who opines that society by large is conscious of the fact that rape and murder, or either one of it is not justified in any way says, “Introducing amendments and new laws for the betterment of the nation is the need of hour. Right now  Daniel Shravan  has come into the limelight because of his posts. What is alarming is that there may be many more men who probably have the same views but haven’t expressed themselves publicly. This attitude needs to be changed.”