What’s a sexist joke doing in the restroom of a hotel? When a joke in the bathroom of a Bengaluru hotel was shared by a Facebook user, it created an instant furore online.
A petition, that was signed on Jhatkaa.org asking Lemon Tree Hotel to take down the poster and apologise may have worked. Frothy and light-hearted jokes are fine, but not at the cost of making women sound ditsy with despicable references to sexism.
The joke tells of a woman who excites a gorilla at a zoo, and how her husband is amused and tells her to lure the animal further and then opens the door to the cage and locks his wife inside asking her to provide excuses of having a headache and deny the act of sex. Although the hotel has immediately accepted their folly after Anoushka Kapoor’s Facebook post; people have expressed their angst.
The poster of the joke at the hotel, which told the story of a man who forces his wife into a cage with an ‘excited’ gorilla
Saritha Hegde of The Friday Convent that gives the female identity a platform to blossom states her view, “If a hotel doesn’t understand the meaning of consent, how would I feel staying there as travelling women executive? This isn’t funny, but if one really thinks that this is their sense of humour, then jokes should be meant for both the genders and not at the expense of one against another, especially when we are dealing with a culture of rape. Is this the best this hotel could do in the name of humour or do they prefer to have only male guests who get their sense of humour?”
Preeti Shenoy, author of Life Is What You Make It, agrees and says, “This clearly shows how our society is known to objectify women and that’s clearly not a good thing.”
Aradhana Lal, Vice President, Sustainability Initiatives, The Lemon Tree Hotel Company apologised stating, “This has reference to Tuesday’s social media conversations regarding a poster at one of our hotels and the hotel apologises for having offended anyone with this item.
“While we have already removed the poster in reference, we have initiated the process of revealing our collaterals across our hotels in order to remove anything that could be viewed as inappropriate.”
The apology statement that the hotel mailed out
Women, wherever they are, usually fall victims to constant butts for the stereotyped sexist jokes and someone who isn’t surprised to hear of this incident is Geetha Menon, secretary of Stree Jagriti Committee.
“What the hotel management has done shows how we live in a patriarchal society and what some people think of women. Most hotels adhere to gender sensitisation. If they had a sexual harassment complaints committee in place like some institutes do, they would have helped them build a right attitude. We live in a sexist society where all sexism is well-drilled in from childhood. Our movies and things we see around are classic examples. Either the hotel management is ignorant or shares the same sexist mindset as people in our society.”
