It’s not funny

This is an important topic that I want to express to everyone reading this, especially to all the wonderful women who will resonate with it and to all men who wants to make women around them safe. This is an open letter to each one of you.

It’s not funny when you make jokes about your girlfriend, mother, or friends. It’s hurtful when you joke about how a woman can’t drive or use foul language directed at sisters and mothers. When you make jokes about a woman not understanding why you invested in one stock over another, it’s a reflection of ingrained behaviors that you might not realize are wrong and hurtful.

It’s not funny to make your female colleague feel different when you go for a smoke break and took a decision without involving her. It’s not funny to say she got promoted because she is a woman and company has to maintain gender ratio or to suggest she used her appearance to get through an interview. Have you ever considered how deeply it hurts the women around you, whose self-confidence is shattered for life? Every time she tries to drive, there’s a joke going on in her mind which you told the other day about slowing down because a woman on a scooter was ahead. Every time she tries to excel in sports, someone casually mentions that she isn’t smart enough to understand the rules. This happens because, growing up, girls were treated differently. They were sent back when playing cricket on the terrace, they were cooking food to help their mother’s when you were having fun with your father on a game of poker, she was not allowed to go out alone once she was a teenager unless accompanied by a male family member because there was this guy in colony would follow her around on way back from tuition. Our life trajectories were different because we were raised differently with no fault of our parents because they were just protecting us from men like these.

It’s not funny when you follow girls on Instagram and comment inappropriate things on their posts. It’s not funny to joke about rape or assault. When you protest against alimony cases involving celebrities and show your concern about being scared of marriage because of alimony, have you ever thought about how women feel haunted by men like you and your friends every time they step out of the house? Have you ever sat in a class where there are 10 girls among 200 boys who starts to shout whenever a girl enters the room? If not, you have no idea what is truly scary about the world.

Have you ever been on a metro or bus and felt uncomfortable because of hundreds of faces staring at you, even when you left your house feeling the most confident? Can you step out of the bubble you are living in and realize that this whole idea is not a joke? When you treat women differently, you shatter their confidence for life. Instead of becoming defensive when a woman shares a story about feeling unsafe, try to stop your friends who disrespect any girl in front of you just for fun. Trust me, it’s not funny.

If you feel attacked by anything in this post, own it and try to improve your personality like you improve other aspects of your life. There is no shame in accepting your flaws and working on them. It may take time because of years of conditioning, but trying is still better. The day you see women as someone different than you is the day you have let her down be it your sister, friend, girlfriend, wife or even your mother.
And if you read this post and feel like it is too complaining, then may God help you, because you are doomed.