Although we’ve firmly placed our feet in the 21st century, our ideals are still somewhere in the 1800s. Because how else would you explain all the sexist advertisements that keep cropping up from time to time? However, as people aren’t afraid to call the advertisers out on their hypocrisy, there is some form of resistance against these regressive ideologies. But when one woman did the same for a marriage advert, the results were pretty ugly.
According to News18, The Hindu had published a matrimonial advertisement that was blatantly sexist. That’s why 21-YO Anupreet Kaur decided to call it out through her Instagram story.
Anupreet’s friend Priyanshu also read the story and chose to ignore it initially. But since there was a way to contact the bigot in question, she did so by sending him an e-mail.
The e-mail that Priyanshu sent was clearly a sarcastic one. But she managed to poke fun at every single one of the man’s absurd desires. She said that she was “currently working with BJP and saving lots of cows” in response to his 8-figure salary requirement. In addition to that, she claimed to be attractive only if he sees her through his dil ki aankh and concluded the mail by saying “All the worst to you!”
However, in comparison to that, the man’s response was quite abusive and was full of rape threats. He called her a pathetic ranting feminist bitch and said that he’d cut open her breasts and then shoot her. In addition to asking for her address and pictures, the anonymous man proclaimed himself as a “masculine warrior killer and rapist of all feminists and their beta orbiters across the world”.
Priyanshu and Anupreet were understandably disturbed by this response. But instead of being weighed down by all the hate they were receiving in their inbox, they went forward and took the help of their friend Ashwin Joseph.
Joseph, who lives in Bengaluru, took the matter straight to The Hindu (because they had published the ad in the first place). The newspaper responded to the complaint with an e-mail.
As of now there’s no news of whether The Hindu’s legal team has contacted Anupreet or Priyanshu. But they’ve put up a very easy-to-miss disclaimer in their newspaper.
This disclaimer roughly means that The Hindu is not responsible for any of the adverts, no matter how sexist they are, and it’s the readers’ duty to verify the sources. But since the girls are optimistic that they’ll get a proper response, apart from this excuse, maybe we can show some optimism as well.
Priyanshu and Anupreet said that they’ve found out that the person has used an e-mail id that self-destructs after some hours. It’s the same kind of e-mail id that Cambridge Analytica used to cover their tracks after collecting information of over 50 million Facebook users. So, maybe it’s nigh impossible to find out who the culprit behind this advert is. But, considering the backlash, maybe despicable people like him will think twice before putting up such adverts.