I am an ardent Cricket fan. I have greatest respect for Sachin Tendulkar, who is truly one of the legends of the game. But I have never been fond of the cult like fanatics who froth at mouth at the slightest semblance of criticism. This is hardly limited to Sachin of course, any popular star – Rajnikanth, SRK – choose your pick. These people just brainlessly attack anyone who doesn’t remotely agree with their perspective. I get the being passionate aspect of it, for sure but losing all perspective and frothing at their mouths? Not so much.
It should hardly be a surprise why Maria Sharapova, who is a Tennis star and Russian, wouldn’t know Sachin – especially since cricket is hardly a popular sport in Russia (or globally, as compared to Football etc.). But oh no, she is just not allowed to not know Sachin, because fuck logic.
A lot of innocuously funny (albeit childish) remarks may be dismissed as innocent trolling, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. Her page was flooded with misogynist comments and is still being done so. I’m borrowing this assimilated screenshot by India Commenting FB page:
(for non hindi speakers: randi=whore)
These are not even a fair indicator of the a minor percentile of the misogynist crap that’s being dumped there. I just can’t be bothered to screencap these douchebaggery – basically the more “innocent” comments are the ones which spams Sachin’s achievements over and over again and the ones which claims that she’s just lying. Then there’s direct death threats, slut shaming etc. If you really have the time and patience, go through it here in the comments section.
And people continued slut shaming, calling her “bitch”, a “porn star” etc. on twitter – in and outside the by now popular #whoissharapova hashtag which I have no intention of linking here.
When exactly did being a fan become equivalent to a brainless moron? Or more importantly, a misogynist douchebag? How exactly are you putting your legend you worship so dearly in a good light by doing all this? Zombies on their slower days are capable more rational thought than these bunch.
This whole incident sums up everything that’s wrong with our society – mob like mentality and misogyny. And the intersection of both was very hard and shameful to watch for me as an Indian and an ardent cricket fan myself.
Seriously, sort your shit out people. I don’t care how much you worship any sports star, it’s not okay to dehumanize someone under any pretext, much less for the blasphemous crime of not knowing a sports star regardless of how much of a legend he may be. Just think about that for a second and calm the fuck down. Thank you.
Indian Male Feminist 
Well written.
And dude, where is your article on that Celina Jailtley gay wedding song?
I removed that since it felt poorly written in retrospect (not that my other stuff is well written, but felt this was worse and below the already low quality threshold 😛 )
Very bothersome indeed.
https://wordpress.com/read/post/id/70170925/21/
My take on the #whoismariasharapova trend
Bang on! 😀
Why did you blur the names? Let them be public.
Good job with calling out Indians on their misogyny, even being a cricket fan yourself! I’ll definitely keep reading your blog!
You are unbelievable man! Couldn’t stop myself laughing while I imagined you ranting the above article in a high pitched voice!
Do you even understand the concept of cussing?? Thats what “fanatics” do when the guy/girl they respect has been “insulted” (according to them). Now I’m not saying thats right or they express that in the healthiest of ways but it’s meant to “hurt” the other person (yeah they imagine the said offender to be hearing it and feeling sad and that makes them quite happy). Now in this whole concept cum issue, how the hell did you my good fella manage to sneak in the concept of misogyny ??
Let me break it down for you: Oxford dictionary defines misogyny (noun) as : Dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. Are you suggesting that just because Sharapova is a woman, she had to face (yeah I’m gonna be dramatic) those words? Don’t kid yourself man. If it was Wawrinka in place of Sharapova, he would have faced similar (not exact because men and women don’t get offended by the same words) if not more hurtful and offensive words. He would have been called (now i’m not proud of this) chutiya, fucking loser, madarchod, blah blah….. man these words would rip the soul of all the men I know including me. Do you honestly believe, it then becomes a case of Misandry? (I had to google that one lol). No my good brother. It is simply a case of shit mouthed idiots who just shout expletives to make themselves feel good.
Dude It’s amazing, you have unlocked that crazy ass level where you look at every fucking god-damn thing with the same lens just waiting for any attack on a woman (even if it doesn’t have to do anything of her being a woman). I totally feel Sharapova is absolutely in no wrong at all. Why should she know? Heck we don’t the know the stars of baseball or ice-hockey. But you see thats not the point of your article. You have twisted it (rather forcefully) to fit into your fancy little blog of people attacking women. God bless the people reading your posts. Those poor souls probably think of you as their knight in a shiny armor.
I’m sure you’ll come up with a smart-ass reply around this and try to say (again in my own imagination of you with a high-pitched voice) “man get your shit together, read the article again, this is my blog, my blogg!!! i can write anything i want blah blah”. You can write anything you want dude (yay internet !) but you need to get your shit sorted man. Come-on don’t be that crazy guy dude. I’m concerned for your mental health here (I know !!! but for your info, I generally don’t do this. This is my one of those Mother Teresa moments (holy shit !! i mean in a nice way, not insulting the great woman. dont kill me plsssss))
ps: I’m an ibanker my profession, decently educated (some might say iit+iim) and the time I took to write this cost me quite some money. But hey worth it right?
Oh here we go – about time. Was hard to go through your rant where you seem to be ironically irked about my “rant”. But yes, I do understand the concept of “cussing” as someone who “cuss” frequently and have ‘”cussed” in my OP too.
Second of all, I was talking about both the mob mentality/fanaticism (which would be true in your hypothetical and what anyone would suffer from) – and calling her randi (whore), bitch, and showering a bunch of misogynistic insults – which is misogyny. And yes, these are born out of ingrained prejudice against women, when they target her based on her gender. I didn’t bother to screencap individual comments, there are plenty of them on her FB wall calling her a pornstar and Russian bitch or whore or whatever. Among other misogynist crap.
And boy, you’re really open minded aren’t you? Calling me “crazy” (nice bit of veiled mental illness shaming there, but sorry to disappoint you) and whatnot. Look at you predicting my “smartass” response too. Then why did you bother wasting your oh-so-precious time commenting on my apparently nonsensical post insulting me exactly?
So ironic that how amazingly this complaint about my “rant” turned out to be one that personally attacks me. Pure class.
Apart from the personal attack, I agree with Mr. Aditya.
Dont you think by your logic, every “cuss” word in the world then becomes a case of either Misogyny or Misandry? because the person on the receiving end of the curse has a gender. I think we can safely put aside the third gender as that set is quite small and even including them doesn’t change the pretext.
in my opinion, a case of misogyny would be: I think Sharapova is a bad driver because she is a woman. Also she wouldn’t be a bad driver if she weren’t a woman. Now applying that here: I call Sharapova is a whore because she is a woman and not if she weren’t one. Well obviously because it doesn’t apply is she weren’t woman. If Sharapova were a man, they would curse an analogous word for whore to a man but there isn’t one.
Well, at least you don’t “agree” with his personal attack, that’s cool 🙂
Misogyny is systemic discrimination against women. Or even by the dictionary definition (which is inadequate but let’s go by that) he quoted INGRAINED prejudice against women. I’ve explained why misogynistic insults are.. well.. misogynistic. Calling a woman a “slut” isn’t just “cuss word” – that’s slut shaming. Shaming for her sexuality. Just like calling a gay guy “faggot” isn’t just pure cuss word. Or calling a black person n-word. And so on.
So anything less than explicitly making statements like “Sharapova is a bad driver because she is a woman” isn’t misogynistic? Wow. Well that’s conveniently high a bar you’ve set there.
And yes, that’s PRECISELY the point. Using slut shaming to use women to shame for sexuality, there is no male equivalent that’s widely used as insult like “whore”. It’s misogynistic and targets her gender. How hard is that to comprehend? Just like calling a gay guy a “faggot” or black person the N-word is homophobic and racist respectively. Saying that “but I just used it coz there’s no straight/white equivalent for that!” doesn’t make it any better does it?
Nope, not all cuss words become misogynist – I can think of shitloads of insults that aren’t gender specific or misogynistic.
He’s from an IIM. Don’t sweat it. If he’s really in IB and not some backoffice shit job, he’s not going to have the time to write this.
I deal with these middle class mentality clowns everyday (iit+iim). They send me pitchbooks which I delete first thing i see them in my inbox. It’s the first time in their lives they’ve come into money so they behave this way.
I’m sure this Aditya wrote a comment slagging off Sharapova as well. You see, this 27-year old virgin spent all of his most likely morbidly obese childhood hitting the books 12 hours a day. The 1-2 hours he had free were spent idolizing Tendulkar. So you must understand where he’s coming from. Katju was absolutely right with his 95% of the Indian middle class being idiots quip. This whole episode just proves that.
Misogynist is right. I find that people are quick to question the sexual lives or origins of women who fall out of the line society has drawn for them. A quick look at the comments on Taslima Nasreen’s twitter feed to anything she says is proof enough of this.
A reply to Mr. Nagraj:
“I deal with these middle class mentality clowns everyday (iit+iim).”
Well all of us were not lucky enough to have been born into a cradle of gold Mr. Nagraj. Middle class people like us have actually worked hard to reach where we are today given our poor start in lives. We have played life in the hard mode you see.
“They send me pitchbooks which I delete first thing i see them in my inbox.”
Good for you. I guess you don’t like the quality of IIT/IIM grads. Would like to know more about your successes in whatever you do and how you did it.
“It’s the first time in their lives they’ve come into money so they behave this way.”
Simply wow. Guess we should have been born into money to behave that way and not this. Makes perfect sense.
“You see, this 27-year old virgin spent all of his most likely morbidly obese childhood hitting the books 12 hours a day.”
Well just because you lost your virginity to your uncle at the tender age of 12 doesn’t mean you have to boast about it.
“Katju was absolutely right with his 95% of the Indian middle class being idiots quip.”
I like how you think. Might I suggest you to lift India’s middle class out of its misery by donating some of your vast riches. Probably then we might stop being idiots.
Just to be clear I absolutely don’t endorse fat shaming/personal remarks/sweeping generalizations. I’ve pointed that out once. I’m just too knackered to say this stuff over and over again after dealing with all the hatred I’ve received for this piece myself.
I’m just letting as many comments as possible unless someone engages in repeated trolling here.
i love you. and ibankers are the worst/most mindless of them all, or they wouldnt be doing what they do. maybe its all those loans from having been in the iits and iims that makes them stupid. 😀
Thanks Seeta, although let’s try to avoid personal attacks here, even if it’s one someone who felt it was okay to advertise their degrees for some bizarre reason in their comment filled with personal attacks 🙂 There was no need for that sort of sweepning generalization.
Wow new logic in town people! Taking a student loan now makes you stupid ! Somebody please break it down to Raghuram Rajan. I’m sure he would be devastated. That was sarcasm if you couldn’t tell.
Also Seeta, don’t you think you shouldn’t be making ridiculous generalist statements about ibankers or people from iits/iims when you yourself seem to get offended by generalist statements about women, assuming this whole discussion came due to the topic of misogyny.
Please correct the first sentence….It seems like the sentence is about to continue, but then their is a period….Did you miss something?
It should hardly be a surprise why Maria Sharapova, who is a Tennis star and Russian, and cricket is hardly a popular sport in Russia (or globally, as compared to Football etc.). But oh no, she is just not allowed to not know Sachin, because fuck logic.
You didn’t miss anything – it’s supposed to be that way. “I’m an ardent cricket fan” -> isn’t this the sentence you’re referring to?
no…..”It should hardly be a surprise why Maria Sharapova, who is a Tennis star and Russian, and cricket is hardly a popular sport in Russia (or globally, as compared to Football etc.).”
Read that over….
Oh that – sorry my bad and completely missed it. I do make such mistakes from time to time, thanks to my attention span 😛
Thanks for pointing it out 🙂
This has nothing to do with MARIA+SACHIN isuue
i will just say a few thing…whoever you are…”indian male feminist”…but you are very new to criticism…moreover you do not at all understand whar being an IIT+IIM guy…you may be a small time blogger who missed those grades to be in top notch place…actually i give a shit about who you are…just one piece of advice…if you touch a beehive…you know…please grow up…if you could not achieve it then then do it now…be serious about what you are doing…you cant shit in public by just saying that others did the same
Dude what in god’s name are you talking about? Why the heck are we discussing degrees? Like does it matter if I’m educated or have IIT+IIM degrees? What beehive, is this some sort of threat? Am I supposed to be scared?
God I loathe this cult mentality. I don’t really CARE about your or your friend’s degree (assuming you’re not the same guy). He’s the one who brought it up and his high earning job or whatever. What exactly are you accusing me of here?
This blog is such a joke!
Is this your pathetic attempt to get laid or something? Because trust me I’ve been there…its not worth it.
God what’s with the sudden influx of moronic comments?
If my blog is “such a joke” then why the heck are you commenting here to merely say that it’s such a joke?
FYI I don’t think women are some sort of machines where you put kindness coins into until sex falls out. If I did, I wouldn’t have written anything in the first place. And if you have “been there” then I guess that explains why you find my blog “a joke”.
I find your blog a joke because there you are with your shit face writing shitty articles hoping for some action to go on but behaving like you are doing stuff of humanity.
and I’ve been there means I got laid with a bunch of women using this but then i felt all this bullshit wasn’t even required in the first place. there you go.. valuable advice for you mate 😉
Hahaha how very mature. I haven’t CLAIMED that I do shit for humanity. I write about stuff I like to write about.
And wow what classy guy. Thanks for your advice “mate” – I’d rather stick to not treat women like sex objects.
Now please fuck off. Cheers.
So according to you everything someone does is for the sole purpose of getting laid? Last time I checked, the purpose of a Blog is to express your thoughts and opinions on certain things……Do you have a job because you enjoy it and you earn money or so you can get LAID? Do you go on vacation to enjoy the scenic beauty and architecture, or to get laid? Is everything you do with the intention of getting laid? Would it surprise you to know that everyones life doesn’t revolve around getting laid. It’s pretty ironic how incidentally you admitted that the reason YOU started a blog was to get laid…….No…..Some people actually start them for reasons beyond that believe it or not…… You’re a funny guy
I wish Misogyny was an object so I could shove it up your ass. Probably then you could understand what it actually means cuz your brain is clearly refusing to do that job. I honestly feel you have a gaping hole between your legs mr. Indian “male” feminist.
“I honestly feel you have a gaping hole between your legs mr. Indian “male” feminist.”
Haha this is so brilliant. Basically you’re calling me a woman to shame me? Am I supposed to be “offended” by that? Oh don’t you so love it when trolls ever so brilliantly end up proving your point.
I’m gonna keep this let this comment pass for everyone to see. Sweet.
Abusing any girl is extremely wrong thing, we all agree to this fact. But, let me ask you, who are you ? From where are you ? Any attention seeker..who is writing such extremely hatred blogs and posting it off here ? Do you have vast knowledge ? Any special training classes for such bullshit blogs ? Or your mentality is gone down ?
Write any thing..express up your feelings for anyone, but brother..this is INDIA.
The more you encourage people, the more you will have it.
Maria is a Russian Tennis player, if i am not wrong. If she has any problem or if she’s getting troubled, the russian’s would stand up for them, why you ? Any special reasons ?
And please don’t seek attention by taking women’s into the scene. We all know how sensitive and aggressive the people in India are for women’s.
And if you really are such a star to write on women, where were and are you when the Indian’s themselves abuse the Indian Women Star / girls ? Many people post po*n photographs of the Indian Women Stars, where are you at that time ?
Just because this Maria is a sports personality, you cannot defend her from being abused, anyhow. Its our Indian’s mentality, you cannot change it. Everyone knows that it is extremely bad and morally wrong, but their are some key people, who execute such things.
Do you really care for women ? Do you really want to influence everyone to be a Change ? If such is the case..then,
“Bhai, pehle apna ghar dekho, fir dusre ka sambhalna.”
Its Indian mentality that we try to solve the problems or overcome it, which are far away and impossible. Just by writing a small blog or by using some extremely good dictionary words, you cannot influence people. If you really feel so sorry for the Russian Sports Personality, Ms. Maria, then you can fly to Russia and sort things out, in your way! 🙂
(P.S – Not here for any written fight, we all are ashamed of such nuisance..but some things and people need to work it out in a proper way.)
I am not against anyone or any community. Its just, don’t try to catch up irrelevant things like the Indian Media and showcase it. Be sensible, write sensible.
Also, the people who have commented are morally bad and wrong as any woman don’t deserve to be de-humaned.
Okay it’s really hard to keep up to all personal attacks. And yours is probably the “nicest” hostile personal attack I’ve gotten for a while! So hey. I’m gonna try to address some of your non-rhetorical questions/personal attacks anyway – as hard as it is:
a. My personal details: Is that relevant to my arguments? Like if I put up a name, address, pin code or whatever is my arguments going get any more credible?
b. Yep I have a PhD in horribleness.
Isn’t that what you wanted to hear? Because apparently somehow this all counts as “hatred” – but hey.
Encourage people for what? I find it bit insulting that a. how you think Indians are somehow different from rest of the humanity and b. paint us all as if we’re all some sort of brainless zombies. Are we? Are we so terrible now that we can’t take a bit of self-critique and just go “more you encourage people, the more you have it?”
First of all, is there any condition that I should be only concerned about Indian women? I’m a humanist, and I haven’t exactly mastered the art of not caring for people, regardless of gender, based on borders. But hey, good for you. But more importantly – the topic in hand is not whether Sharapova is “bothered” or not – it’s about the mob mentality and misogyny that needs addressing. That is an “us” issue.
Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me here. Are you saying that people in India are “aggressive” about women’s rights issues? And misogyny isn’t just “people hate women”. It could be more subtle socialized sexism that no one, including myself, isn’t immune from. What’s with the black and white thinking? Our society has a serious misogyny issue – if we’re not even going to accept it, how exactly do you think we’re going to address it?
This has more to do with addressing the mindset rather than the specific case. And I’m not a star, and I hate to be deemed as such. I do blog about stuff when it comes to my attention, I feel writing about it, and other writers whom I respect haven’t written about it. I’m not omniscient or omnipotent – you do know that, right? Why do I have to explain anything to you anyways?
It’s our Indian mentality, it’s wrong? Again, this is just downright insulting – I don’t think Indians are mindless zombies, I do think however bad situation is now, we can work on improving that, changing our mindset. Why exactly are you further contributing to that mindset by saying stuff like
And if everyone knew it was morally wrong then no one would do it. Evidence clearly dictates otherwise. And apparently people can’t even take a bit of self-criticism, reflecting on our own actions, that doesn’t help either. Does it?
Ghar as in my home or India broadly? Well I do attempt to start from myself with that. I’ve never claimed to be some sort of revolutionary. This is me sharing my views on my personal blog. And if it makes feminist voices more visible, if it persuades at least some open minded people, then that’d be a bonus for me. Well, technically I can only use “dictionary words” because, you know, the alternative would be that me making words up – and that would not exactly be ideal for communication 🙂 But I do try to keep it as accessible as possible, and if people need clarification, they would ask instead of hurling abuses, usually.
So you’re saying that our mindset is not open to change? Well I do give Indians far more credit than you do, so no, I don’t submit to such fatalism. And silencing any voices of dissent citing this – well that’s not fine in my books.
Nice touch “politely” asking there asking me to fuck off to Russia BTW 🙂
Well I don’t know man – if this is your idea of “not being here for a fight” then I wonder what “fight” would look like because you’ve engaged in ad hominems the whole post, personally attacked me and without offering any constructive criticisms, my blog. So not a good start if you’re looking “not for a fight”, is it?
Gosh, whoever spoke about Indian media? I share my observations here and I believe I’ve got my reasoning right. If I haven’t anyone is free to point out where I am wrong civilly and respectfully. That’s how a discourse works, and apparently this simple fact is lost on people. If you don’t think I’ve been fair with my critique – a. leave a constructive response or b. stop reading my blog. Apparently some are not interested in doing either of this 🙂
Oh well at least we agree on the fact that women don’t deserve to be dehumanized – which is my basic premise anyway.
Aditya’s Comments are also correct ………………. If someone is abusing a lady that doesn’t mean that they are mysogynist…… People are just rageous becoz she “might” have insulted Sachin and his fans unkwoningly. Yes I agree that whatever comments they are putting that are not good and very disrespectful . But calling mysogynist to evry one in that list is not correct , by this did u mean that they dont even respect their sisters and Mothers ?
I have explained in response why the comments are misogynistic in nature – like multiple times. Which is what my argument is.
And no, not all comments in that is misogynistic – but I have clearly specified I borrowed it from another page which assimiliated the screenshot since I can’t be arsed to individually screencap all the screenshots. I’ve seen much, much more in number where comments directly slut shame her, etc.
A very well-written blog. Thanks for saying things that Indians as a society really need to hear, not just in the main blog post but also in the comments section. The patience with which you have been responding to all the personal attacks is highly commendable. Keep doing what you are doing. It’s clearly working. 🙂
f(x) = Sharapova Not knowing Sachin
f (f(x)) = Sachin fans and random Indians (aka Idiots) wasting a billion and more man hours on her page posting vomit crap
f ( f( f(x))) = you calling it misogynistic
f(f(f(f(x)))) = that banker fellow calling you some arbit name for calling indians misogynistic
f (f ( f (f (f(x))))) – Dude trying reading that out. It goes like f off, f off, f off, f off, f off
It is saddening to see what has been happening after Maria commented about Sachin. When the author tried talking about the issue he also was called names and other explicit words. I just feel that if you people do not agree to what the author says then put your point across in a decent manner. Like the people from IIM’s and IIT’s are expected. I have heard that these institutions nurture gentlemen in their students and I can’t see that in the comments by the people who possibly can be their alumni.
If we forget the colleges or degrees, I am wondering how many of you use such language with your bosses/colleagues or your teacher/professors who do not agree to you.
If you can’t respond without demeaning then STOP responding and if u can’t hold back from responding without demeaning STOP reading. Food for thought.
Also I noticed one more thing, that all the comments are queued up for moderation and author is letting through you whiplashes on him. If u guys really as educated as you people claim then I think this should tell you a lot. Another morsel for your thoughts.
Hahaaha, you just cannot defend yourself by explaining your stand paragraph wise.
GO AHEAD, YOU DESERVE THIS BLOG AND THE AUDIENCE COMMENTS, GOOD LUCK.
Ahem, yours was one of the comments that I’d bothered to respond paragraph-wise, at length. So I don’t really have any idea what on earth you’re talking about.
Thanks for the wishes though 🙂
IMF, the comments on Maria S on the FB page were horrific. Why do some men hate women so much? 😦
Thanks for being a humanist and seeing women as people (such a basic thing to ask that one shouldn’t really have to ask) and giving a damn and writing about this.
I’m impressed with the way you are handling these extremely rude comments. You are not only addressing each point they make and showing them how and where their logic breaks down, but keeping your sense of humor intact. I wish I could be this unflappable 🙂