Not meme, it’s a cruel joke

They may say that after all, it is just “innocent” fun.

In April 2021, Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman President of the European Commission, was left without a chair at a summit in Turkey, in what is now known as sofagate. It was a startling display of how we still have a long way to go before women are treated as equals. If this is how men deign to treat women on an international platform, I shudder to think of the plight of ordinary women in their daily lives. Ms. Von der Leyen, in an impassioned speech post-summit, made her take on the incident pretty clear — she deemed it as sexist. There are millions of women across our nation who do not have the privilege that she has — women are unseen and unheard, until the abuse they are subject to escalates into some dastardly deed that shocks society. Soon, everybody springs into action — WhatsApp statuses are updated; poems are composed; Twitter and Insta “warriors” make themselves relevant; candlelight vigils are held; and of course, let us not forget the “not all men are predators” group and their ardent denials. As days pass, the furore dies down and people return to posting cliched, sweeping sexist memes about wives and girlfriends.