Have you ever tried explaining something to a wall? It is a brilliant exercise in futility. The entire discourse around objectification of women has started to feel the same way, another brilliant exercise in futility, except that it is worse. It is worse because it involves intelligent individuals capable of thought and discretion.
In yet another appalling article, a Hindi daily published a listicle of the ‘10 Most Beautiful Female IAS And IPS Officers In India‘. If you are wondering how does this even remotely makes sense, join the club. The only way it makes sense is that this article is downright offensive.
Merin Joseph, who bagged the first spot on that list because God knows that has been the most important and life-altering achievement of her life, took to Facebook to express her joy.
Almost all the comments have called out the douchebaggery of the article. But remember what we said earlier about talking to a wall? Someone decided to point out that “Media went wrong in both ways. The other way is that, most of them aren’t beautiful.”
Get it? Get it? It is a problem if they are beautiful and it is a problem if they are not.
This is not the first time Joseph has gone viral, by the way. In 2014, FirstPost published an article called IPS trainee from Kerala goes viral on Facebook because of her ‘good looks’ and reported that Joseph’s photos had gone viral as the new ACP in Kochi. It brought to light the general disbelief that someone so beautiful could be such an achiever.
According to FirstPost, one person decided to show how enlightened he was by commenting “Kitni sundar hain yeh…vishwas hi nhi ho rha hai ki policewali hai…hahaha…” (She is so beautiful, can’t believe she is a police officer…hahaha…)
That was not the end of it. One decided to say “madam, please keep uploading more pics.. u truly r an inspiration for all of us.. The no. of ‘likes’ for ur pics r very closely followed by all o us..great morale booster mam.. It seems the sensex took a dip last time when ur pic garnered a meagre 2500 likes..!” These are only a couple of comments from thousands.
At this point you should be surprised but chances are you won’t – if you try a simple Google search and type ’10 Most Beautiful Female IAS And IPS Officers In India’, this article by the Hindi daily won’t be the only one.
But depending on how you feel about this, you are either the one trying to explain this to a wall or are the wall itself. All in all, it is a vicious cycle that only ends when the wall breaks.