There often need not be any reason for the Internet to go into a state of frenzy or be up and arms against anything related to women. Not to generalise or anything, but casual misogyny is freely available across all social media platforms. But very recently, it popped up as Pakistani actor Mahira Khan released her wedding-day pictures with her long-time boyfriend Salim Karim.
Last week, actor Mahira Khan walked down the aisle with her son, Azan, to marry her long-time boyfriend Salim Karim. “Bismillah“, she wrote in the caption as she shared the first picture.
As the case often is with trolls lurking on the Internet, they tried to paint her as a gold digger and scribbled their unnecessary, unimportant, and ridiculous ‘hot takes’ online.
Now, painting a woman as a gold digger is not very uncommon on the Internet. Trolls would readily, and happily so, dismiss a woman’s entire career trajectory, her hard work, and her social and financial capital, simply on the basis of her association with a successful man. Any successful man, regardless of whether her net worth is more than his. Actors like Sushmita Sen and Parineeti Chopra have already come under the ambit of this label, deeply rooted in sexism, and now Mahira Khan has joined the list as well.
Reportedly, Mahira Khan’s net worth is $6 million, over ₹49 crores whereas her husband Salim Karim’s net worth is $1 million, over ₹8 crores, but of course, OF COURSE, she’s a gold digger.
If you scroll around X, you’ll see there are men believing that Khan married a man of similar stature for money or that he ‘bought’ her with money. The conversation that women marry men for money is a classic textbook chapter from the patriarchal school of thought built and propagated by such men who know nothing better than living in the bubble that the world revolves around them or they are somehow superior.
When does this stop? Or does it stop, like ever?