Since the Covid-19 outbreak, an estimated 736 million women have been subjected to physical violence, mostly by their intimate partners or husbands. This global increase in domestic violence has pushed UN Women into striving for gender equality and female empowerment. Accordingly, the international organisation has launched a "Shadow Pandemic" awareness campaign to end sexual violence against women and girls (VAWG). This year's theme is "Orange The World: End Violence Against Women Now!", which concludes on Friday.
Of course, it's no wonder that sexism is one of the root causes of VAWG. The word "sexism" here means economic, political and social discrimination against women. The Taliban's patriarchal ethics clearly encapsulate this term. According to Human Rights Watch, about 87% of Afghan women and girls experience abuse in their lifetime. After US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, women are being told to stay at home, and have been banned from jobs and higher education. No female politician sits in parliament to speak up for the voiceless or marginalised people. As a result, many teenage girls from poor families are at increased risk of forced marriage. Unfortunately, women rights activists or those who battle against this arbitrary deprivation of liberty are being hunted down and shot dead. Seemingly, Afghanistan's women still have a long hard fight with the Taliban's culture of brutal repression.
Furthermore, misogyny -- a culturally ingrained disdain for women who subvert legal traditions and change notions of femininity -- fuels this VAWG. This visceral hatred doesn't exist only in the Taliban regime. It is everywhere. Too often implicit biases and social expectations through media perpetuate women's self-harm and widen the gender gap. Many Thai soap operas such as Wife On Duty and Defendant Of Love reinforce old-fashioned male chauvinism and normalise rape culture. They include screens of inflicting sexual violence against female characters such as forced sex, slapping and beating, kidnapping and detainment. Those are falsely depicted as romance or punishment instead of as a warning about the dangers of reality.
Meanwhile, news that a "lazy, deeply sexist" joke about my favourite American pop star Taylor Swift in Netflix's Ginny And Georgia is reminiscent of internalised misogyny. When Ginny Miller, played by biracial actress Antonia Gentry, denigrated her mother that "you go through men faster than Taylor Swift", I found it funny but true since Swift abruptly split with Calvin Harris and again dumped Tom Hiddleston. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Swift moving on fast and dating new guys. Yet, I was admittedly not aware of slut-shaming until Gentry faced an angry backlash from Swift's fans and got bullied for her skin colour. Pretty much like racists, women tear each other down by verbally harassing them on social media. At this point, Swift should publicly call on her fans to stop their misogynist and racist attacks, just like her best friend Selena Gomez did for Hailey Bieber.
Still, many female celebrities are targeted with online hate speech and body-shaming. The lead actress Natapohn "Taew" Tameeruks from hit TV series Nakee went from sweetheart to nakee lokkhrap or snake moulting its skin after getting a richer boyfriend and rocking the new bold, sexy look. No woman should be called a snake for posting photos of herself in a bathing suit at the beach and breaking up with a good guy. It doesn't matter how well he has treated her and how many years they had been together. If she is not happy with her partner, leaving him is the right decision to make. Also, a woman at age of 30 is mature enough to dress however she wants. Like Swift, Taew simply followed her free will and emancipated herself from her long-held "good girl" image. This "good girl" trope is indeed a gender stereotype that benign women should be self-censored in the media.
Moreover, Taew's workout routine is too easily stereotyped as insane weight loss and skinny obsession rather than a passion for good health and inner strength. In fact, the skinny shaming of this Thai actress is no different from the social stigma of obesity. Fat or thin shaming could hurt some women's feelings either way and eventually smash their self-esteem. Similarly, two successful, famous singers Swift and Adele once felt a surge of anxiety, suffering from media negativity because their bodies should have abided to a ridiculous beauty standard. Fortunately, they finally overcame this mental struggle with self-love and body positivity. Apparently, it is time for a change in the ideal body type to the concept of "Real Size For Beauty" so that a larger variety of body shapes become more widely accepted.
But above all, we need a significantly powerful tool like the media to educate people by representing the positive portrayal of both women and men in society and to raise public awareness on the various forms of gender-based violence.