Women in India are taking to Twitterand Instagram to upload pictures of themselves taken out of their houses after midnight. Why, you might ask? It’s all in a bid to protest against a male political party leader who victim-blamed a young woman being stalked by two men on the fact she was “roaming at night”.
Varnika Kundu, a DJ from north Indian town Chandigarh, was driving home around midnight on Friday evening when she was chased by two men in a car.
(http://www.bjp.org/) (BJP) Subhash Barala.
Shortly after authorities were informed of the stalking and attempted attack, Ramveer Bhatti, the vice president of the BJP made a comment that (understandably) riled up the women of India. “The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night.’,he said of Varnika and continuing to place the blame upon everybody else but the two dangerous males, Bhatti commented “parents must take care of their children. They shouldn’t allow them to roam at night. Children should come home on time, why stay out at night?”
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Actress and head of the opposition Congress party’s social media, Divya Spandana had an interesting response to the vice presidents ‘victim-blaming’. She posted a selfie to her Twitter, in which she appears in the dark and out of the house at midnight(the time which Bhatti claimed it was ‘too late’ for Varnika to be out) accompanied with the hashtag, #AintNoCinderella.
The campaign spread like wildfire and soon hundreds of women were posting midnight selfies over their social media accounts aiming to challenge the victim-blaming and regressive patriarchal views like Bhatti’s. Many of the #AintNoCinderella images were accompanied by inspirational comments and speeches from women standing up for the cause and striving to make a difference.
One woman captioned her Cinderella selfie with a stern message for the politician – and all victim-blamers - “We, women believe in breaking glass ceilings not fitting into glass slippers”, whilst another wrote, “Dear Regressive India, We ain’t damsels in distress.”
The number of women uniting for this campaign is continuing to grow, with each refusing to be intimidated by the big bad political wolves shaming them. Journalist Palak Sharma told the BBC of the Cinderella campaign, 'Nothing is going to stop us, no amount of naysayers can frighten us.’
The selfie is officially taking on regressive India, and we hope it wins.
Images courtesy of @Palaksharmanews
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.