Image: Instagram/Rhea Chakraborty

"U b*tch commit suicide otherwise I will send someone to kill you."

"We will make you regret opening your comment section."

"You are a 2 rupee woman."

This is what some faceless people hurled at some women on social media in the past week. Ghastly, pathetic, frustrating, and so much more than the vocabulary can conjure up, but what about it! This is "normal", "People say things", "Ignore them", and "Don't give any importance to them".Right?!

Actor Rhea Chakraborty is recently in the eye of the social storm. The reason: many if you ask the netizens. The death of her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput is, in some crooked way, linked to her and their past relationship.

People attacking Rhea after her boyfriend committed suicide, with possible reasons of mental health issues and depression, need to understand that they are not supporting his cause or helping drive the conversation around the issue at all. Instead, they are just pushing another person into a dark room, as they believed Sushant to be in. In which world is that justified? If you're a troll, don't even try.

Why? Because "trolls don't care about the person," says Dr Shefali Batra, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapist. "What they are concerned about is the pain and the emotional response that they arouse in somebody. That's their reward. If one doesn't care about their comments, they find someone else to disturb," she explains.

Image:123RF

And it's not just Rhea. Swara Bhasker's posts on social media define what trolling truly is. Anything that woman says is met with scorn, criticism and a reminder about her masturbation scene from a movie. (What's wrong with a masturbation scene anyway, but that debate is for later!)

As we talk about trolling, our minds can't help but wonder why the nature of every troll is so patriarchal irrespective of the gender. If a man is being attacked online, trolls go after abusing his mother/sister/wife/daughter of rape. In a women's case, online or real-world, abuse has always been easier. Just demean her, add a few body-negative comments; if she's still talking, throw in a rape threat or two. The trolling here is done.

Image:123RF

Abusive remarks about rape threat or acid attack are not casual, but the way they are casually thrown around in the digital space is shocking. And this is a punishable offence under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 294, 504, 506, 509 and Sec 67 of the IT Act. Under which YouTuber Shubham Mishra was booked by Vadodara City Police last week for uploading an abusive, threatening video against comedian Agrima Joshua.

According to the "Troll Patrol India," a report by Amnesty International in 2020 found that women politicians in India face a shocking scale of abuse on Twitter. It also discovered that women are targeted with abuse online not just for their opinions - but also for various identities, such as gender, religion, caste, and marital status. Disturbing, but not surprising.

"Social media only amplifies existing social structures and biases. Thanks to the anonymity the politically incorrect instincts get freehand on expression. We are a largely male society and wired for patriarchy in chauvinism. Trolling patterns and trolling victims online (and offline) closely replicate the demographic," says Sahil Siddiqui, who spearheaded the campaign Give Subtitles To Suicide for Suicide Prevention India Foundation for WHO's Gatekeeper Program.

But, on a human level, one asks what makes other people so cruel in disguise. "What powers the troll is the reaction that they arouse in people. The reward is the mayhem they create. While some of them could be narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths; their motivation is going back for more and more reaction that they arouse in people," explains Dr Batra.

In a male-dominated world, women are perceived as someone who can be easily oppressed, and women are the natural targets, Vijal Sejpal, founder of iThrive counselling and holistic development centre further explains. Trolling is a fight for power and control. It's deceptive and disruptive behaviour and is focused on deliberately provoking and upsetting somebody.

Trolls are known to have a low level of empathy, guilt or responsibility for their actions; and have higher levels of sadism. "It is obvious enjoyment in causing physical and psychological pain to others, for apparently no other gain except for the fact that they like to hurt people. It's a very atypical form of social reward in which the reward is inflicting pain. In a twisted way, trolls have cognitive empathy, which means they understand the mind of the other person and exploit this awareness to make the other person feel bad," Dr Batra states.

Trolling is, for lack of a better/worse word, ridiculous, but for women, it is way more than just vicious. It is scary, demented and consequential. In a country, where the pathos of women safety can't be talked about enough and where one woman is raped every 15 minutes (no kidding, check out NCRB's 2018 report), no threat can be taken lightly. And that's the advantage these trolls have over our peace of mind. It throws you off, and makes you think of every conversation you've had with people around you, make you re-check every social media update, and also makes you feel like going inside a room and to make no contact with the world.

If we need a solution to fix the larger picture, we need to focus on the problem areas. We need to talk to the youth. We need to drive a conversation, as early as possible to talk about women's issues, mental health and social media.

Also Read: #FeminaCares: Mental Health Is IMPORTANT, And We Need To Acknowledge It

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Trolls And Patriarchy Are More Linked Than You Think - Femina