Aaj English TV

Friday, March 29, 2024  
18 Ramadan 1445  

TV host compares rape victims to unwrapped candies

A TV reporter chose to compare women to wrapped and unwrapped candies yesterday in his story about Imran Khan's...
This screen grab from the video shows the reporter trying to use candies as an analogy for women and sexual assault.
This screen grab from the video shows the reporter trying to use candies as an analogy for women and sexual assault.

A TV reporter chose to compare women to wrapped and unwrapped candies yesterday in his story about Imran Khan's comment on rape. The prime minister’s comment to Jonathan Swan in Sunday’s episode of HBO Axios -- "If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the men, unless they are robots" – continues to generate controversy.

The reporter held two candies in his hand, unwrapping one while holding the other wrapped. The unwrapped candy, he said, was exposed to “bacteria and viruses” while the other was “protected” he said. The reference to clothed women being safe from rape was not lost on anyone.

It also wasn’t appreciated.

User Fatmounh in a short series of tweets expressed frustration at the blatant fallacy of the analogy mentioning how though wrapped candy remains protected from disease and insects, it is "still not protected from man [...] because man has the agency to rip through hundred layers of cloth and skin to inflict pain"

Another observed the redundancy of the analogy, stating they wouldn't have thought seeing "someone using the same analogy with innovative idiocy again"

Several people remarked on the absurdity of the correlation, voicing how it "promotes rape culture" and makes men "believe women are objects"

One user mentioned Imran Khan's role in the perpetuation of such analogies asserting that such situations arise when the victims are blamed for "her choice of clothing as opposed to rigid religious beliefs, tyrannical culture and the utter institutional failure to prevent and incarcerate the rapists"

Another woman expressed how these "sickening" comparisons "embolden young men" when those in positions of power "advocate rape apologist culture"

Many took the chance to focus on the likening of men to "flies, bacteria and viruses".

Some left quick-witted one-liners.

Others commented on the positions of "rapists [who] are viruses that have hands, power and will to uncover the covered."

Nasir notes the implicit message in the analogy which "should be perceived as deeply offensive to masculinity" stating how the host "acknowledges we can't be better human beings."

Umer Akram articulates his disbelief by stating how this "sort of dehumanization is just appalling."

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imran khan

Rape

HBO Axios

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