Woman IPS officer lashes out at vernacular press over sexist article

Bengaluru, May 26: Merin Joseph has made the headlines again. She created history last year by becoming the youngest IPS officer in the Kerala cadre at the age of 25. This year, she showed her angry side by taking on a regional daily for objectifying women.

Merin, the assistant superintendent of police of Munnar, is also the third Malyali woman officer in the cadre.

The young officer, who cleared the UPSC examinations in her very first attempt in 2012, chose the IPS and underwent a rigorous training to achieve her dream, also had the honour of leading her country at world summits.

But when the vernacular media house chose to exclusively focus on her looks, Merin took it on on her Facebook wall.

Taking on the media house which ranked women IAS and IPS officers, not according to their achievements but according to their looks, Merin said in her post made on May 22: "This perfectly sums up what is wrong with the press in India, especially the vernacular press. Shameless objectification of women and propagation of patriarchal structures, reducing a lady's worth to her face value. These are bold and brave officers working in the complex bureaucratic system in India, negotiating their way through the good , bad and ugly of our body politic- and here we have a list of officers whom people can ogle at. It's seriously disgusting, constricting and very very demeaning to our identities as smart, intelligent self made women. Have you ever wondered why we never see a list of the most handsome males in the IAS and IPS ??"

Merin's post was shared over 400 times and got 2,700 reactions at the time of writing this report.

This is not the first time in India that women civil servants have been at the receiving end of the sexist attitude. Names of officers like Smita Sabharwal, Rohini Sindhuri, Riju Bafna (who also expressed her mind on Facebook saying she hoped that no women were born in this country though she later rectified the statement) and Rupan Deol Bajaj come to the mind at once when we discuss the objectionable way of looking at our women achievers.

Oneindia News