Author-filmmaker Tahira Kashyap Khurrana believes that though social media today has become a tool for expression, the way it has gone overboard in becoming a place where women are given death and rape threats by some, including actors, is horrifying.

On the occasion of International Day of Girl Child, she says, “Without taking specific names or having a skewed opinion, women across society and different job profiles are trolled on a regular basis. If you have a problem or disagree with someone, please voice it so. I don’t understand the need to give rape or death threats. Are you intimidating women by being a criminal.”

The 35-year-old adds that people even detail the way they would violate a woman, which adds to the shock. This is why she wants such people to be called out.

“How have people become so low when it comes to humanity, and started expressing the gory details with which they’d rape a woman? It’s absolutely disgusting. These people need to be name called, shamed, and blocked socially. For just that, I feel we need to speak. Of course, the law takes it’s due course, but things are happening, when it comes to women being abused, irrespective of whether they are an actor or not, it’s across,” says Khurrana.

If we switch from this virtual to the real world, have things in society really changed for women, according to Khurrana ? Is the change in gender disparity visible ?

She says she is not oblivious to the fact that she is speaking from a place of privilege, “There are a lot of permutations and combinations, whether it’s caste, culture, strata, religion you belong. All these things have their role to play in terms of disparity.”

The current generation, for her, holds the potential to change things. “If I see in my immediate environment, I have seen a lot of change happening over the generations. Social media has bloomed in terms of our generation, our voices and opinion have doubled and multiplied. I hope the implementation happens in the next generation,” says Khurrana.