Let’s dive straight to the point here. Brace yourselves as I give you some choice comments from celebrity talk shows that have previously gone viral on social media:
“I would not allow my daughter-in-law to pick her own wedding dress. Keep her in control from day one, then there are no regrets later…”
“I have to ask you to do push-ups on stage. If you can’t, my wife has allowed me to marry a second time…”
“It’s okay if he’s seeing other women. At the end of the day, he’ll come home to me, his wife…”
And the latest on the list?
“We work with women who look good, smell good, apply perfume when they come to work, and then we come home to the smell of garlic and ginger paste…”
Said no one, apparently! It was all a mistake — out of context and misquoted.
Big eye roll there, but I’ll let it slide.
Because that’s not what this article is about. The utterances quoted above are not the core issue — our reaction to them as a social media community, and as women, is. That’s the problem.
The opinions quoted above have been uttered at some point or another by male or female celebrities, influencers, public figures — call them what you will — on national TV, online talk shows, podcasts, and anywhere content can be maximised and monetised: Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok, to name a few platforms.
Even as the person uttering the opinion sends out a prompt or delayed apology or correction stating that they were quoted out of context, what stays with us is the visual of a female TV anchor or guest laughing along at the apparent witticism, often joining in with a story of their own.
The more the merrier, right?
When the conversation was about housewives reeking of garlic and ginger, the anchor pitched in to ask, “Why do women tie a dupatta around their head when working at home?”
Another one said, “Yeah, that makes sense. He will, after all, come home to you — the rest is just a passing phase.”
Yet another might have the entire audience cheering on as 30 or so push-ups are demonstrated live on stage, so the poor man is robbed of a chance to remarry.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was the lone voice of actor Saba Qamar who asked the husband in question: “But why do you want to marry again?”
Bravo, Saba.
You spoke for that wife in the audience who couldn’t speak out — the one made into a topic of public entertainment so her husband could get his precious two minutes of fame. All at the cost of mocking his wife, while the world looked on, entertained by a depraved sense of humour that we have allowed to define our cultural DNA.
Is making fun of our wives in public a national sport now?
All while the man’s poor wife looks on, wearing a self-conscious smile with seven, if not seventy, cameras ready to spin out seventy viral clips of that moment.
My take? Our sense of humour as a nation — what we find funny, laughable and shareable — has hit rock bottom.
Imagine if Tom Holland, who is currently doing the media rounds alongside his real-life partner Zendaya, were to say, “I’m thinking of marrying again.”
In broad daylight, with dozens of cameras picking up the moment to spin it into convoluted versions of an already messed-up conversation.
Imagine if the host were to laugh along with Tom while Zendaya looked on in bewildered silence.
That isn’t happening, folks. Not even in Neverland. Not ever!
Zendaya wouldn’t let that happen. Tom Holland wouldn’t say that. And the host — especially if it were a woman — wouldn’t join in.
And if it were to happen, it wouldn’t go unnoticed. It would be called out and shamed by far more than just an entire and sprawling Spider-Man fanbase.
In fact, to say it as it is, Spider-Man might even lose his job.
Yes, that’s how serious it is.
Take that.
And you know why?
It’s because somewhere between proudly, and self-righteously, claiming that our culture respects women — that family is at the centre of our communities and women find shelter, care and security in a home created for them by a man who won’t leave on a whim, unlike in the West — we have learned to devalue those very women.
We treat them like a doormat — aka a housewife. Same meaning, different word.
Meanwhile, women themselves — women who should be supporting each other, women on camera who are witnesses to this misogyny — yes, I will call it what it is — have decided to join in on the tasteless banter surrounding dismissive comments about their very own.
Women who should be reclaiming respect, not just for working women, but for those who stay home too.
The problem begins right there.
Not with the man. Not with the thought. But with the woman who fails to call it out again and again and yet again.
To all those women, I have this to say: try counteracting the statement.
Try standing in the shoes of the woman labelled as “smelling of garlic and ginger” while she preps a meal for her family, sweating it out in a kitchen that often has no ventilation or gas, where the water supply is an afterthought, and where zero camera lights and zero applause meet her tireless efforts to restore sanity in a chaotic world.
Where she puts her family’s needs before her own every single day.
This is not a dramatisation. This is reality.
It’s the real life that will never go viral.
What do they say?
Walk for those who cannot walk. Talk for those who cannot talk. And fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.
Let’s start by talking.
And talk shows are a wonderful place to begin.
Disclaimer: The statements referenced in this article are paraphrased representations of remarks made during televised and online conversations. They are not intended to be presented as verbatim quotations. The wording has been adapted for brevity and context while retaining the essence of the remarks being discussed.