It’s safe to say that the Sushmita Sen-Lalit Modi announcement broke the Internet. There was a section unabashedly making memes out of the situation, pointing out the differences in appearance and wealth between the two. The other section- the more covert one- said it was humourous because it was an unlikely pair. The overwhelming consensus reached by the board of trolls on social media?
That Sen must be a “gold-digger.” Who is this proverbial gold-digger who is referred to twice a day on Twitter? Certainly, it’s not a man. Gold-digging is an inherently sexist phenomenon invented by those who do not believe in the agency of women. The proof of this lies in the fact that the term is almost never applied for men.
Sen, an actor par excellence and former Miss Universe, well-known also for her work in charity, was taken to task for dating Modi for reasons that weren’t deemed legitimate enough by the social media jury. They collectively came to the conclusion that she must be doing it for his “money”, notwithstanding the fact that Sen makes enough of her own and also doles it out generously.
In a strongly-worded response, Sen wrote, “The friends I never had & the acquaintances I’ve never met….all sharing their grand opinions & deep knowledge of my life & character… monetising the ‘Gold Digger’ all the way!!! ???????? Ah these geniuses!!! I dig deeper than Gold… and I’ve always (famously) preferred Diamonds!!????????❤️And yes I still buy them myself!!!”
Sen is not the first and not the last to be branded a gold-digger on social media for dating a man who could be more affluent than her. For women, the sword is double-edged: should she marry someone significantly older, she must be doing it for money. Should she refuse to marry a man who is significantly older, she is branded “shallow” and pandering to regressive norms. The same happens if a woman chooses to date someone who is “conventionally” considered less attractive than her.
The phenomenon is more sinister than a bunch of memes being circulated on Twitter. The social media trial of Rhea Chakraborty is proof. She has been charged by the NCB for receiving ‘ganja’ and giving it to her then boyfriend, late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. While her legal culpability is beyond the scope of this article, the backlash she continues to face on social media does beg the question: do people not believe in the agency of Rajput himself in “consuming” aforementioned “ganja”? Despite Chakraborty’s role in the case, the fact stands that the only time our culture wants to assign agency to women is when they want to blame her in the “downfall” of a man.
Anushka Sharma, for another instance, is someone who continues to get blamed for Virat Kohli’s performance on the field. The actor was plagued by allegations of being a gold-digger on social media, with a tweet asking, “Why does these so called actresses dont fall for ordinary men ? I wonder what would have been the case if it was not THE VIRAT KOHLI but just another virat next door, would these gold diggers still fall for him ? Sorry Virat bro i like you but i dont like your wife … Period [sic].” Nevermind the fact that this argument could easily be reversed, it somehow manages to turn a blind eye on Sharma’s individual accomplishment.
There was a time when marriages had to be transactional. Back in the days, it was a way for women to gain social security in a patriarchal society that would not grant the same to them in any other way but through the legal sanction of a marriage.
A daughter was and continues to be seen as a burden to be married off in India, and then the society places the blame on women who do cave into its own punitive ideals. Sushmita Sen, Anushka Sharma, and Rhea Chakraborty are affluent women, who do not have that need to begin with. The mythical gold-digger, in either case, remains a smokescreen onto which patriarchy projects its own image.
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