I am a happily married woman, and I would not have been if my husband had taken dating advice from lame webinars like the one held by LawSikho recently. Hosted by Kshitij Sehrawat, whose Twitter bio is all about imitating Iron Man, and Ramanuj Mukherjee, the CEO of LawSikho, this was a webinar only for men. It was called ‘How can busy professionals have a dating life’, but it was only for men.
First things first, a webinar on heterosexual dating cannot be only for men. Ramanuj starts the webinar with a long ramble about dating scenario is so different for men and women. He claims women have a problem of plenty and men have to scramble for attention from women. Women don’t have a problem of plenty, sir. Women have a problem of possible attacks from the men they reject. Men just have to be decent human beings who don’t think of women as a prize to be won. The bar is literally that low.
If you’re one of the men who watched that webinar, let us help you unlearn some of the ridiculous, sexist nonsense that Kshitij and Ramanuj were so happy about in the session.
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1. Learn about misogyny, consent and objectification. Don’t use them as buzzwords to sound smart.
Kshitij Sehrawat, a man who claims to help men get dates all the time, needed help to “define misogyny and objectification” before he could begin the session. If you don’t know what misogyny and objectification is, please stop doling out advice to men on how to date women. Obviously, you don’t know the answer here.
2. There is no justification for harassment on social media
According to Kshitij, men send dick pics because “our mentality is visual”. Please don’t use this as any sort of justification for unsolicited dick pics. Sending someone a picture of your nether regions, without consent, is pure harassment.
3. Don’t approach women wherever you want, whenever you want
Women do not expect to be approached anywhere, not at the gym or anywhere else. If you were to believe the nonsense doled out in this webinar, you would think women walk into a gym, stand in a showcase, and wait for men to talk to them. Do not approach women who are working out and showing zero interest in you. You just ruin someone’s day by doing this.
4. If you haven’t been slapped, it doesn’t mean you’re not a creep
A lot of women don’t slap a creepy man because they’re scared of what a rejected man will do to them in retaliation. Please don’t confuse the absence of a negative reaction with encouragement. And here’s a side note — the fear of being rejected is nothing compared to the fear of being attacked.
5. A man does not have to lead in a male-female relationship
Women are not going to just go along with anyone who “leads”. Women can also lead and have successful relationships. Please don’t think you need to be an alpha male to be able to have a healthy relationship with a woman. Don’t buy into this sexist drivel.
6. Women should not need an “angry face” to repel creeps
One of the “tips” Kshitij gave in this webinar is to not go to a woman with an angry face and say, “Hi, you’re cute.” I am a woman with an “angry face”. You know why? Because people like Kshitij have made me believe that I need to have a permanent frown to avoid random men trying to talk to me if I’m alone in public. Just stop being creeps and going up to random women with lines like, “Hi, you’re cute.”
7. If you use analogies of football and bread to understand women, no woman will ever date you
Through the webinar, Kshitij uses absolutely ridiculous analogies to understand women. Here’s a more constructive piece of advice than that entire webinar. Don’t use football and bread to understand women. Women are normal people, not mystical beings who cannot be understood. Just talk to them like a normal person.
8. Sexual harassment is NOT a relationship gone bad
So, the CEO of LawSikho has a no-dating policy for his office. A lot of companies do. But we hope they don’t use the same logic for this policy as Ramanuj does. He claims that a lot of sexual harassment cases are romantic relationships between colleagues which have turned sour. A policy against sexual harassment is supposed to contribute towards a safe workplace for everyone. A no-dating policy is not making a safe workplace for anyone. Let’s not equate two very different things — one of these is an actual crime.
Related: Powerful Quotes By Women Who Are Becoming The Faces Of The #MeToo Movement In India
9. Women are not running after athletes. Seriously.
If you think you’re not “getting women” because you don’t have an athlete’s body, you’re wrong. You’re not getting a single date because of your mentality. Fix your thought process, fix how you think about women, and stop attending webinars for “busy professionals” which don’t have a single woman’s opinion.
10. Women don’t owe you anything if you’re nice to them
If a woman says she likes a particular thing about men, and if you start doing those things, it doesn’t mean you deserve to have all the women. When Kshitij talks about his experience with women who ignored his good morning and good night texts, ignore it. Completely. Women don’t owe you anything. Even if a woman tells you that she LOVES those corny good morning forwards, she has not committed to dating you if you start sending them. You have not been wronged here.
11. Speak to a therapist
Here’s another thing – if you have emotional issues in life, speak to a qualified mental health professional. There is absolutely zero shame in seeking help from someone who knows what they’re doing. There is, however, a lot of shame in seeking help from men who claim they know women but actually have nothing to offer except age-old stereotypes.
There were so many problems with this webinar, but they had room to fix them. One woman, who identified herself as Avanti, did try to intervene. But they couldn’t handle it. Ramanuj had something of a meltdown when he realised that she was going to ask tough questions. Kshitij couldn’t really go beyond a smirk and the word “bro”. The one woman who asked a question was shut down without being given one chance to say her bit. An aggressive response from Ramanuj and a smug attitude from Kshitij was the definition of misogyny and bullying. Since Kshitij was confused about these concepts in the beginning, he should be fine now. Apparently, a woman’s opinion on a webinar about how to date women was just too much.
so @LawSikho hosted a webinar ‘for men only’ on how to impress women, & when a woman tried to tell them that the things they are saying aren’t correct, they attacked her, mr. ramanuj said “I’ll take care of her” & basically told her to fuck off ‘cause she gave her opinion. pic.twitter.com/8T5Y2PPpxz
— a⁷ (@jjkbridge) May 15, 2020
To their credit, LawSikho has uploaded the entire webinar on YouTube with the CEO’s statement on the controversy. It says:
“This webinar was a disaster. We ended up delivering sexist content. we have kept this here in interest of transparency as many women demanded we make it available for all to see how badly we screwed up. We have taken responsibility for this webinar and unconditionally apologised.
Young men, please don’t watch this video or think of this to be valid advice. It should only be viewed as an example of unacceptable sexist behaviour.”
We hope the outrage following the webinar has taught them a thing or two about women and given the hosts much to think about. In the meantime, ladies, get your angry faces on!
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