Model Alanna Panday, cousin of actress Ananya, has shared an example of the sort of slut-shaming commentary that she says is directed at her regularly. Alanna, 24, posts actively on Instagram; the photos she shares includes some of herself in swimwear. Offensive comments on these pictures are commonplace, she says. In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Alanna Panday revealed that a female user once left a comment on a picture of her in a bikini saying she "deserved to be gang raped." The user also tagged Alanna's parents - fitness expert Deanne and actor Chunky Panday's brother Chikki. Instagram deleted the comment and Alanna blocked the user, though she says now that she wishes she had saved a screenshot.
"This happened months ago," Alanna Panday wrote in the caption to her Instagram post, "I wish I had spoken about it sooner, but waking up and reading things like this just became normal to me - it's an everyday part of my life. Here's 1% of what I have to wake up and read every day." Read Alanna's post here:
Last year, a middle-aged woman was confronted by a group of young women at a Gurugram mall after she allegedly asked male patrons at a restaurant to rape them for wearing short skirts. Video footage of the confrontation went viral.
Alanna Panday isn't letting the slut-shaming keep her from speaking her mind. In a separate post on Instagram, she wrote about being body-shamed as well. As above, much of the criticism is posted by women. "What's worse than waking up to hateful comments about my body every day, is that it comes from other women."
Several actresses, from Deepika Padukone to Esha Gupta, have been similarly slut-shamed and body-shamed online.
Alanna Panday's cousin Ananya, an actress, started an initiative to tackle social media bullying called 'So Positive' after being accused online of having falsely claimed that she was accepted into the University of Southern California.
