Looks Like A Fairy: Even Saving Lives Can't Protect Pilot Monica Khanna From Sexism

On Sunday, a Patna-Delhi flight carrying more than 180 passengers made an emergency landing at the Patna airport after one of its engines caught fire just minutes after take-off. Despite the critical situation, Pilot Monica Khanna and first officer Balpreet Singh Bhatia kept their heads calm and safely landed the aircraft. Soon, social media was flooded with praise for Khanna and Bhatia, but one section of media soon turned their attention to the former and chose to focus on her looks than valour.

Time and again, we read about catastrophic air mishaps that lead to massive loss of life and leave numerous families bereaved. It is thus commendable that the Patna-Delhi flight made a safe landing without any casualties. A fan and one of the engines of the aircraft had been damaged mid-air after a bird hit them. But instead of talking about how the cool and calm thinking of the captain and co-pilot might have saved the day, a headline by a news outlet today reads, "...पायलट मोनिका खन्ना दिखने में परी से कम नहीं, खूबसूरती में तो बॉलीवुड की हिरोइनें भी फेल," thus comparing her beauty to Bollywood heroines and fairies.

We ignore all of the achievements of women because as a society we believe that the most relevant parameter to pass a verdict on a woman is her beauty. You can save hundreds of lives, but there will be some who would rather talk about how beautiful you are!

Being a Pilot isn’t an easy job, every second you make a decision for not just your life, but the life of all souls on board. Captain Monica Khanna indeed did a great job while landing an aircraft in distress and saving all the passengers on her flight. But in the end, she has been reduced to a mere object to be looked at and appreciated for aesthetic and not her intellectual ability. 

If this daredevil landing had been made by a man, would we still be discussing how beautiful he is or not? In that case the media would have solely focussed on his skills rather than objectifying him. But Khanna is a woman and she must endure what everyone of us must when society lays its gaze on us. Yes, we are all guilty of judging women by their beauty, aren't we? When you meet a woman, if the first thing you tell her is how pretty she looks today, how her make-up is on point, how she seems to have lost weight and doesn't look her age then you too are part of the problem.

Suggested Reading: Who Is Captain Monica Khanna? Pilot On Patna-Delhi Flight Responsible For Saving Lives

Ever Diminishing Media Ethics

In recent years, the media has lowered the quality of India’s public discourse by leaps. The ever-growing crisis of credibility and the potential rise of fake news could be seen in the low and falling quality of Indian journalism. The media that is a source of information for 1.3 billion strong audience now focusses more on what the public wants rather than what the public should know.

In a bid to gain more readership, media focusses on Malaika Arora's bra strap, or quizz a female tennis player about makeup routine. Why? Because the readership it is catering to is mostly male and entitled, which believes it has the right to sexualise every woman no matter what her achievements.

Khanna's physical features add nothing to this particular feat that she managed to pull off. But a section of media is fueling the regressive mindset that finds a way to bring in beauty in every conversation to be had about a female achiever as if passing the society's beauty benchmark somehow makes her even more worthy.

The only way to put a plug on such sexist coverage is to call it out and also focus more on women's achievements than their looks. So the next time you want to complement a woman, think how you can do better than simply calling her "beautiful".

Views expressed are the author’s own.