The smartest and dumbest social media posts on the Sharmeen Obaid 'harassment' controversy
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy just can't seem to please Pakistanis.
Bringing two Oscars home didn't help and now, speaking up against inappropriate behavior and harassment ─ a complaint women in Pakistan are actively told to never register ─ landed her at the heart of a rather fierce social media debate.
Read: We need to change the conversation about Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. Here's how.
Last week, the filmmaker shared on Twitter that her sister was taken to the emergency room at Aga Khan University Hospital and received a Facebook friend request the next day from the doctor who had examined her, an incident she termed as 'harassment'.
Since then, she has faced considerable backlash on social media, which is what we're guessing prompted her to release a statement about the whole fiasco yesterday.
While sifting through all the responses on Twitter and Facebook, we've come to realise that the internet is a scary echo chamber. But voices of reason also cropped up every now and then.
Here are some of the smartest AND dumbest reactions we spotted on social media:
1) Smartest: When a lawyer shed light on whether it was harassment
As everyone seemed to fixate on what the term means (or does not mean), a Pakistani lawyer Abira Ashfaq laid it out in very simple language: violating boundaries in a doctor-patient relationship is dangerous, and it could be interpreted as harassment under the Pakistani law.