Twinkle Khanna has responded to TVF founder Arunabh Kumar’s comment that if he finds a woman ‘sexy’, he will compliment her. Twinkle – who writes a column called ‘Mrs. Funnybones’ for The Times of India – said that, “‘Sexy’ is an acceptable compliment within a work environment only if she is a stripper and you are her pimp trying to boost her confidence before she takes the stage.”
Arunabh Kumar was accused of sexual harassment at workplace by an anonymous person. Soon, other women who’d worked with Arunabh came forward too, and as of this moment, at least 50 persons have reported that Arunabh had sexually harassed them at work. In the midst of all this, Arunabh Kumar made a bizarre, bordering-on-the-creepy comment in a Mumbai Mirror story. He said, “I am a heterosexual, single man and when I find a woman sexy I tell her she’s sexy. I compliment women. Is that wrong?”
Twinkle had severe words for this comment, and called Arunabh, and other sexual predators at the workplace – including Tarun Tejpal, R.K Pachauri, Phaneesh Murthy – the ‘Forever Frogs Franchise’, their tongues ‘catching the file-toting flies.’
Recommended
She added, “By calling a woman ‘sexy’ in a working environment, you are undermining everything she has worked for, the stereotypes she has had to break, the pride she takes in her abilities, and the inevitable guilt that she feels about not being home with her children, just to be there in that office, trying to make her place in the world.”
TVF have issued an apology for their rather harsh-sounding, threatening initial response to the allegations, and have clarified that they will indeed investigate the issue.