There is the obvious and virulent form of this unclepan you find on the internet and WhatsApp groups—propelling misinformation, trolling feminist handles, frothing about love jihaad, body-shaming and victim-blaming. Uncouth uncles openly complain about how women dress at schools or in workplaces, empathising with #MeToo offenders, revealing their highly sexed way of tackling the female body that holds public space, demonstrating their innate resentment of the hard-won freedom of many salaried women to escape unfulfilling marriages (and bad sex) as a means of securing a living. But these online uncles are easy targets. My conversations on workplace politics offer a more complex and nuanced picture of the unhelpful uncle. The men that drew maximum ire from the women I interviewed were not right-wing WhatsApp uncles. Instead, I heard multiple stories about how self-professed liberal uncles, often beta-men, could inflict chronic damage on a woman’s career and confidence. Navigating and complaining about a clear and clumsy display of bias is far more straightforward—although onerous—than its subtle and sophisticated form.
Sharanya Bhattacharya, ‘The tyranny of the Indian uncle’, Mint