During the 2025 Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, Monalisa, a young woman from a working-class background, became an unwitting sensation when her photo went viral on social media. Labelled a “brown beauty” by admirers, her rise to fame was less a celebration of her individuality and more a testament to the pervasive male gaze, the fetishisation of brown skin, and the patriarchal systems that continue to dehumanise women.
Instead of empowerment, Monalisa’s brief moment in the limelight led to harassment, surveillance, and, ultimately, a forced retreat into invisibility.
Instead of empowerment, Monalisa’s brief moment in the limelight led to harassment, surveillance, and, ultimately, a forced retreat into invisibility. Her story is more than just a personal tragedy—it is a lens through which we can examine the intersections of gender, class, labour, and race in a deeply unequal society.
The male gaze: objectifying women’s bodies as in the case of Monalisa
The overwhelming attention Monalisa received was not admiration—it was objectification. Her brown skin and perceived “exotic” beauty became the focal point of social media discourse, reducing her to an aesthetic object rather than a person with agency. This reflects what feminist theorist Laura Mulvey famously called the ‘male gaze.‘ In her seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), Mulvey argues that women are often presented as spectacles, ‘to-be-looked-at,’ their value determined by how they can serve as objects of male pleasure.
Monalisa’s viral fame epitomises this dynamic. Comments such as “she’s a goddess” or “a rare beauty” commodified her appearance while erasing her humanity. The same society that fetishised her for her skin tone is the one that marginalises women like her in everyday life. This duality, as Mulvey highlights, is central to the way patriarchy operates: by defining women’s worth through their visibility and desirability rather than their individuality.
Fetishising brown skin while ignoring colourism
The fetishisation of brown-skinned women is a colonial and neoliberal legacy. Feminist scholar bell hooks provides a critical lens to understand this phenomenon. In her book Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992), hooks writes, ‘The commodification of otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling.’ In other words, women of color are often reduced to symbols of “exotic” beauty, their racialised bodies transformed into consumable products.
Monalisa’s story demonstrates how this fetishisation persists. Her brown skin, celebrated as “beautiful” in social media captions, was not a celebration of her individuality but a commodification of her racial identity. Simultaneously, the structural realities of colourism that oppress brown women remain unchallenged. As author Kavita Krishnan argues, ‘Fetishising brown women does not dismantle colorism; it reinforces the very hierarchy that devalues them in other contexts.’ Monalisa was visible because her skin tone was deemed trendy, but that visibility did nothing to challenge the systemic discrimination faced by women of darker skin tones in India and globally.
Social media: from visibility to exploitation of Monalisa
Social media, often heralded as a democratising force, became a double-edged sword in Monalisa’s case. Her image spread rapidly, but the newfound visibility came with relentless harassment. Strangers sent her inappropriate messages, trolled her online, and treated her as a public spectacle. Social media platforms, far from protecting her, became enablers of her exploitation.
Feminist philosopher Nancy Fraser’s critique of neoliberalism in ‘Feminism, Capitalism, and the Cunning of History’ (2013) provides a framework to understand this. Fraser explains how neoliberal systems often co-opt feminist ideals such as visibility and empowerment while reinforcing structures of oppression. ‘Visibility,’ Fraser writes, ‘becomes a trap when it is divorced from actual agency and power.’ Monalisa’s visibility on social media amplified her vulnerability rather than empowering her. It turned her into a commodity that others could consume, rather than a subject with agency and autonomy.
Patriarchal control: Monalisa’s safety at the cost of her freedom
As the harassment escalated, Monalisa’s father intervened. Concerned for her safety, he brought her home, effectively removing her from the public eye. While this might seem like a protective gesture, it reflects the deeply patriarchal logic of controlling women’s lives to safeguard them.
Sociologist Nivedita Menon, in her book Seeing Like a Feminist (2012), critiques this form of control: ‘To be ‘safe’ in a patriarchal society is often to be invisible.’ Menon highlights how society frequently addresses the symptoms of harassment—by restricting women’s mobility or visibility—rather than the root cause, which is male entitlement. By sending Monalisa home, her family ensured her safety, but it came at the cost of her independence. The perpetrators of harassment faced no consequences, while Monalisa was punished with isolation.
The economic dimension: labour, class, and mobility
Monalisa’s story also intersects with issues of class, labour, and the persistent policing of women’s right to enjoy themselves in public spaces. As a young woman from a working-class background, her participation in the Kumbh Mela might have been one of the few escapes from the drudgery of daily life. For many women like her, opportunities to step outside their everyday roles and simply enjoy life are few and far between.
However, for women, even these moments of joy and freedom are rarely free from the gaze and control of a patriarchal society. Monalisa’s experience highlights the way women’s mobility and presence in public spaces are often interpreted through the lens of the male gaze. The viral photo that brought her fame also brought objectification, reducing her to an aesthetic spectacle rather than a person asserting her right to participate fully in a cultural event. Feminist geographer Gillian Rose notes that ‘women’s mere presence in public spaces is often seen as a challenge to patriarchal order,’ which seeks to define when and how women can move freely.
Feminist geographer Gillian Rose notes that ‘women’s mere presence in public spaces is often seen as a challenge to patriarchal order,’ which seeks to define when and how women can move freely.
Feminist economist Devaki Jain has argued that ‘economic freedom is the cornerstone of women’s autonomy.’ In her work Women, Development, and the UN (2005), she emphasises that women’s ability to make independent choices—including the choice to participate in leisure or cultural events—is deeply tied to their economic and social agency.
For Monalisa, what could have been an empowering moment of visibility and self-expression was turned into yet another reminder of how deeply women’s freedoms are constrained. Her brief fame could have opened doors to opportunities, but instead, the patriarchal response to her harassment reinforced her marginalisation.
Monalisa’s experience is not an isolated incident; it is a symptom of larger systemic issues. Colourism, the preference for lighter skin tones, remains deeply ingrained in societies like India’s. Women with brown skin are simultaneously fetishised and marginalised, their worth tied to how they fit into Eurocentric beauty standards.
Moreover, as neoliberalism commodifies everything—including bodies—women of colour are marketed as “exotic,” celebrated for their aesthetic appeal, while their lived realities remain ignored. This reflects what Kimberlé Crenshaw describes in her theory of intersectionality: ‘Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which women of color are subordinated.‘
