Without participation of males, the movement cannot achieve its desired goal and there will be no end to sexual harassment of women

 

Speakers at the discussion at National Press Club, Dhaka on Thursday Focus Bangla
 

Speakers at a discussion have underlined the need for participation of people from all walks of life, especially males, in the #MeToo Movement running worldwide for its success.

#MeToo Movement-Bangladesh organized a discussion titled “#MeToo Movement in Bangladesh: Possibility and Challenges” at the National Press Club on Thursday, reports UNB.

Without participation of males, the movement cannot achieve its desired goal and there will be no end to sexual harassment of women, they said.

Around 30 women from different professions took part in the program and raised their voices against all types of sexual harassment against them.

Dhaka University Mass Communication and Journalism Department Chairperson, Prof Dr Kaberi Gayen said: “We must raise our voice against any sort of harassment of women. We must appreciate those women who are revealing what happened to them. If we don’t expose the culprits, they’ll continue to repeat such crimes.”

Demanding institutional steps against those involved in such kinds of crimes, she said: “In our country, most of the media houses and government and private organizations have no specific guidelines on sexual harassment of women. 

“Even in Dhaka University, if any female teacher is harassed by her male counterpart, the university authorities form a probe body to look into it instead of taking immediate action.” 

Conducted by Udisa Islam, chief reporter of online news portal Bangla Tribune, Mushfika Laizu, Zakia Sultana Mukta, and Tashnuva Anan shared their experiences of sexual harassment at the program.

Prof Fahmidul Haq of DU Mass Communication and Journalism department, Executive Director of Ain O Salish Kendra, Sheepa Hafiza, Bangladesh Female Journalists’ Association President, Nasimun Ara Haque Minu, and Banglavision News Editor, Sharmeen Rinvy, spoke at the discussion, among others.

Courtesy: https://www.dhakatribune.com/

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In a solidarity event that voiced support for female victims of sexual abuse, female journalists have called on women from all spheres to speak up against abusers.

A slew of allegations made through social media have taken Bangladesh by storm, as women, one after another are accusing men in powerful positions of sexually harassing them without any consequence.

Female journalists held a demonstration in front of National Press Club on Friday afternoon, calling the nation to stand by these victims.

Speakers at the event also called on people to stand up to these social crimes against women in their homes, their workplaces and on the streets.

Bangladesh Nari Sangbadik Kendra (centre for women journalists) President Nasimun Ara Haque Minu said: “Allegations against rich, powerful and influential businessmen, journalists, publishers and university teachers have been revealed.

“No matter how talented, no matter how rich or powerful they may be, they cannot get away with this. We have to speak up, otherwise the offenders will continue to get away with their crimes,” she said.

“We have to stand beside and support those who have already spoken up,” she added.

She also said that these protests will continue in future and all female journalists gathered at the event are standing up against abusers.

Minu called on all employers to implement the High Court’s instructions on workplace sexual harassment, adding that this would significantly reduce such incidents.

Women Journalist Forum President Mamtaz Bilkis Banu lauded the Daily Star for addressing allegations raised against their staff.

“We hope that this will be an example for other organizations,” she said.

Bangladesh Women Journalist Forum General Secretary Sharmin Rinvi said many famous personalities had been unmasked by the revelations.

Bangladesh Nari Sangbadik Samity President Nasima Soma said there was no alternative to raising awareness in the family in order to prevent sexual harassment.

Journalist Udia Islam vowed to stand up against those who will try to stifle this social movement.

“This is not a new problem. For ages women and children have lived through these problems. But as conscious parents we cannot keep our children near these assailants. This is a mental disease,” she said.

Speakers called on assailants to publicly apologise and for social organizations to remove them as members.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

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A report on the public talk organised by GATWU, Stree Jagruti Samiti, BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha and KBNN Workers Federation

Image Courtesy: Debanjan Chowdhury

The #MeToo movement may have started recently, but it is not new to India. The fight against sexual harassment began when Bhanwari Devi, a saathin in a village in Rajasthan, was raped for doing her job — stopping child marriage. Every working-class woman, like Bhanwari Devi, has a #MeToo story to share. Job insecurity, low wages — upon which her entire family is dependent, no social security benefits, and added to which are caste and class oppression. This silences women workers from speaking about their experiences of sexual harassment. 

The #MeToo movement is not lead by any particular woman. The women participating in it to call out their perpetrators are owning the movement as theirs. This has displayed the exemplary solidarity of women fighting sexual harassment and exposing it for what it is. The movement has also demolished the lies around women when it comes to sexual harassment — that it happened because she was wearing a revealing dress, that she might have seduced him, that her character is questionable, that she asked for it, etc. It has showed us that sexual harassment is shockingly common and universal. It has also broken the myth that a woman loses her and her family’s honour if she is sexually harassed. Women are standing up against their perpetrators against great odds and risks to their personal safety, job security, and mental peace.

Despite the Vishakha Guidelines and the Prevention of Sexual Harassment and Redressal Act of 2013, working class women have been fighting for redressal and justice when it comes to sexual harassment at the workplace. There are areas of workplaces which are diverse, invisible and taut with class, caste and gender prejudices which do not allow the law to penetrate. This is the case with domestic workers, street vendors, pourakarmikas (waste workers), construction workers, and others, where local complaint committees have been formed, but are constituted merely on paper. In such cases, the working-class women have been fighting against sexual harassment through their trade unions.

On the evening of November 03, 2018, the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), along with the BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha, Garment and Textile Workers Union, Domestic Workers Rights Union and the KSRTC/BMTC/ NEKRTC/NWKRTC Workers Federation hosted a public programme called “#MeToo: Working Class Women Share” in Bangalore. Several women workers participated in the event and shared how the nature of their work and the work environments make it vulnerable to sexual harassment. The natural outcome of calling out their perpetrators is to lose their jobs instantly, and in most cases without any pay. Rathna, a pourakarmika, while sharing her experience said, “The supervisor in my ward stripped off his pants in public when we asked him for our wages which we weren’t paid for five months”. Tahira, a domestic worker, said that when her employer’s son molested her and she complained, she was instantly removed from her job. Rajeshwari, who works in a garment factory in Hosur stated how the managers in garment factories abuse them. “I was told that I wasn’t fit to work in the factory and that I should stand on the road to earn money. We are also exposed to physical assault due to the structure of garment factories and the way they are built,” she said. Parveen, a mechanic with the BMTC, said that sexual harassment is not just rampant amongst bus commuters, but it is even more so for women bus conductors. “We have to deal with drunk men sometimes. We have thousands of rupees in our bags from ticket collection. If we create a ruckus about the harassment we face and lose the money in the scuffle, then we will have to pay BMTC from our pockets. This is why most women conductors do not talk about sexual harassment,” she said and added that lack of toilets for women bus conductors at bus depots and bus stands also enable sexual harassment. 

In the programme, members from the transgender community, sex workers and students also spoke of their experiences of sexual harassment. Sana, a transsexual woman, said, “I was sexually violated when I worked for a media company. I was removed from my job as they feared I would create noise about it. Members of our community cannot complain to the police because they also sexually abuse us. They say that we are meant to be harassed and violated. The #MeToo movement has not addressed concerns of sexual minorities or oppressed caste women.” Madhu Bhushan, an activist, stated that one does not think of sexual harassment for sex workers. Parijatha of the Sthree Jagruti Samiti said that when they complained of several sexual abuse cases related to domestic workers, the officials of the Department of Women and Child Development reacted in an extremely insensitive manner. “They too are a prejudiced lot,” she said.

The All India Progressive Women’s Association plans to prepare a report from the experiences shared at the public programme on November 03, which will be submitted to the Kerala government’s Department of Women and Child Development, Karnataka State Commission for Women, the Internal Complaints Committees of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

Lekha graduated from Azim Premji University, Bangalore with a Masters in Development, before which, she worked as a sub-editor with The New Indian Express. She is interested in understanding issues related to informal labour and urban commons.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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In 2004, two women ministers said that if Sonia Gandhi became the prime minister of the country they would tonsure themselves. Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharati threatened that they would live like widows and shave their heads and do what is prescribed for widows. Sonia Gandhi had refused the post and fortunately they didn’t have to act on these threats.
 
In another incidence, Swaraj spoke passionately in Parliament during a debate on the Nirbhaya case. She was full of anger and called Nirbhaya a ‘Zinda Laash.’ Nirbhaya was still alive then. Her connotations were clear that a woman who is violated is a dead one.
 
Today she is the Minister for External Affairs and under her was another Minister, a very ‘famous’ editor and author who was accosted by many colleagues for being a sexual predator but she refused to speak on the issue or take a stand.
 
She has been seen on TV studios on days like Karwa Chauth or Teej for quite some time and has been celebrating with ‘suhagans’, a symbol she never refuses to flaunt. In the Brahmanical setup, a woman is ’empowered’ and ‘respected’ as long as she is a ‘sugahan’ and our ministers deliberately portray that.
 
She has truly got a new competitor in Smriti Irani whose life story is ‘inspiring’. Irani follows the same traits and flaunts the ‘married woman status’ as the Sangh Parivar would want her to do in the greater interest of ‘protecting ‘bhartiyata where a woman is allowed to ‘work’ or go out but at the same time, protect our ‘sanskriti’ and ‘family’. The first duty of a woman is to protect her family and ‘sanskriti’.
 
For the last few days, we have witnessed women fighting for their right to enter Sabarimala temple. Women above 10 and below 50 are not allowed to enter the temple. The reasons are clear. They menstruate and it is considered ‘dirty’ in all religious practices. The Kanya pujan during Navratris worships the girl child but not the woman she becomes. It happens in Nepal too with the famous ‘Kumari’, the living Goddess, who is worshipped until she attains puberty. In many Dargah’s, women are not allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum if they are menstruating. Irani says that as a mother of two Zoroastrian boys, she can’t go to the fire temple because women are not allowed and she ‘respects’ the tradition.
 
A religion is not a religion unless it allows the flexibility for change. Religions here refuse to change. They remain caged in the old traditional practices dictated and dominated by the powerful clique in every religion. Women are the carriers of these practices and traditions that humiliate them. Hence both the ministers and many others like them only play that role which keeps the Brahmanical patriarchy happy as they hail from those organisations.
 
Now, to justify her position on not allowing women in Sabarimala temple, Irani brings the Zoroastrian women’s issue but it is true that you can’t liberate women through religious sanctity. Even when the entry of women in Haji Ali Dargah came, many women rose against it. Today, they can easily enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Dargah.
 
The problem is not that Smiriti Irani can’t have her views. Both the ministers have proved that being a woman does not guarantee that you will stand for your own gender’s rights. They might even be unaware of the fact that their current position in the party is due the constitutional guarantee that women are equal to men and is divorced from religious morality, which doesn’t consider them equals.
 
Smriti Irani said, “I am nobody to speak on the Supreme Court verdict because I am a current serving Cabinet Minister. But just plain common sense. Would you take sanitary napkins steeped in menstrual blood and walk into a friend’s home? You will not. And do you think that it is respectful to do the same when you walk into the house of God? So that is the difference. I have a right to pray. I do not have the right to desecrate. That is my personal opinion.’
 
She is entitled to her personal opinion but she actually re-enforced the age-old belief that ‘women are dirty when they menstruate’. It is due to this belief many women in our villages are still kept in gaushalas and not allowed to sleep in their houses during periods. It is this belief that doesn’t allow them to go to the Hanuman temples on Tuesdays. It is this belief which makes them feel ashamed of themselves and their bodies. I don’t know how can the Ministers attend important cabinet meets if they feel menstruation is dirty and women should not go to a ‘friends’ place.
 
India’s #Metoo movement must address the root cause of the problem and create a better environment for all. The chaotic wave that has engulfed the country was a long time due but name calling will only take us this far. The war between men and women won’t stop until we overthrow the value system which is feudal and patriarchal. The Brahmanical patriarchy in India is not merely a powerful instrument to culturally suppress India’s Bahujan masses but also use the Savarna women to divert the real issues of caste discrimination and the institutional violence that Bahujan Samaj including its women face on a daily basis in India.
 
#Metoo will succeed if the women’s movement understands and accepts the Brahmanical monopoly on our culture and institutional oppression of the communities through its rigid traditional and cultural practices.
 
We need to see through the Brahmanical smokescreen. We need to stop letting women becomes cogs and diversion tactics in the Brahmanical propaganda machinery that justifies caste violence and discredits institutional discrimination. We need to work to change our social environment and ensure that our office spaces, public transport and social platforms remain democratised and all of us respect consent and the right to dissent.
 
No movement should become a detriment to freedom. Twitter revolutions world over have only resulted in worse situations. Take Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and India where social media is used effectively by religious rights. See how they occupy the space and take the moral high ground.
We know what happened to Anna’s anti-corruption movement in India and who benefitted from it.
 
When the Khap panchayats were killing Dalits for falling in love with the girls from upper caste Hindu families, we did not have a strong voice. We did not have an intense campaign that could jolt the Brahmanical discriminatory mindset.
 
Now, many activists suggest people to not fall in love. They should not love boys and girls beyond their caste limits and these voices are coming from the sections who are worried about their innocent young being killed.
 
#Metoo should not be confined to a few individual stories and let the larger part disappear. The atmosphere remains tense and superficial without a holistic closure or learning. Based on #metoo conclusions, people think that every other person is bad.
 
A country like India will face far-reaching repercussions. People won’t let girls to move out. Many won’t employ them. Parents will justify caste marriages even though many studies show that violence happens in all types of families. In such cases, the right-wing narrative becomes more acceptable than the modern narrative. Those who have raised the issues are well equipped and secure. They are well connected and know how to use media. But for the millions of people who have to seek permission from their parents, brothers, husbands and society to complete everyday tasks, things have not changed. They do not change overnight. We all have a duty to create a better and safe environment instead of brushing it away or throwing the burden on law enforcement agencies. Awareness and confidence are needed for change.
 
Hundreds of new excuses will be created to deny women freedom and equality and it is, therefore, more important for all of us to work for a better future and not fall in the trap of the past. The world has changed and it would serve men and women better to adapt to changing times. It will be impossible without challenging rigid and age-old social and cultural practises which make the institution of caste.

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Whether the Sabrimala temple entry issue or the concerns relating to MeToo movement, the bureacratic as well as the legal system is failing to provide space to women to assert their rightsor to fight against the patriarchal forces. In the current regressive environment it is significant that women’s agency and choices find space and the movement such as MeToo facilitate such informal support system and provide a platform where women’s voices could be raised. It is different from the top-down campaigns initiated by the State and aims to change men’s behaviour rather than expecting women to learn to deal with violence committed by men. Such movements have potential to change the notion of sex, power and consent in a male-doimnated society. MeToo is about women making space in a toxic male-dominated work environment. The need is to expand and strengthen this movement further.

Violence is Pervasive
Violence against women and more particularly, sexual harassment is pervasive in public as well as in private spaces. Women in patriarchal society are being harassed everyday in one form or the other at the public places. They are being stalked, groped,bullied, flirted with, are targetted with unwanted jokes, lewd comments are being passed so on and so forth, many forms of unwanted harassment takes place day in and day out where perpetrator could be a stranger or an acquaintance.

Frequently, in the post-colonial India, when women because of their newly founded education and aspiration are venturing out to work, in a polarised, layered, hierarchical society, men could not accept the fact that women are asserting for equality or are competing with them. When on the one hand women are struggling to forge a new identity of their own, men are not ready or willing to create space for women. The patriarchal attitude still considers women as someone secondary’ as anappendage’ to men and is someone who could not fit into the male dominated workspaces. Women are therefore not being treated as colleagues’ orpartners’ in workplaces. The `old-boys’ network continue to prevail. Violence against women at the workplace arise the due to such culture where sexism and misogyny operate to subjugate women.
Irony is that at the work place, it is not the perpertrators who were told to stop rather it is the victims who are being told “not to make harassment an issue” in order to preserve their careers and reputations. Paradoxical is that it is not the perpetrators that are being shamed for their violent actions rather for years women victims and survivors have been stigmatised and are forced to face the wrath of the society. The feudal conservative patriarchal mindset of the society makes joke about women and takes women’s concern in a non-serious manner as often narcissistic men cannot tolerate women competing with women. The culture of silence is build around the violence which prevents many women to lodge their complaint. Often, cases are brushed under the carpet creating a culture of complicity. MeToo is against this culture of silencing women.

And more specifically in cases relating to sexual harassment at work place, women earlier had no distinct platform until the Supreme Court pronounced the guidelines in the matter of Vishakha versus the State of Rajasthan[1]. The Prevention of Women Against Sexual Harassment Act was enacted only in 2013 after much pressure and sustained camapign by the progressive women’s movement. Yet, still, any act of violence against women are not being taken seriously even by the law makers and implementers. Accusing the victim or victim blaming is a common practice which is being used even by the legal system to crush the voices of women[2]. The police stations and courts are hostile to women victims and survivors. The delay and the struggle in the adjudication in the matter relating to Rupen Deol Bajaj versus KPS Gill[3] is a perfect example as to how even the educated urban working women have to face a long challenging battle to obtain justice. Many of such cases show that the legal system has failed women and that the culture of violence with impunity is prevalent inside and outside the court rooms.
Though the laws have been enacted, yet the perpetrators of violence often go scot free. The patriarchal courts are much more sympathetic to male perpetrators of violence and used to find technical faults or procedural lacunae to support the accused persons[4]. In fact, the legal system is geared to cater to the whims of patriarchy. From the famous Mathura rape case[5] to Bhanwari Devi’s rape matter and the judgement delivered by the High court and the Supreme Court in the Farooqui rape case[6], all depict that the regressive patriarchy is intensly ingrained and deeply embedded. At times, instead of penalizing the abuser, the process of trial in the courts becomes another process of victimization of victims of crime.

Experiences, for years, show that coming out with the complain against powerful abusive men is not an easy process. In fact, a recent survey shows that 78 percent women who face sexual harassment at work place did not report it[7]. The data further shows that only 6.6 percent sexual harassment cases filed resulted in conviction. In the year 2016, there were 34,186 cases were filed of which police compleited investigation in 75 percent cases and filed chargesheet in filed in 67.3 percent cases sent for trial[8].

Patriarchy is Rampant
Often men or even the androcentric courts do not see women as consenting adults or persons with self-contained being adorned with rights as citizens. For men, it is difficult to understand the concept of consent. In fact, sexual assault or rape has been used as a weapons since ages to control, conquer and terrorize women. Susan Brownmiller in her famous work titled “Against Our Will”[9] has argued that rape “is nothing more or less than the conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear”. Brownmiller opined that rape is primeval and ultimate act of subjugation where the rapist asserts his power with the urge to dominate.

Sexual assault is a weapon of force and an act of dominance, a principal agent of man’s will and a woman’s fear, a triumph of manhood and is easier to commit in situations where the aggressor has an advantage which persists due to structural domination such as feudalism, slavery, work, war or in custody situations where the victim could hardly resist and is overawed by the power and authority of the assaulter. Power is utilized or rather abused to create terror. Toxic masculinity is used as a weapon to humiliate the women – the vulnerable and the weak[10]. Sexual assault is being used as a means of suppression as well as fordepicting power and supremacy. Men believe that they can do anything and can get away with it.Often, men believe that they are over and above the law. The institutions frequently support the predators and there is little women can do about it.

Breaking the Culture of Silence Around Violence
However, the movements such as Me_too are paving the way for the new hope to make a dent on the patriarchal, violent and androcentric culture which portrays perpetrators of violence as heros and celebrate the culture of silencing victims and shaming women. Me_Too is not a legal recourse of action but it is an action beyond law into the social realm anda complement to the legal process as it provides a platform where women can garner support from others against the powerful predators making the perpetrator accountable. Women no longer need to suffer silently or be told to keep quiet about the violence they have been facing in public or private spaces.

Initiated in 2006 by Black feminist activist Tarana Burke while she was working with poor Black young girls and women who were victims of sexual assault, this hashtag was used by Hollywood heroine Alyssa Milanoin 2017 when while sharing her own traumatic experience she invited other women to share their experiences openly on a public platform. This movement exposed many high profile educated people who were found to be involved in crime against women. It has shown that the power imbalance is universal and ubiquotous phenomenon.
Though it is a well known fact that men, poor or rich sexually assault women, but such action on the part of women to make noise about this issue made a dent on fragile toxic masculinity. Despite of the fact that the movement cannot stop the abuser to occupy the position of power in the US yet it created a storm and spread like a wild fire across various countries.

In India, in the year 2017 a list was posted on the social media by several women which was dumped as the vague list of allegations, however, in September 2018 one of the Bollywood actress posted her experiences of sexual assault and later several other too joined her. This movement exposed several well known names in the television and the film industry and later several journalists too shared their stories which revealed the manner in which the people in position of power abuse women and treat them as an object rather than as a human being.

One of the striking feature of MeToo movement is that women survivors have shown courage to come out openly and narrate their experiences while naming and shaming the harassers and bringing the incident under public scrutiny. Women are taking stand against the harassement they have faced and these survivors have shed the veil of anonymity while defying the stigma. This bold act to defy the power structure and dynamics by a woman against powerful men who were in position to harass and humiliate is encouraging other women too thus challenging the age-old power balance.The testimonies of women have opened the possibilities of debate and discussion around the issue of violence against women in the suffocating patriarchal environment.  This movement is not only confined to elite sections of the society as alleged during its initial phase but it is reaching out and making impact in the far flung areas too[11].

The movement has send a strong message to the predatory male bosses, supervisors or pesky colleagues in the position of power and privilege who could not comprehend the meaning of word `consent’ or refuse to acknowledge the fact that women are to be respected as human beings. It is an innovative way to create space in the work spaces dominated by men. Men now need to think before making any vulgar untoward advances toward the female working under them and to control their libidos or the surge of the testosterone. MeToo movement has the potential to raise the consciousness regarding the notions of sex, power and consent in a conservative society. The movement is against the toxic oppressive environment and it has succedeed in placing onus on men for their actions of harassment. Over and above caste or class biases, this movement is more about gender equality and empowerment at the work spaces or the public places where men need to learn, un-learn and re-learn their behaviour towards women.

There are Many Untold Hidden Stories
MeToo in its present from represent only a tip of an iceberg. There are many hidden untold stories underneath in the deep dark corners. As women, many of us face violence on daily basis in public and private spaces. Those experiences have a cumulative effect on our being. Yet, only few narratives came out. Being on the sexual harassment committees and handling cases of women survivors of violence as a lawyer, I could connect the dots between many told and untold stories and could realize that it is not easy for women to bring up the cases against men easily in the public domain.

Yet, MeToo as such as has shaken the patriarchy to its core. MeToo is hurting the fragile toxic masculine ego. Many women are being trolled for coming out with the truth. In the culture where rape jokes, slut shaming and victim shaming is normalized and legitimized, this spur of a onslaught where women vocalised their traumatic experiences is felt as a jolt by men. Many men struggled to understand the concept of consent. Men could not understand this form of female uprising. For them it is inversion of power structure as they imagined a world in which women rule as men have ruled the women.

MeToo is a powerful collective voice of women against the patriarchal subjugation. Reading it as a ploy to point finger at one man or that it is subjective or any other form of backlash implies surrendering to the dictates of patriarchy because any form of violence against women cannot be seen as a man versus a woman issue. In the larger context, violence is a patriarchal issue.

Me_Too is Not a Man versus a Women Issue It is Women Versus Patriarchy
The response of media as well as of society towards the MeToo movement is divided. Many of those men and women, who express their opinion on the social media sites view MeToo as a man versus a woman issue. What is ignored while polarising MeToo as a man versus a woman issue is that this movement is not against a person by another rather it has to larger ramifications and has to be understood in the larger context. The need is to recognize the fact that any form of violence against women is embedded in patriarchal structure. It is in this male-dominated context that women are not alllowed to speak against violence or their voices are stuffled in case they dare to do so. Patriarchal conditioning is such that women are being trained to imbibe the culture of silence and tolerate violence. Me Too challenges this powerful dominating patriarchal violent structure.

Critiques of the Movement
Though several of the critics suggested that such public trials are devoid of procedural fairness and violate the basic sense of fair play, yet one of the advantage of such action is potential to change the prevalent culture of maintaining silence around the violence and to express anger, resentmentand frustration in the public domain. This expression of anger is significant as this is an anger which is expressed without any regret or repentance for being wronged, anger which has been boiling and bottled up for years and anger which could not find any other escape because there is no outlet.

Earlier, the frustrations of internalizing patriarchy or to submit to androcentric authority has no platform where it could be vent out without paying the heavy cost in terms of losing the job. But perhaps, now a platform is being made available. Though not many women feel comfortable using social media to vent out their anger against predatory colleagues or harrasers and those who tried are dubbed as trouble makers[12], yet there exist a possibility of sharing stories and garnering support.

This movement has to be seen in the wider context as it is not subscribing to the actions relating to unduly terminating someone from his job, lynching the person, or to subscribe to the undesirable or inappropriate media trial, yet such exposures could help make the dent on patriarchal violent culture. This is more about providing platform to the survivors to raise their concerns in a secure environment where the victim does not face insecurity of being a victim. Though here some of the disclosures by women of their traumatic experiences which they have been suppressing for years have resulted in apologies, resignations and initiating inquiries against the accused persons yet this movement has helped in creating an environment for debate and discussion around the issue of women’s consent and appropriate behaviour as well as respect towards women.

The Due Process Has to be Fair
The critics of the MeToo movement argued that the due process is not being followed in all such cases. However, what is overlooked is the fact that the due process requires certain basic set of principles to be followed by both the parties. It cannot be  imposed unjustly on the vulnerable party in order to favour the powerful one.

Today, in situations when the powerful parties are playing the victim card trying to gain all the advantages it will be unfair to suppress the victims and survivors in such situations. For instance, in the given instance when around20 women spoke out against the Union Minister MJ Akbar, he hired one of the law firm which intentionally filed the vakalatnama with the names of 97 lawyers mentioned on it to file the criminal defamation case against one of those women. This vakalatnama has been widely circrulated on the social media. The intention of such melodramatic strategy is to clearly intimidate and prevent other women to speak out. It is a routine practice where the brute display of power is used within and outside the court room which the powerful perpetrators abuse their muscle and money power against the vulnerable victims. Criminal defamation law is used as a legalized weapon to the advantage of the perpetrator of the crime to silence and intimidate the women and to oppress the others.

In other cases too, such as the one against RK Pachauri, Phaneesh Murthy or Tarun Tejpal, or even when a judge is accused by a law intern and where all such accused personshave tried to delay the proceesings or manage the trial to their own gains, it is unfair that the survivor is being compelled to suffer because her case could not be fast-tracked because of the overburdened judicial system or because the courts and judiciary is patriarchal and masculine or because of any other lacunae in the legal system.

Not only in India, but at the global level, often, strategic legal weapons are used by the rich and powerful to inhibit public participation, threaten the parties, to delay and to make the litigants weary and withdraw the matter[13]. Strategic Law Against Public Participation or SLAPP suits are filed to deploy the forces of law to silence the victims and the witnesses. It is a form of backlash used by the powerful sexual predators to enforce the culture of sexual oppression in a deeply entrenched gender divide and misogyny. To address such situations and to make the criminal justice system more victim friendly there is a need to re-examine the working of the system.

State is a Complicit
Also, it has  been seen that the androcentric State often favours men.For instance, when this Me Too Movement started, the Ministry of External Affairs under which this Union Minister is working has not responded appropriately or issued any statement that an inquiry committee wil be established or any other step may be taken. Similarly, the Prime Minister who is known for his articulate skill of delivering speeches including Mann ki Baat and has not spoken a word on this issue[14]. In fact, the brazen arrogant regime refused to initiate inquiry into the allegations and made futile attempt to turn it into an ugly political conspiracy issue[15].

Thus, it may be said that for ages, men have used all strategies and tactics to undermine the issue of sexual harassment and the state has been complicit in all such cases where women is victimized. Any voices raised are being hushed up using class, caste, gender, religion, or political ideology. The male sense of entitlement and supremacy is deeply entrenched that makes the culture toxic and when more and more women are entering the workplace, the fragile masculine ego is trembling with fear, because perhaps, for women the situation has changed but men need to undergo a massive reconstruction in terms of their understanding of the culture of respect for women[16].

The Moment in which the MeToo Movement Occur is Crucial
Further, the MeToo movement has been initiated during the period when the consevrative ideology is rising across the continents. In US as well as in many other countries including India, the right wing governments are at the center and pushing conservative set of beliefs. In India, the current government is pushing the Hindutva ideology that treat women as secondary citizens. Love-Jihad and other similar regressive measures are being adopted by the government to control and terrorise women[17].

The incidences of crime against women is on rise and rapes that took place in Kathua, Unnao or Mandsaur are reversing the gains made in the field of gender equality or empowerment. The girls in several schools, colleges and universities are raising their voices against the harsh rules and regulations being imposed on them. Raising voice against patriarchy during this period is crucial when a large number of girls and women are being raped, murdered and killed. The Hindu upper caste male supremacy is pushed while all other communities including women are being marginalized[18]. The culture of violence and hate is being created against those who are considered as `Others’. In such a climate when fascism is at its peak, any form of  resistance and defiance against conservative Brahaminical patriarchy become more significant to create spaces for democratic voices.

The conflict between the progressive and liberal ideas with that of regressive patriarchal values is making an adverse impact on the rights of women. This is evident in the matter relating to women’s entry into the Sabrimala temple where despite of the Supreme Court verdict to allow the females of any age to enter the place of worship, several right-wing protestors are not allowing women to enter the temple. The state, though duty bound, is seemingly surrendering before the powerful forces.

Whether the Sabrimala Temple entry issue or the concerns relating to MeToo movement, the bureaucratic as well as the legal system is failing to provide space to women to assert their rights. In such a regressive environment it is significant that women’s agency and choices find space and the movement such as Me_Too facilitate such informal support system and provide a platform where voices of women could be raised.

NO Means NO
The fight against misogyny needs to be fought at many fronts. MeToo has raised questions which are not addressed by law as yet. The law needs to provide solution for such issues. The law needs to classify different behaviours from sexual misconduct to sexual assault and is supposed to be amended to include punishments for such behaviours while dealing with the technicalities relating to limitations or the time in which one can report the cases under the law. Even otherwise, MeToo has raised a debate on general platforms about the new norms of behaviour. People are being forced to unlearn inherent patriarchal behaviour.

MeToo movement needs to be captured and expanded to travel to the small towns and villages where women could be encouraged to vocalize against the vast vulgar world of sexual exploitation which currently is going on unnoticed and unreported. Support groups need to formed at the local level where women in the moot corners may not feel isolated or alienated. The scope of MeToo movement could be enlarged so that it may outreach into the unorganized sector too besides enabling women in organized sector to raise their concerns and also from public life to private domains of home and from the circles of privileged classes to masses. This movement can raise the gender sensitivity and has the potential to spread the message that women’s consent is significant and that NO means NO.

MeToo Movement is the Revolutionary Measure Which can Bring the Desired Structural Changes
The Government of India had initiated Beti Bachao Beti Padhao movement, however the campaign could not succeed much as the crime against women increased since past four years. More girls and women are feeling unsafe probably because the top down campaign could not strike a deal with common people. But MeToo is a movement initiated by the survivors of violence, even though it has been said that these are mostly upper class elite educated women who are raising their concerns yet such approach could create more space for other women who may not have come forward to raise their voice.The focus on this movement is to raise consciousness and change the behaviour of men rather than forcing women to deal with the issue of violence or putting onus on women to learn techniques to avoid getting harassed.

MeToo is more about garnering friendship, solidarity, sisterhood, creating of such a large safe space that any survivor anywhere is able to speak up. It has forced the men to introspect their behaviour and to make women conscious of their rights.It is significant as it could bring change in the notions relating to sex power and consent within any relationship. This movement is a step towards the facilitating an environment where women’s rights, autonomy and dignity could be installed while enabling a gender sensitive environment within homes, workplaces or in public. Beyond social media or the courtrooms, the conversation has to be made at everyworkplace, public or private spaces to make dent on the structural patriarchal environment. MeToo shows that no power is absolute and that every change has a beginning.

The author is a practicing lawyer, researcher and an activist working in the field of gender, human rights, law and governance. She has written several books and articles and is handling cases pertaining to women’s rights, human rights and social justice. She may be contacted at shalu_nigam@rediffmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

[1]Vishakha v State of Rajasthan AIR 1997 SC 3011
[2]Jaising Indira (2018) #Me Too has shown that the Indian Legal System Has Failed Indian Women, But There is a Way Forward, Bloomberg Quint, October 18, https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/metoo-shows-the-legal-system-has-failed-indian-women-but-there-is-a-way-forward#gs.GnKUtVY
[3] Rupan Deol Bajaj v KPS Gill 1996 AIR 309
[4]Nigam S (2017) Fighting for Justice in Patriarchal Courts, Countercurrents, August 30 https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/30/fighting-for-justice-in-the-patriarchal-courts/
[5]Tukaram v State of Maharashtra AIR 1979 SC 185 Also Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India, SCC 1979 1: 17
[6]Nigam S (2017) From Mathura to Farooqui Rape Case: The Regressive Patriarchy found Its Way Back, Countercurrents, October 9 https://countercurrents.org/2017/10/09/from-mathura-to-farooqui-rape-case-the-regressive-patriarchy-found-its-way-back/
[7]Dhingra Sanya (2018) 78% Indians Did Not report Sexual Harassment at Work Place When They Faced It: Survey, October 16 https://theprint.in/governance/78-indians-did-not-report-sexual-harassment-at-workplace-when-they-faced-it-survey/135274/
[8]The Times of India (2018) #MeToo: Only 6.6 percent Sexual Harassment Cases Resulted in Convictions,October 22, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/9-of-10-sexual-harassment-plaints-proven-to-be-true/articleshow/66310977.cms?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=TOIDesktop
[9] Brownmiller Susan (1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Fawcett Books, Random House, US
[10]Nigam S (2018) The cult of 56 Inches and Toxic Masculinity, Countercurrents June 23 https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/23/the-cult-of-56-inches-and-toxic-masculinity/
[11]Iyer A S (2018) #MeToo Reaches Rural India: `Men have Stopped Sending Us Porn, The Quint, October 19 https://www.thequint.com/news/india/me-too-sexual-harassment-rural-women-khabar-lahariya
[12]Dey A (2018) Why Women Beat Reporters are Apprehensive About joining MeToo Chorus, Scroll.in October 13, https://scroll.in/article/897798/why-women-beat-reporters-across-india-are-apprehensive-about-joining-metoo-chorus
[13]Chandra R (2018) MJ Akbar’s Defamation Case: From News Room to Court Room, the Game is Power, The Wire, October 18, https://thewire.in/law/m-j-akbars-defamation-case-from-news-room-to-court-room-the-game-is-the-same
[14]Singh DK (2018) MJ Akbarto Kathua: Decoding the Silence of Teflon Coated Modi, The Print October 16, https://theprint.in/opinion/m-j-akbar-to-kathua-decoding-the-silence-of-teflon-coated-narendra-modi/134574/
[15]Sharma B and Sethi A (2018) New Accuser Says MJ Akbar Harassed Her when she Was 18 Year Old Intern, Huff Post October 12, https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/10/12/new-accuser-says-mj-akbar-harassed-her-when-she-was-an-18-year-old-intern_a_23558579/
[16]Halarankar S (2018) My Wife Faces A Union Minister, His 97 Lawyers. It Takes Special Courage to Do That, The Scroll, October 16, https://scroll.in/article/898415/my-wife-faces-a-union-minister-his-97-lawyers-it-takes-special-courage-to-do-that
[17]Varma Subodh (2018) Savarkar’s Sanction to Use Rape as a Political Weapon, NewsClick April 16, https://www.newsclick.in/savarkars-sanction-use-rape-political-weapon
[18]Nigam S (2016) The Privileges of Being a Hindu Upper Caste and Elite Class Male in India, February 15, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2730525
 

The post #MeToo In India Is Just A Tip Of An Iceberg And It Has Shaken The Patriarchy To Its Core appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Detail. Durga slaying the Buffalo Demon. India, Karnataka, 13th century. Wikicommons/Los Angeles Museum of Art. Some rights reserved.

It has led to resignations in the media world, boycotts in the film industry and the closure of a famous film company. Junior foreign minister M J Akbar was made to resign. During a festival celebrating the Goddess who kills a demon menacing Gods, scores of educated Indian women have unmasked their tormentors and sparked a mini-revolution. A journalist has compared these #MeToo revelations to the “eruption of a volcano”.

These women had for years suppressed their trauma with silence, but when a visiting US-based Indian woman opened a can of worms, dozens of victims spoke out causing ‘quakes in the worlds of films, journalism, sports and literature.

Akbar, an editor-turned-politician, brazened it out for days and filed a criminal defamation case against one of the 16 women journalists for naming and shaming him by describing his alleged misconduct in the work place. Akbar denied all allegations. But finally, he had to resign as minister. The Prime Minister’s silence and the ruling party’s wait-and-watch policy failed to protect him politically for more than 10 days. The Prime Minister’s silence and the ruling party’s wait-and-watch policy failed to protect him politically for more than 10 days.

Banner headlines

Akbar’s resignation got banner headlines. The Indian Express, having demanded days ago his exit from his work place, said it marked a new benchmark in politics – of women, by women, for women and men. The minister’s exit was hailed as a “watershed moment” and a “seminal moment” in India’s history.

One of the victims had alleged that when she knocked at Akbar’s hotel room door, he opened the door in his underwear and put on a bathrobe to talk to her about journalistic work. A woman commentator wrote that the garment that will be remembered in #MeToo India (and worldwide) not as the miniskirt for which women are blamed but “the bathrobe worn by men, from Harvey Weinstein to Dominique Strauss-Kahn to M J Akbar”.

The minister has called all his 16 accusers, including one in the UK and another in the US, liars. The women recalled in adult-grade graphic details their old humiliating encounters with Akbar when he was a powerful editor. A couple of these accounts are not fit to be printed in a family newspaper. The victims asked for a mere apology, what they got was denial and legal intimidation.

The ruling party that cries itself hoarse over women’s empowerment was indifferent. That firmed up the protesters’ determination to fight on. Many more women as well as men journalists took up their cause. A battery of retired civil servants wrote a letter to the President of India. Some Opposition leader asked the Prime Minister to say something.

The lack of apology by predators and the minister’s combative stand angered many more women and men with access to social media. The woman journalist against whom the defamation suit was filed shot back by saying that truth is her defence. A call went out for crowd-funding her legal expenses.

One minister, a political non-entity, declared that the complaints (coming from various parts of India and from a journalist in the UK and another from the US) were part of a political campaign linked to the national elections due next year. Many found this suggestion laughable.

Going political

Since politics is the thing in India, the allegations of sexual harassment have become a political issue. The ruling party spokesman refused to answer any questions about Akbar. The Prime Minister’s devotees hailed Narendra Modi as a strong supporter of women’s empowerment. A couple of women journalists wrote nuanced on-the-other-hand kind of opinion pieces. The pro-Government TV channels and newspapers underplayed the Akbar story. Since politics is the thing in India, the allegations of sexual harassment have become a political issue.

The Government was not swayed by the preachers of ethics and morality. The ruling establishment initially thought that a select group of “elite” women with limited voting power might not pose too much of a political threat. The RSS chief, who mentors the ruling party, recently reiterated his “cultural” organisation’s commitment to character-building. He remained silent.

Akbar, before resigning, deployed 97 lawyers to persuade a judge to reject the allegations, punish the “lying” woman journalist and certify him as a man of sterling character! Court cases in India go on for years.

(As an editor, Akbar once filed a defamation case in the UK and won it. The Mail on Sunday apologised for publishing a report falsely involving this brilliant Indian editor in the case of a London woman publisher’s illegitimate child.)

The ruling party strategists hope that the political storm will be dissipated as the #MeToo visuals on the TV screens get replaced by fresh ones. Some are asking why these educated girls kept quiet for so long. They ignore the fact that the victims who registered complaints got nowhere. They were told that making a fuss will only harm them. The professional bodies, company managements and male colleagues asked them to get on with their lives as if nothing had happened.
 

Heroes and villains

Most victims suffered silently for years, suppressing memories, fearing stigma in a deaf and oppressive patriarchal society. One of the victims was Tanushree Dutta, a film actress whose complaint against a famous actor was ignored by all. Disgusted, she left the industry and moved to America to start a new life. But the embers of humiliation kept smouldering in her heart. The #MeToo movement in America steeled her will. She came to India and flung charges at the noted male artists with whom she had worked. Some film stars supported her but the heroes who vanquish villains on the silver screen played safe, avoiding questions by the media.

The former film star’s damning social media message triggered a movement and first-person accounts of sexual harassment started raining in. Scores of professionally successful women mustered up the courage to recall and record incidents of molestation by their male bosses or colleagues.

They got over the fear that a female victim does not get helped, only gets ridiculed. In social media they found a protest platform. Even this time, they did not hope for justice. They named and shamed predators in order to empower young girls to protest publicly against sexual harassment in the work place.
 

Public response

Considering the public response to the steps taken by the minister, legal intimidation is unlikely to crush the #MeToo movement in the India of 2018. Some see the use of social media by these long-suffering women as a consequence of the failure of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 2013. Good laws show few results because of poor enforcement. This law had followed the landmark Vishakha case of 1997 when the Supreme Court declared that sexual harassment at work violated a woman’s constitutional right to equality.

Many powerful men accustomed to cutting lewd jokes to attract female employees or making indecent proposals are surely being careful. Women are speaking up in English, and the women journalists working in languages other than English may follow. Their plight is reported to be much worse but then their compulsion to suffer in silence is greater. Women are speaking up in English, and the women journalists working in languages other than English may follow.

#MeToo has shown results. A film company has closed down. Many professional bodies, for the first time, are issuing statements in support of the women recording complaints. They are taking complaints of sexual harassment seriously. A few resignations in the world of journalism have followed. Some complaints redressal committees and inquiry committees have been formed. This has sensitised both the people and the media.

This mini-revolution has surely knocked down the self-confidence of some powerful potential predators. It has made women less risk-averse and readier to protest against sexual harassment.

The departures caused by #MeToo in India have created a wave of jubilation, but the women activists rule out a speedy radical reformation. A long struggle lies ahead. Traditions enable the structure of patriarchy to withstand an occasional tremor. At times, even women will be divided, with many refusing to revolt against the oppressors at home or in work places.

Already some men as well as women are warning against a backlash. They say the #MeToo movement can be misused by women. Comics featuring deadly superwomen have started appearing. The movement’s critics may soon warn against the coming extinction of the male species!
 

Mother Durga

Durga painting. Suddhasattwa Basu. All rights reserved.

The mini-revolution’s timing requires elaboration. The movement gripped India at a time when millions of Hindus are worshipping God as a woman. For nine holy days and nights, Goddess Durga enthrals the devotees and drives even the non-believers to her temporary temples buzzing with cultural and social events.

For the annual festival for worshipping the ten-armed Goddess, Mother Durga’s idols are made to reflect tradition with a modern touch. Some features show concerns of the day. One year several artists placed a mobile phone in one of the 10 hands of Durga. The Indian version of the #MeToo will inspire imaginative idol-makers next year to make the Buffalo Demon appear in a western suit!

This fierce Goddess represents woman power. She kills a nearly indestructible demon in order to protect gods. She proved herself to be more powerful than all gods and demons! The buffalo demon threatened the gods who bowed to the Goddess and sought her protection.
According to another version, the King of Demons, claiming limitless power to provide her with sensual enjoyment, asks the Goddess to choose him as her husband. He propositions her, but unlike a human sexual predator does not try to touch her! Durga challenges him to show his might. The demon goes after Durga to kill her! The Goddess radiates blinding energy. The Demon tries to flee and is slayed amid shouts of victory by the crowd of gods! An inspiring tale for the women activists of India where mythology is often used in political campaigns. The Goddess radiates blinding energy. The Demon tries to flee and is slayed amid shouts of victory by the crowd of gods! An inspiring tale…

Goddesses in different forms offer not just protection but also wealth and wisdom! No wonder, the sacred Hindu texts place the woman on a pedestal. “Gods dwell in a place where women are worshipped” is a popular saying. Unmarried girls are ritualistically worshipped during a festival.
 

India riddled with contradictions

India was proud to have a woman Prime Minister when that office was only a glint in the eyes of Margret Thatcher. On a visit to India, Thatcher wanted tips from Indira Gandhi! The ratio of women scientists in responsible positions in India is much higher than in Britain. India’s history features eminent women scholars who were invincible in their power to argue.

Why should a country like this need laws to protect women from mere men?
Alas, India is riddled with contradictions. Whatever is true of India, its opposite is also true. Some tales from ancient India enrage even moderate feminists. Some women poets blame Lord Ram for his treatment of his wife Sita.

Many prominent women were dishonoured, humiliated, maltreated and exploited by kings and sages. They were treated as the property of men. Married women were seduced or abducted and impregnated in ancient India. A woman could be disrobed; a wife could be lost in a gambling bet.

In contemporary India, the abortion of girl foetuses is a major concern. This crime has been documented in books and in the notices hung in hospitals and medical imaging centres prohibiting the disclosure of the sex of the baby in the womb. The ratio of girl babies has declined.

Sonia Bhalotra of the University of Essex and her co-researchers found that when gold prices go up, fewer female babies in India survive their first month of life. The study attributed this to the curse of dowry given by the bride’s family to the groom. “Gold is included in bridal dowries – so when gold prices go up, the cost of raising girls rises and families tend to neglect or abort them.” Despite having been outlawed, dowry is widely prevalent in India.

The incidence of rape is very high. The insecurity of women at home, on the road and in public transport is seen as a major police failure. Informal courts run by different castes and sub-castes issue illegal fatwas against women straying from the path set for them by the patriarchs. Girls are denied mobile phones and asked not to wear “indecent” clothes. Dominating fathers select grooms for their daughters and many girls are killed if they decide to marry for love.

The sexual exploitation of tribal girls and poor women has been portrayed in countless films and novels. Generally, the oppressors are village landlords and tea estate managers and owners.
 

The message spreads

It turns out that women belonging to the jet-setting class fare no better when it comes to dowry deaths, domestic violence and sexual harassment in public.  These educated women suffer silently for fear of being stigmatised and losing remunerative jobs or the financial security provided by the cruel husband.

The predator banks on the victim’s silence and does not fear exposure. Men in stylish suits, appearing to be gentlemen, carry on relentlessly and are never outed. Film-makers document the stories of poor women because that material is easily available. The #MeToo movement has altered that situation a bit. So, films and novels depicting a different class of victims and predators will follow. Many more accomplished and successful women are expected to come forward to challenge the oppressors by naming them, It turns out that women belonging to the jet-setting class fare no better when it comes to dowry deaths, domestic violence and sexual harassment in public.

The first users of social media as a platform for protest belong to the “elite” class. Women journalists working in small towns for newspapers published in languages other than English are yet to speak even though their plight is reported to be worse. The situation is not very different in other professions. A women’s NGO from Gujarat, the Prime Minister’s home state, says, “for every woman who has courageously spoken up, there are tens of thousands of women who have remained silent”.

Gradually, the movement will empower these women. The Google search data shows that the #MeToo message has started reaching India’s small towns. The struggle for women’s empowerment will indeed be long but the mini-revolution has made sexual predators jittery and their victims more courageous. Women are less likely to extend the protection of their silence to those who harass them.

Durga slaying the Buffalo Demon. India, Karnataka, 13th century. Wikicommons/Los Angeles Museum of Art. Some rights reserved.

L K Sharma has followed no profession other than journalism for more than four decades, covering criminals and prime ministers. Was the European Correspondent of The Times of India based in London for a decade. Reported for five years from Washington as the Foreign Editor of the Deccan Herald. Edited three volumes on innovations in India. He has completed a work of creative nonfiction on V. S. Naipaul  His two e-books The Twain and A Parliamentary Affair form part of The Englandia Quartet.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/

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Google Trends is a handy data guide that helps people know about what is the current hot topic in your region or the world. What people could not have predicted is how it would show the reach of the #Metoo movement in India.
 

 
Watching the Me Too Rising, a Google Trends data visualisation tool created this April is a conundrum. India shines the brightest in the world with the reach of #Metoo. But should we be happy that the whole country is talking about it, sharing their stories of violations or be sad that women’s rights have been trampled upon unanimously in every corner of the country?
 
“The platform lights up the locations on a world map where the term “Me Too” is being searched for most frequently. The map doesn’t measure the total number of searches. Instead, it considers the number of times “Me Too” is locally searched compared to other phrases,” explained Quartz.
 
What it does do is shut up the critics of the movement. Many had dismissed the movement as an urban and elite gathering of well-heeled and educated women. The “top searching” cities and towns were relatively small compared to the mega-metropolises. early in the morning on Oct. 16, they top searchers were Goa’s Chicalim, Maharashtra’s Bhusawal, Punjab’s Zirakpur, and Chhattisgarh’s Bhanwreli and Rajnandgaon.
 
#Metoo has reached many smaller towns and cities. It is not an isolated event happening in the hubris of major cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.
 
What is different though is asserting the call for justice. While women in the cities have accused their abusers in open on social media, they have had support and do not fear retribution in the form of job loss. They are ready to fight that too as resources are available to them.
 
Regional media continues to struggle with sexual harassment at the workplace with caste and class coming to the fore and many other obstructions in empowering women to take on their harassers. Women journalists too have their share of trauma to share, which often times is much worse in a more rigid patriarchal structure.
 
New Indian Express spoke to law student Raya Sarkar, among the first women who began the #Metoo movement in India. She had published a crowd-sourced list naming alleged sexual harassers from the academic circle which came to be known as LoSHA. The movement had begun last year in October.
 
She hoped that the current movement could include Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women in it.  “Till now, the #MeToo movement in the country has been an urban phenomenon. Professionals who have been outed are mostly from English media houses, advertising companies, national NGOs and other bodies. Sarkar said, “I think it has potential to spread to regional spaces but frameworks do not exist to support and protect survivors there. Exposing a predator is more difficult when one does not have resources, aid or support systems to help and protect them in the aftermath,” she said.
 
She added that many feminists in India had denounced her move then but supported the current #metoo list. She attributed the invisibility and not being considered reliable to not being a “Bhramin Heterosexual.”
 
“Speaking to Express, Sarkar said, “Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) women have the least access to justice and often face intense hostility from the Savarna community when they attempt to take due process measures or expose predators. The movement does not represent DBA women yet. I hope as a community we can build more resources and support for the most vulnerable and marginalized. Any campaign should not treat the most vulnerable as just an afterthought.”
 
Tamil film star Siddharth spoke about how caste lines were obstructing women from opening up about their trauma in Tamil Nadu.

 
“Only in #TamilNadu #MeToo is being derailed with vicious lies about #caste. Dear dirty lying snakes, stop looking at the caste of the accuser or accused. Women from all castes are affected. Men from all castes are involved. This is #Survivor vs #Abuser. Puriyala? Vekka kedu!” he said.
 
“Unlike their national media counterparts, many women journalists at vernacular media houses in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala said they cannot even speak out about workplace harassment, let alone file formal complaints. In fact, barely any of these organisations has an internal complaints committee. Where it exists, it generally does not function,” wrote S Senthalir in Scroll.
 
“In South India, few women work in regional news organisations and fewer still in the print media. This makes it difficult for them to speak out. “They can’t afford to outrage,” said Kavitha Muralidharan, an independent journalist. “The moment a woman raises a complaint, she is branded a troublemaker.” They often do not even know what to do if they are sexually harassed by their “colleagues or seniors or while they are at work”, Muralidharan said, adding. “No training is given to them about what to do. There is a lack of awareness among young journalists,” he wrote.
 
He added, “In the Kannada media, many women are from rural and underprivileged backgrounds. This is partly why even senior journalists do not speak out against harassment, said DS Shamantha, president of the Sarathi Resource Centre for Community, which runs community radio stations in several parts of rural Karnataka. “In such circumstances, we cannot expect mid-level and junior women journalists to come forward to raise the issues,” she said.”
 
“In Andhra Pradesh, there are just two women reporters across 25 regional news organisations, said C Vanaja, an independent journalist and member of the Network for Women in Media. “The top three newspapers have internal complaints committees but there’s no system in place in other organisations for women to approach,” she added. “In most cases, women just leave their jobs when they are sexually harassed,” he wrote.
 
“It is not much different in the Malayalam media, said KK Shahina, associate editor with the Open magazine. Young women journalists are reluctant to talk about harassment for fear of being discriminated against and targeted. “The options for women working in regional media are limited,” she said. “Though women face sexual harassment at workplace, not many come out in Kerala. The state government has set up a panel to look into the problems of working women journalists,” he wrote.
 
Khabar Lahariya, a rural media organization has a network of all-women reports in up to eight districts of Uttar Pradesh. It had come out with its own share of #Metoo stories in 2014 through the magazine Zile ki Hulchul, published by the Women Media and News Trust. It had interviews of small town and rural women reporters.
 
Here’s what they wrote:
 
We know that this is risky business, speaking from the shadows, from the grave even. We’re not here, really. We’re not meant to be.
 
Yet, when the world outside is aflame, then how can we stay silent?
 
We want to add our stories of violence by you – our peers in journalism, our colleagues, bosses and rivals – to the stories that are proliferating, and ask you how things can change for us. With no laws or committees, no forums online or offline, no networks of power, and not even the beginnings of credibility when we begin to speak, will you admit to your wrongs? Or will you say, as you always have, that we shouldn’t be here in the first place, so why complain about it? The way you said on Facebook, ‘The next thing you know, Sunny Leone is going to say she was assaulted too.’
 
Will the thousands of brave women who have shared their stories amplify our quieter stories of everyday harassment too – so that you realize this will not be tolerated any more?
 
I trusted you, despite the rumours that flew wildly when we were seen together on your bike, when our selfies reached Facebook. But it became too much. The case of sexual assault I was able to file, miraculously, got you in jail for a brief period of time, but it has ruined my career. I have no colleagues, friends, family who stand by me. You are untarnished, and I have nothing. I am a Whatsapp joke to you now, you brag about the case I filed against you. People, including women in my profession, only say I got what was coming.
 
Our stories come from Aligarh, Mahoba, Banda, Chitrakoot, Guna, Meerut, Udaipur, Bhilwara, Samastipur, Rewa – no small town with a woman journalist lacks for these stories of battling sleaze and abuse, every single day. We have been told, again and again, until it rings in our heads, in our offices, outside the district headquarters, outside the police station, inside the police station: Why don’t you go into the beauty parlour business? Start a kirana store?Can’t you get a job as a teacher or nurse? Do you think you’re going to become a Collector? It’s not good for a woman like you to be roaming around all day in the hot sun. You should take care of how you look. Wear a bindi, and a sari. No sindoor? Oops, did we send you a ‘blue film’ by accident? Didn’t know there was a woman on this media group. Sorry madam, galti se chala gaya hoga.
 
The echoes of your taunts and laughter, your complicity with/in the system that wants us there, sharing space, sharing power, as little as you do – have forced us into shame, doubt and despair – even death.
 
There was a girl I knew… She was selected in [a major national daily]. Her in-charge was in Agra. Now I don’t know what her connection to Agra was, nor what their relationship was, but the in-charge was fired. The girl was kept on, but she was so stressed, I don’t know why, that she left and joined [another major Hindi daily]. This rumour flew around that the in-charge had misbehaved – aise dekh liya tha, vaise dekh liya tha (seen in her compromising positions). Her new in-charge then treated her so badly (itna shoshan kiya) that she became mentally disturbed. She was from Hathras, that girl.
 
Power works differently in our mohallas and galis and chaurahas. We live tightly bound to community structures – you are often our distant relatives, neighbours, watchdogs with deep interests in keeping us bound. Upper caste men aren’t too keen on watching girls from their community running around reporting. They like to keep them in check, like they can do with their daughters-in-law and their wives. Yet, despite the close distances, and with little knowledge of other women in other places, or the power of a hashtag, we have spoken and acted, using our voice and the broken tools of the law. It matters to us to speak, otherwise, why would we be breaking all barriers to do what we do? If we don’t call you out, you representatives of the fourth estate, then how will we call out any other wrongful use of power?
 
You stalked us, on the phone, on the streets of our own towns, driving close or stopping right in front of us, saying, with the lewdness dripping off your safas, ‘Come, let’s do some journalism together’. You’d rub up against us, in court, or at the site where a crime is being covered up, and slip notes into our hands, provoke, tease, humiliate us about not knowing how the game is played. You refused to comment on our best stories, claiming that it would set off rumours in the office of unprofessional behaviour.
 
You didn’t seem to think about unprofessional behaviour nor community mores when you were Whatsapp-ing us at midnight and commenting on our profile pictures and urging us to agree to rendezvous, which you wouldn’t entertain for your good wives and daughters. We filed complaints, were forced out of online spaces where we had just about made an entry, and for our efforts, got retaliatory FIRs from you, prohibitive fines, and permanent labels – the whore who dared to speak.
 
In the state capital, I went to the HR department in my newspaper’s office with my appointment letter. The person at the newspaper office told me to take a room in a hotel for the night and stay back and that he would come there and speak to me. When I flatly refused he told me, ‘Suno Madam, patrakaarita karna hai na to sab kuchh karna padega, hotel bhi jaana padega aur wahaan uthna baithna bhi padega (Listen, madam, if you want to work in journalism, you will have to do everything, you will have to go to hotels and do whatever is expected there too).’ I got very angry and tore up the appointment letter there and then and threw it at his face. I knew I had no access to the owner and his contemporaries would never stand up to him. In an office rarely do people like this stand up against one another. How long would I have fought with him given I was in another city?
 
We feel relief that there is a platform and a movement that promises to expose the abuse that keeps us tied down, under the control of a powerful structure. But there is a dark place in our minds where this relief refuses to reach – those of us who continue to fight, or those who have been defeated. The memory of a friend and colleague, a single woman trying to make it in the world of small-town journalism, and who was pushed into despair and a lonely death, only earlier this year, with no resonating cries off or online.
 
At the end of the day, our struggles are of lone women operating with few avenues to reach out, with little or no support structure to fall back on, at home or in the world. Whatever defense mechanisms we have, come from our own instincts, dressing down our personalities, keeping multiple SIM cards, or leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, creating our own informal networks for help when we’re in danger.
 
We’re saying #metoo, but we fear it isn’t enough to jolt you out of your comfortable place of power and entitlement or to provide us scaffolding when we are jolted out of the place we have created for ourselves.
 
Excerpted from Zile ki Hulchul (2014.)
 
 

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Actions of individual women are a brave step forward, but a larger social movement is needed to bring justice for millions of not so privileged women.

 

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In February last year, a Malayalam actress was abducted and molested by a group of men while returning from work. Following the police complaint she filed, the police found one of the leading Malayalam actor Dileep’s involvement in the abduction. WCC, a woman’s collective, was formed by a group of women from the Malayalam film industry last year after the fatal incident. One of the reasons behind the formation of this collective was to fight against discrimination women are subjected to by the powerful men of the industry.  The Indian Cultural Forum and Peoples Dispatch interviewed Bina Paul, an award winning film editor and an active member of WCC, about taking up struggles of women actors in the Malayalam film industry, AMMA and more. 

The Indian Cultural Forum and Peoples Dispatch interviewed Bina Paul, an award winning film editor and an active member of WCC, about taking up struggles of women actors in the Malayalam film industry, AMMA and more.

Indian Cultural Forum and Peoples Dispatch (ICF & PD): What is the ‘Women in Cinema Collective’ (WCC) and why do you think was it necessary to form such a collective?

Bina Paul (BP): Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), as the name suggests, is a collective of women in cinema. This collective is registered as part of a collective of women who are working in cinema. At the moment we are a core group of twenty women. This includes directors, assistant directors, technicians, artists, makeup artists etc.

The collective was started after an actress from the industry was abducted. While following the subsequent enquiry by the Kerala police, it was found that a colleague- actor was behind this incident. We were outraged at that moment and asked the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) to set up an enquiry on this matter as this incident happened between two colleagues belonging to the same fraternity. Our demands were not considered by the association and some of us decided to form a collective of women declaring our solidarity with the actress.
The conversation started when some of the female members in the film industry wanted to support the abducted actress for what she had gone through: molestation. While some of us were discussing this issue, we discovered that there are many larger issues within the film industry that come out of a lack of gender sensitivity and gender friendliness. Presently, sexual harassment is only one of the many problems in the industry. There is no system to redress if one has a complaint which is against the mandatory law that an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) must be set up in every field.

Another issue that we found was a lot of content and attitude problem. No one was listening or talking about such issues. The first thing that WCC did was to meet the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. We requested him to initiate a study on gender issues. The government has set up a high level committee to study on gender and the study is still going on. They are preparing a report on this issue by talking to people about the problems they face in their daily lives because no such study has taken place earlier. Meanwhile, we have been standing in solidarity with the actress. We had discussions with the Artists association and they wanted to take back the accused which we outrightly objected against. We sternly believe that it was unethical to take back the accused to the association.

WCC is presently trying to raise awareness on gender issues. It has widely opened doors for many to talk about gender. For example, we found out that till now no one had ever asked a woman about her experiences of menstruation. Do they have any provision for that? Not usually. No one will talk about it. Even when you are menstruating there are no toilets for you, and perhaps no changing rooms either. Issues of services, maternity and a lot of other issues went either unaddressed or inadequately discussed.

Also, the film industry’s attitude gives the notion of a very patriarchal space. Women are seen just as incidental to the space and men participate more actively than women. All these and more issues have opened up after we formed WCC. We insist that if a director has two or three assistants, than one or two of them should be women. In the policy making body there has to be 50% women. WCC is not a redressive forum, but we are asking these questions so that women go to their organisations and talk about such issues.

ICF & PD: Can you brief us about some of the specific issues that the Malayalam film industry is facing?
BP: Malayalam film industry has nothing exceptional in it. It’s part of a larger film industry. We exist because our society gives us that space. But if we look at a larger level, we can see that there are certain things that cannot be asked or questioned like the basic facilities on a set. I myself have worked in the industry as an editor for many years and I know that there are a lot of issues in the industry. For instance, it is not a 9am -5pm job and therefore one almost always needs to work overtime. However, working till late at night can lead to many security issues for women. Any taxi driver may take you home late at night, but is that good enough for you as a woman? What if something goes wrong? Whom would you go to if something does happen? Here we see a lack of mechanism, because there isn’t one. Pejorative messages, emails, gestures, casting couch, inappropriate behavior on the set; these are just few instances of sexual harassment that a woman is subjected to. So, we need to form a redressal cell to solve and discuss these issues.

ICF & PD: How do you think the formation of WCC has raised gender issues in movies, since most of the films patronise women through a patriarchal view?
BP: Certainly, for the past few years, the issue on gender has been discussed widely. Unlike the early 80’s or 90’s, people are more exposed to the question of gender and especially the younger generation. As a cinema collective, we have opened up the gates for such discussion and certainly it’s bringing a lot of change in the industry. It’s good to see people respond to such a crucial topic.

First published on Indian Cultural Forum

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In all, 2,535 such cases were registered over the four years ending July 27, 2018–that is nearly two cases reported every day–as per government data tabled in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) on July 27, 2018 and December 15, 2017
Over the first seven months of 2018, ending July 27, 533 cases of sexual harassment were reported across the country, as per the data.

India is now witnessing its own #MeToo movement, a year after it swept through United States following allegations of rape and molestation against movie moghul Harvey Weinstein. This has empowered several women to take to social media and voice personal stories of harassment and out alleged perpetrators.

Tanushree Dutta, a model and Bollywood actress, was the first to allege harassment by actor Nana Patekar on the sets of a movie in 2008. Dutta has now filed a fresh complaint with the police naming Patekar, choreographer Ganesh Acharya, producer Samee Siddiqui and director Rakesh Sarang–all of them were connected to her film Horn Ok Please.

On October 11, 2018, she recounted to the police how Patekar had “indecently” touched her on the sets of the movie. Dutta had made these allegations in an interview to the television channel Zoom on September 25, 2018.

MJ Akbar, minister of state for external affairs and former editor of The Asian Age and The Deccan Chronicle, has been accused by 10 women journalists so far of sexual harassment at the workplace. These included accusations that he summoned young female journalists to hotel rooms and harassed them at work. The opposition, mainly the Congress, has demanded Akbar’s resignation.

There have been allegations of harassment against other prominent personalities from various industries–cinema, television, media, advertising, music and entertainment. These include actors Alok Nath and Rajat Kapoor, directors Vikas Bahl, Subhash Ghai and Sajid Khan, Tamil lyricist and poet Vairamuthu, journalists Prashant Jha, Mayank Jain, Meghnad Bose, KR Sreenivas and Gautam Adhikari, comedian Utsav Chakraborty and advertising consultant Suhel Seth.

UP reported most cases, followed by Delhi
Uttar Pradesh–the country’s most populous state–reported the most cases (726 or 29%) over 2014-18, followed by Delhi (369), Haryana (171), Madhya Pradesh (154), and Maharashtra (147), as per the data presented in Lok Sabha.

Source: Lok Sabha July 27, 2018; December 15, 2017; 2018 figure as on July 27, 2018

Section 354A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deals with offences related to sexual harassment, which includes physical contact, unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures, demand or request for sexual favours, showing pornography to a woman against her will and making sexually coloured remarks.

In an another set of data, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) categorises “insult to modesty of women” under section 509 of the IPC. This includes workplace harassment. NCRB reported 665 such cases in 2016, down 20% from 833 cases in 2015 and up 26% from 526 cases in 2014. The offence could be uttering a word or sound, making a gesture or committing an act intended to insult a woman.

Why women are afraid to speak up
As many as 70% women said they did not report sexual harassment by superiors because they feared the repercussions, according to a survey conducted by the Indian Bar Association in 2017, of 6,047 respondents, IndiaSpend reported on March 4, 2017.

“Low or no reporting speaks volumes about the gender sensitivity of a particular organisation,” Anagha Sarpotdar, a researcher working on sexual harassment at workplace, had told IndiaSpend. “Women may not know where to go to report harassment or it could be that the cases may not have been dealt with sincerely. Often, women go to committees believing them to be independent, and find that they are actually puppets in the hands of their superiors.”

But voices against sexual harassment at workplaces have grown stronger. Twenty-three cases of sexual harassment were filed by sportspersons against their coaches or Sports Authority of India officials, Rajyavardhan Rathore, minister of state (independent charge) ministry of youth affairs and sports, informed the Lok Sabha in his reply on July 19, 2018. However, the time period during which these cases were registered was not mentioned.

“The complaints are dealt with as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Provision and Redressal) Act, 2013 and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offense Act (POCSO Act), 2012,” Rathore said.

The central government has enacted Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 with the objective of creating a safe and secure work environment in both the organised and unorganised sector.

The Act provides redress to an “aggrieved woman”, which includes women employed by the organisation as well as women associated with it in any capacity such as a visitor or an intern, Vrinda Grover, an advocate at the Supreme Court wrote in The Indian Express on October 12, 2018. It also applies to “women aggrieved by sexual harassment committed in relation to the work or workplace of that organisation”.

Who can a female employee complain against? “A complaint can be filed against an employee of the organisation, or even an outsider who comes into contact in the course of or in relation to the work, such as a consultant, service provider, a vendor, with the workplace or the organisation,” Grover wrote.

The ministry of women and child development has set up what it calls the Sexual Harassment electronic–Box (SHe-Box), an online complaint system for registration of complaints related to sexual harassment at workplace. This can be used by employees of government and private sectors.

The SHe-Box was launched on July 24, 2017, and received 107 complaints up to February 2018. How effective is the forum? Here is feedback from one user:

Maneka Gandhi, union minister for women and child development, on October 12, 2018, announced the formation of a committee consisting of four retired judges to conduct public hearings of cases of arising from the #MeToo movement.

(Mallapur is an analyst, and Alphonso, a post-graduate diploma holder in journalism from St Paul’s Institute of Communication Education, Mumbai, is an intern with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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