BENGALURU: Women have taken #MeToo campaign on social media offline by creating “Me Too Circles”. It is to give a platform to victims of sexual harassment to speak fearlessly. Meetings were held last Sunday in Bengaluru and a few other cities.
This offline campaign initiated in Bengaluru by Sandhya Menon, journalist and coordinator of Bengaluru’s #metoo movement, met last Sunday at Cubbon Park. Nearly 20 women from different professions gathered to share their experiences of sexual harassment. “We wanted to take things offline as well. It’s got to be as integrated in approach as possible. Nothing works like face to face. It was a way to connect beyond social media,” Sandhya said.
The #MeToo circle is a place for women to narrate, open up freely without any fear and find support from other women.
Sandhya Menon told TNIE that at the moment they are looking at meeting every fortnight and it is limited to women only. The reason being as it involves face to face interaction and many women are looking at comfort zone. The circles being held in other cities as well and women here are looking at providing counselling and legal services too.
Calling this an excellent move, Pramila Nesargi, senior advocate and former state women’s commission president said, “As the group has women from various professions offering help in terms of legal or psychological services won’t be difficult. I can help too,” she said.
Ranjitha M N of Infosys said, “Women through this movement have definitely achieved a lot. There’s so much anger which has been let out. Those who have been through the ordeal need to come out of the pain. They need to be healed. Hope this works as a platform and help us take the movement further.”
Other cities which held MeToocircles this Sunday were Mumbai and Delhi. The next meet for Pune, Chennai and Lucknow is scheduled on November 11. While Bengaluru will meet at Cubbon Park on November 18.