Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The tougher the push, the bigger the pushback. The heavier the bullet, the harder the recoil. Much like the response of the women in the #MeToo movement, which has upturned years of presumptions about male entitlement.
Men are pushing back too. Some are playing it safe, like actor Dalip Tahil, who shot a rape scene for a film recently only after making a video recording of the actress’s consent and getting her to write a letter confirming that she was shooting the scene without any pressure. But many others are coming at women with all guns blazing. Interestingly (or sadly, depending on where you stand), it is not only the individuals under attack who are lashing out at the accusers. Plenty of men and some women with supposedly no skin in the game seem just as riled. They all spout the same lines and make the same arguments. Let me try and address some of them.
• ‘Why after so many years?’ Because Indian women are socially conditioned to keep quiet about the harassment they face at the hands of men, be it on the street, in buses and offices, or at home. But finally the dam has broken, or at least cracked,and women are damned if they’re going to suffer silently any more.
• ‘Who’d harass her?’ That’s the cruellest cut. And yet, it’s a common sentiment. At an organisation where I worked once, a co-worker’s complaints were not taken seriously for months because her seniors thought she “was too old and too ugly” to be harassed. As it turned out, she was right and her assailant, years younger than her, admitted that he’d done it because he thought “no one would believe her”.
• ‘He’s not like that. She’s out for publicity.’ Just because you’re friends with someone doesn’t mean he can’t have a dark side. Choosing to stay blinkered doesn’t change reality. No woman wants to talk about being sexually attacked. The experience is crippling enough. Disbelieving her, even when she offers proof, is humiliating her all over again.
• ‘This is not about sexual harassment.’ That’s true. It’s not only sexual harassment that’s in the dock here. Unlike the #MeToo movement in the US, the Indian campaign is much, much wider. It’s not just misdemeanours in the office that are being spot-lit, it’s the predatory behaviour of all men everywhere. Simply put, it’s not just heads of companies or top editors who’re being called out, it’s every man who sexually harasses a woman he has personal power over.
• ‘It’s a big-city phenomenon.’ No, it’s not. Check out Google’s interactive map Me Too Rising, which tracks the movement daily and depicts every city searching for news online as a shining gold dot. The map reveals that people in our metros started looking up #MeToo in 2017. By the summer of 2018, interest had spread to large parts of the country and, since October 10, India’s landmass has been ablaze with light, almost as if Diwali has come early to us this year.
And perhaps it has. My only prayer: May this ‘victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance’ never end.
Shampa Dhar-Kamath
shampa@newindianexpress.com