Decoding the #metoo movement

Another wave of the #metoo movement has arrived in India, almost a year after Raya Sarkar’s infamous list.
Decoding the #metoo movement

Another wave of the #metoo movement has arrived in India, almost a year after Raya Sarkar’s infamous list. This time it has left no industry spared, naming popular actors, filmmakers, journalists, stand-up comics, politicians, writers, entertainers and restauranteurs. The only thing I have to lose in naming them all here is precious space so I’ll refrain from doing it, but I plead you to take a look at the lists — it may give you the courage to speak about your own experience or it will get you thinking or worrying about when/if you have been a perpetrator. It’s a win-win situation, and what takes a fair share of this pie is the conservations that it has initiated.

If you are following the storm on Twitter, abuzz with accusations, then you most certainly also belong to chats on WhatsApp raining with questions. I am, my friends are, and I can tell you that there are several of us who are utterly confused by what is going on. First, there are those who play devil’s advocate to the ‘believe the victim’ argument. ‘What if she’s lying?’, they ask, and I say, believe the woman because no victim puts herself out there under the unkind eyes of a prudish punishing society to get a little fame, they don’t. If they turn out to be false accusations, we’ll know when it’s been enquired into, and false accusations can hardly lead to conviction or jail time or any kind of consequence, because even the true ones rarely get the justice they deserve.

‘If it is true, then why do victims often come out with their stories after a long time has elapsed since the incident?’ is almost always the follow up question. There are many reasons for this, including shame, denial, shock, disassociation, lack of support and information, fear of the consequences of naming powerful perpetrators and feeling helpless and hopeless that anything may come of it at all.

‘Then should we not have systems in place that can deal with all of this effectively? What happens to legal recourse if we take to hashtag movements or naming and shaming on social media?’ These are valid points to raise, and years of work have been put in by people working on rights of women and issues pertaining to harassment to advocate for policy and put laws in place. The problem as it has been seen in most parts of the world, even in liberal progressive spaces is in the implementation of these procedures. Due process has failed victims of sexual harassment time and again, except in the most violent of cases that bring about public outrage — the Nirbaya case is an example.

We don’t have laws for where it is not so black and white, and actions may be defended as unintended or as a date gone wrong, or a victim finds the support to come out years after the incident — the current Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has its loopholes including that it looks only at women victims, to have reported their cases within three months while still working in the organisation.

It goes without mentioning that we need to put in a lot more to recognise informal workers, and holding institutions to account for a functioning internal complaints committee. Then there is the problem of structures and society working very hard at protecting men who are accused of misappropriate behaviour, advising them to lay low till the wave passes, only to find them opportunities to slither back into the limelight as if nothing ever happened, having to face no consequence after the furore dies down and is forgotten.

Naming and shaming on social media may very well lead us here. But the #metoo movement is a protest — that victims will no longer stay silent, refuse to take it anymore, and will protest with tools they have access too, which is social media in this case. And it calls to attention that due processes have failed thousands of women, and that harassers and rapists remain protected because of their connections and shame forced upon victims.

‘Is flirting wrong?’, ‘How do I know when to make the first move?’, ‘I am so confused…’ are important to ask oneself going forward. The thumb rule is to ask if confused, and take no for an answer (even a feeble no), check in if it is a yes at every step. Finally, to keep in mind that harassment is about power (and that is why a popular author sending unsolicited messages or a stand-up comic holding a fan too tight is harassment), and that consent is like a cup of tea. Look it up.

Archanaa Seker

seker.archanaa@gmail.com

The writer is a city-based activist, in-yourface feminist and a media glutton

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