It’s time to start asking different questions about the #Metoo movement.
Let’s not ask why women are speaking out now — it’s enough to know they are.
Let’s not ask why, in some cases, women are speaking out after 10 or more years, why they did not speak out before. Let’s just be grateful they are speaking out at last.
Let’s not ask if sexual assault is the same as a date gone wrong. Let’s ask instead, in our deeply patriarchal world, what avenues do the women have to articulate and deal with the sense of daily violation, of abandonment, of being let down, of being assaulted.
Let’s not ask why women find it so difficult to speak out; let’s ask, instead, who makes the conditions so difficult for them to speak out. Let’s note that when the powerless get a chance to speak, they often do, putting themselves at risk because, sometimes, that is the only route they have to make their experiences public. Acknowledgement, redress, justice — these are things that are not on the horizon for those who do not hold power.
There are many questions we can ask. In the past few weeks so many women have spoken out, but despite naming, providing detail upon detail, not every employer has said that they’ve taken note of what’s being said, they realise their own culpability, they realise this is a major issue, that it affects people’s lives and they are committed to treat the matter with the seriousness it deserves.
Let’s ask why the big corporates, or corporate bodies such as the federations — Ficci, CII, Assocham — and also their women’s wings have not seen fit to make a statement about the issue. They have shown concern about the falling rates of female labour force participation in India, they’ve asked if this has anything to do with women feeling insecure in workplaces, or with the violence they face, or to continue working in an unhealthy and toxic environment — at some time or other, all these institutions have expressed concern about the rapid disappearance of women from the workplace. Why are they not speaking out now?
Their managements and boards are filled with men in power. To send out a signal, is it so difficult to say “we have a no-tolerance policy” no matter how powerful the accused is?
What does it take for corporates to speak out, for the State to show concern? Indeed, what does it take for anyone to show concern? Women’s groups have spoken out, but that is not surprising, and a handful of others have made statements, but other than that, in the angry, furious clamour of survivors, there is a resounding silence on the part of the corporates, State, powerful male authority.
It’s not surprising though, that the questions that are being asked are addressed to the victims and survivors rather than to the perpetrators. For the latter, their behaviour is ‘normal’ and they are secure in the knowledge that the entire system is geared to establishing the ‘normalcy’ of their behaviour. It’s normal that a male boss can feel up his female employee, invite her to his room, stand too close to her, put his hand on her thigh and so much more.
I can guarantee that pretty much any woman reading this piece will have faced something like this, and she’ll recognise the feeling of hurt, of bewilderment, of a sense of being soiled. People ask why, after so many years. I have still not forgotten how often we were groped by men in the bus to the university, and this was in the 1970s. Hands grabbing your breasts, hands pushed up between your legs as you climb into the bus. Every woman knows what this feels like, very few men do.
The speaking out has served a major purpose, and it will continue to do so. It has brought into the public arena something we have always known existed. It’s time to take the next step: Think, talk, find out, and work to address what is being said by woman after woman about man after man.
It’s time to realise that speaking out, for victims and survivors, could not have been easy; it has not taken away the feelings of violation, of hurt, sometimes of shame and, yes, even guilt — for that is what this experience does — of inadequacy, of feeling diminished. Can we afford to let that happen to one half of our population?
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Urvashi Butalia
Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan
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