Come on man! Stop it

In India, mothers and sisters are goddesses. All other women are fair game — for sexual harassment!

Amrita Nandy-Joshi Delhi

Born and raised in Delhi, I grew up sooner than my body did. I had to — I was born a female. Like many other girl children, I experienced the male gaze and lust when I was far too young. As a child, I was inappropriately felt and fondled by known and unknown people. I was shy, terrified and very confused. Something told me that all this was wrong, but I did not know why and how. I was not supposed to know. Something as innocuous as a short walk close to the house had once led to a molestation attempt! The streets, parks and markets were my spaces too. Yet, they violated and threatened me. For some women, the house is a safe haven and the outer world, a menacing predator. For many others, the corridors of the house can be as unsafe as the lusty streets outside. Millions of women in our cities and towns have no safe spaces. I found it impossible to escape 'me'.

As I started my working life, in my naiveté I assumed that the professional environment of an office would be free from the surreptitious touch of the street.

I was proven wrong, and how! The head of the institute I worked for, now an internationally-acclaimed scientist, turned out to be a despicable harasser. A vortex of intellectual charisma and power to most, for me he was the proverbial wolf in a sheep's clothing. Despite my turning down many of his serious advances, he persisted. His flirtatious behaviour and liaisons with some women in the office had always been legendary corridor talk in the institute's decades-old history. (During my stint there, a woman mysteriously stopped reporting for work soon after she returned from an international working tour with the boss). To my utter shock, I found that the organisation had no grievance cell. So I complained to an elderly male colleague, one of the senior-most in the office. He refused to believe me and instead asked me to forget what had happened and pray to God (because I am an atheist). When I announced my decision to leave the organisation for a degree at the University of Oxford, he threatened to get my admission cancelled! Having taught at an Ivy League college himself, I was worried he could actually do this. However, I could not be quiet; I had a responsibility towards other women in the institute. I turned to our HR team. I was rather disturbed to know that this women-only unit was also being treated improperly by the same harasser! All they offered me was sympathy.

These experiences are not unique to me. Many women have similar stories to share. The only difference is that they don't share. This is a big part of the problem. Silence encourages sexual harassment. Abha Bhaiya, the founder member of Jagori and an activist from the women's movement, puts it succinctly: “Sexual crimes against women are the only ones where the victim feels ashamed and censors her own responses with silence. She suffers twice — once when she is violated and then again by not being able to speak about it.  Sexuality has negative associations for women. As for positive sexual experiences, well, women are not supposed to have them!” Women tend to ignore or tolerate sexual harassment till it becomes unbearable. Toleration is anyway seen as a major virtue for women. Mothers often tell their young daughters at the time of marriage, 'You are a woman now. So, learn to tolerate'. Many women tolerate domestic violence and abuse for years — because they try to live up to the definition of the Good Woman or the Madonna. A woman who dares to speak up, not tolerate and not give in, is the Bad Woman, the Whore. Whoever thinks that women today are not bound by the pre-determined Madonna/Whore notions may just be looking at exceptions or could be out of sync with the lived realities of the majority of women. Of course western influences have transformed some of our cultural settings. Yet, the powerful grip of gender's abstract codes continues to retain a tight hold on our psyches. Clearly, women need to break the silence.

Nonetheless, it is high time that men break their silence on the subject too. It has always been women activists rallying for the so-called 'women's issues'. But is sexual harassment not a men's issue (if there is a term/concept like that) as well? Why the water-tight, binary segregation anyway? After all, sexual harassment is as much — if not more — a men's issue. Asking for men's participation against all forms of sexual harassment will resolve the issue in multiple ways, especially in addressing the core issue of what it means to be a man. It is time that conscientious men call the bluff about masculinity and its silly ideals.

Sexual harassment of women is after all the upshot of an ideal-masculinity. Masculinity defines who a real man is — he is big, strong and brave, and does not cry, but smokes, drinks, swears and so on. When these false notions get real referents in a culture that sexually objectifies women, they get cast in the male mind as powerful symbols of identity. Fairy tales establish ideal traits for the Charming Prince. Advertisements, conspicuous and inescapable, assail us with images of what he should wear and eat, how he should behave with men and women, and so on. Sexual harassment, often disguised as flirting in mainstream commercial cinema, makes the act 'normal' and routine. With such cultural indoctrination, generations of young boys are performing their masculine roles with pride. (For the youth, Shahrukh Khan's Malboro or Dhoni's hairstyle are cool quotients to be imbibed. It is no surprise that those associated with the nicotine club — as consumers, advertisers, cigarette makers or in any other capacity — call the health minister's objections to on-screen smoking regressive). Harassing women on the streets becomes a coming-of-age puberty rite among young boys. It makes them feel powerful, just like 'real men'. Studies and research across the world have claimed that this type of sexual violence is not really about sex, but about feeling and enjoying the power men have over women.

Clearly, men have a critical role to play as fathers and brothers, or even as film/cricket stars. Grooming adolescent boys, in schools and families, on gender, its stereotypes, prescribed roles/behaviour and dynamics will help a great deal. (Not to say that girls should not be taught to see through the smokescreen of femininity). Surely, a small but crucial beginning has been made. Groups such as the Lucknow-based MASVAW (Men's Action for Stopping Violence Against Women) and MAVA (Men Against Violence & Abuse) in Pune, are men's organisations that have pioneered the process of engaging and sensitising men at the grassroots. AAKAR, a media trust in Delhi, tackles the subject of culture, gender and masculinity through research, documentaries and seminars.

For these efforts to become a larger movement and pick up speed, men and women need to speak up. And when they do, they should first correct a unique Indian misnomer — stop using the flippant term 'eve-teasing' for the grievous offence of 'sexual harassment'. Our cultural make-up can certainly do with some radical change. Hope our men are ready for the job.

The writer works for the UN and runs Echo, an informal group that seeks to sensitise men towards sexual harassment, among other issues.