Due process, which women are being patronisingly told to turn to, shifts the shame back on them. #MeToo is doing just the opposite.
Through the #MeToo movement, urban Indian women are collectively saying that they have had enough of institutions that have systematically throttled their voices for so long. Yet, unsolicited advice from status quo-loving men and women to go through the “due process” continues to pour in.
‘Due process’ shifts the shame back on women. #MeToo is doing just the opposite. Due process, which many women are being patronisingly told to turn to, insists on drawing a veil of silence over cases of sexual harassment because the matter is considered sub judice when they file a complaint.
They are asked to maintain silence for the sake of the honour of the organisation they work for. They have to accept a pre-defined, straitjacketed idea of ‘justice’. It doesn’t matter how tilted the process of seeking that justice may be against them.
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‘My regret’
Recently, a woman who has gone through the due process – whose identity cannot be revealed – told me, “I regret having filed a complaint. My entire life has gone for a toss.”
She has allegedly been harassed at her workplace for years at a stretch – only because she refused to give in to her senior colleague’s sexual advances. With the inquiry going on, he was asked to relinquish his administrative responsibilities, but continues to work in the same department as her.
“I wish I could come on the media and shame him, but I cannot,” she told me. “He still goes around telling people that he is soon going to be back, so that they don’t stop being deferential to him.”
This is perhaps the confidence that ‘due process’ inspires in men.
She looks at all these women on social media, who are finding strength in numbers – each validating the other’s trauma through her own experience – and tells me, “Look at these women…their word is being taken at face value, while I have to sit and prove he called me names. How do I prove it?”
Truly, how do you prove that a boss looked at you in a way that made you deeply uncomfortable? How do you prove that he stares at your breasts while talking to you? How do you prove too scared of the emotional, professional and financial cost of speaking up within ten minutes of an alleged incident – as Bharatiya Janata Party’s Meenakashi Lekhi recently advised women?
Listen to the voices
The sexual harassment law, which came into place in 2013, problematically states that a complaint must be made within three months of the alleged incident.
In a country where justice comes decades after a crime is committed, why must a complaint of harassment come within three months?
As women, we learn from the experiences of other women. With a large number of women speaking up about their experiences of harassment, an even larger number of women are mentally going back to certain incidents that left them feeling uncomfortable and violated. These women are only beginning to realise that what they went through too was sexual harassment. Should they not be given a chance to seek justice only because it has been more than three months since that incident happened?
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Many men and women have raised some valid concerns about #MeToo. Those concerns can and must be dealt with. But right now is the time to listen to the voices we have collectively silenced – at our workplaces, in our homes and in our social circles.
Women have been asked to not wash their dirty linen in public for too long. Now, women are collectively telling the society that the dirt was never theirs.