#MeToo should not end up treating women in India Inc with kid gloves

Today’s “Sweetu” may be tomorrow’s “#MeToo”. Doing the rounds on WhatsApp this one-liner shows the image of a man carrying his sweetheart in his arms, a girl who might then become his nemesis. It is often in the nature of humour to overlay underlying anxiety, and this tongue-in-cheek epigram might be read both ways. A very boys-like way of deflating an extremely serious issue affecting thousands of women. Or, we might read in it an underlying anxiousness that is now affecting men in their workplaces. A nervousness which might sadly end up affecting aspiring women.

The #MeToo movement has been immensely powerful and a landmark in its potency to redraw the lines of what is acceptable workplace behaviour on the part of men, especially men who are in positions of power over women. #MeToo has sounded warning bells to such men who feed on a sense of easy entitlement over women colleagues or other women professionals. Through #MeToo women in workplaces and industry have screamed out against harassment and abuse, against any form of intimidation, and for strong and staunch equality.

For women, equality means equality to work without being made deliberately conscious of your gender, your body, or what you choose to wear. Equality in every sense of it. And, that very same equality and strength comes with its responsibility. Responsibility in not expecting to be treated any different from men when it comes to nonperformance issues, or any disciplining matter.



For if women allow the lines to blur between, say, a censure for non-performance (from their bosses or colleagues) and sexual harassment, then they do end up weakening our ongoing movement for greater gender equality. If any odd unpleasantness between a man and women in the workplace gets marked as sexual harassment, we stand the risk of hindering somewhat this ongoing sensitisation on women’s rights.

Sexual harassment has the ability to wreck lives, ruin careers. It is a very serious matter as not only women but also men will increasingly vouch. If therefore, we as women, do not guard against random raisings of the spectre of sexual harassment, we make room for disservice to the cause. We allow a reifying of the skewed gender perspective expressed by ‘woh to ladki hai, yaar’, ie she’s just a girl, treat her with gentle care. Treating women with kid gloves is not something that any professional woman worth her salt would like to see as a repercussion of an enabling #MeToo.

Every man with any agenda to hurt or humiliate a woman co-worker will think it over many times now that the #MeToo movement has gathered momentum. Apparently the Bollywood film industry, going ahead, is resolving to include in work contracts the clause of sexual harassment and its repercussions – a huge step forward. Yet in industry circles (and not just films) there are whispers – ‘better hire a man and not a woman for this job’. Why? Because the job in question involves travelling or late hours with a male boss. A strategy of risk management. This recoil will hinder women, make them lose out on jobs.


But possibly, with the campaign for outing workplace sexual inequality running its rightful course, we will see such insecurities on the part of men dissipate. When the movement itself draws the lines between sexual harassment and what is not sexual harassment. When not only do sufferers and survivors have access to protection and instruments of redress but also when a persistent mechanism for due process ensures justice for all concerned.

With #MeToo, many new questions have been asked. Is a ten-year old allegation even valid? Why didn’t the victim pursue her case then and there? Ten or twelve years is no matter. What matters is closure, and the sense that things will change fast now. What will also be transformed is, what so-called ‘little things’ will now count as evidence, and the empathy that will hopefully be with a woman who comes forward with her ordeal. We who have given #MeToo our strength must look forward to equality, of women and men, of workplace freedom, and freedom from fear and suspicion, for each and every person, woman or man.

The writer is a film historian