Last October was a fiery one with hundreds of working women across different sectors —  media, entertainment, arts, social sectors — coming out with heartbreaking stories of sexual harassment in the workplace and toxic work culture. Starting with actress Tanushree Dutta speaking up against Nana Patekar’s behaviour during a film shoot, it snowballed into an avalanche of accusations against several powerful men — editors, actors, comedians, artists. 

The movement largely unfolded on social media. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram turned into battlegrounds where accusations and counter-accusations were levelled. But, most importantly, this was the beginning of a consistent dialogue and discussion on sexual harassment in the workplace. 

Christina Dhanaraj, advisor for Smashboard, an alternative social network which describes itself as a “digital ally for people of all genders fighting patriarchy”, says the failure of legal and organisational procedures pushed survivors to use social media to put out their stories. “I feel like this movement stems from a place of helplessness and if I were to put myself in the shoes of the survivors who came out with their stories and go back in time when I was assaulted, I would essentially do the same thing,” she said, adding that the movement was a way to attain “cathartic justice” in some form.

The movement has been criticised for not being inclusive enough; for excluding marginalised voices and not recognising that the first wave of #MeToo in India was actually unleashed a year earlier, when a list of academicians who were accused of sexual harassment was released by Raya Sarkar. 

It’s unarguable that 2018’s #MeToo movement was very urban-centric. The women leading it or acting as gatekeepers were those with certain privileges, albeit limited. This accorded them — and therefore the women relying on them to tell their stories — some form of ability to deal with repercussions. However, for women working in smaller towns, their everyday battles are so numerous that they haven’t even felt the trickle effect of #MeToo, says V Mallika, who heads Navodayam, a women’s media collective based out of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. 

“We heard about the #MeToo movement through TV news channels and a lot of us felt it was restricted to bigger towns,” Mallika explains. “Those of us who work in smaller towns are prone to sexual harassment but there are so many other things at play here such as caste and patriarchy. So it is incredibly difficult for us to speak out about this.”

Independent journalist Neha Dixit agrees. She says the lack of state bureaus in mainstream media houses implies an increasing reliance on local journalists and independent reporters. “This means that most reporters are working in a loose manner and don’t get even basic protection as journalists,” Dixit says. “And tackling sexual harassment is low on the priority list.” 

Dixit thinks there’s a need to regulate how media is structured. “I don’t mean regulation in terms of content and editorially, but media requires regulation to provide better security for journalists especially women who are dealing with everyday sexism day in and day out.”   

Akangchila Longchar, associate editor at Nagaland Today, points out that discussions on #MeToo are still very mainstream. “In February, I attended the Network for Woman in India’s annual conference in Delhi and that opened my eyes to different perspectives on this topic,” says Longchar. “Until then, my understanding and exposure to these issues was limited to what was being shown or reported in mainstream media. I then used my learnings from the conference to initiate a conversation about sexual harassment in my organisation.” 

Longchar says there’s a need for the movement to include voices of women who haven’t been heard yet, “such as those from rural India or those living and working in, say, Nagaland”. She says the one thing the movement did was that it made her and her colleagues more aware of what constitutes appropriate behaviour at the workplace and, therefore, more aware of their rights. 

Structural improvements, or the lack thereof 

Structural changes as a result of the #MeToo movement are few and far in between. As Dixit says, conversations have been initiated but there’s no outcome of the various complaints and feedback. 

That isn’t all. “Complainants have been made to suffer in many ways,” Dixit says. “I feel there has been little to no initiative by those in decision-making positions to take this more seriously. Not just editors or top management, but others like journalistic bodies (except a few women media groups). And this is one reason why the movement fizzled out too.” Dixit points out that not one media organisation has placed on record that they have dealt with x number of cases and the outcome of each. “There is no accountability.”

The rehabilitation of the accused is a cause for concern. Take, for instance, this writer’s own story from a decade ago, where the accused was rehabilitated within the local media scene in Hyderabad within a few months. This is a pattern that is now observed even in the most high profile of cases, with the media boycott of the accused (such as MJ Akbar and Vinod Dua) being lifted within a few months. Doors today are thrown open to let the accused back in, as if the accusations were never levelled. 

Another issue is the backlash against women who have spoken publicly about sexual harassment and abuse. Earlier this month, the Network of Women in Media, India, issued a statement condemning the “retaliatory lawsuits slapped on women who have spoken out and/or aided the process of disclosure about incidents of sexual harassment”. 

The statement says: “When in-house redressal mechanisms are still largely absent or woefully inadequate, women subjected to sexual harassment literally have nowhere to go and fear severe backlash for disclosure. Is it surprising then that they often choose anonymity while telling their stories?”

Weaknesses in the movement

Odisha-based journalist Sarada Lahangir tells Newslaundry that the “unstructuredness” of the #MeToo movement’s could be why it petered out. 

“When the movement began, it was very aggressive and garnered the support of so many of us,” Lahangir says. “But it soon weakened for many reasons, including the outing of big public figures, the decreasing support from some senior women journalists. Importantly, it weakened because the movement didn’t seem to have a goal.” 

She says it’s important to clarify this “goal” to keep the movement alive. “Right now, it’s too divided.” She points to the lack of accountability on the part of the movement itself and those leading it, which leads to growing distrust within the media fraternity. “We don’t trust our own fraternity and the support we are giving to those who have come out with their stories is half-hearted.” 

However, Dixit acknowledges the shift in attitudes towards those who raise their voices against sexual harassment in the workplace. “The attitudes have changed a lot since the time I filed a case in 2008 to the #MeToo movement in 2018.”

For Navodayam’s Mallika, their battles are bigger than the current scope of #MeToo. “As community reporters, we are battling severe systemic problems such as caste discrimination, honour killings and children being sexually abused. Of course, gender discrimination is rampant too. In such a scenario, who is going to stand up for women standing up against sexual harassment? No one.” Mallika says there is low awareness among women in small towns about their rights, as opposed to their counterparts in urban areas. This can only be tackled, she says, by educating women in schools and colleges in small towns about the law and their rights.

Dhanaraj thinks the discussion around #MeToo’s urban and rural divide needs to be overhauled. “When we talk about bridging the gap, we need to ask: who wants to bridge the gap and why? This means we assume that someone is in the centre and someone is on the periphery and that those in the centre have to include those on the periphery.”

She says, “People who are less privileged; who come from lower caste backgrounds, Adivasi backgrounds, and/or who belong to the unorganised sector, who are not on social media — all of these so-called ‘other’ women have been facing sexual assault and all kinds of violence for years. And they have been trying to talk about it for a very, very long time in many different ways.” 

Dhanaraj notes that instead of talking about “inclusivity”, the gatekeepers of the #MeToo movement should join the fight. “Privileged women talk about inclusion and bringing people in. Who are you to talk about inclusion? Are you assuming you have the power to include? That thinking needs to change”

In this context, Dhanaraj says the #MeToo movement is probably a “more sensationalised version” of what underprivileged women have been trying to do for ages. This, she says, is simply because women in the #MeToo movement have more visibility and come with economic/social resources. And the men that were called out were also well-known. This made it easier for the movement to get attention. “We belong to this so-called circle where most of us know each other via social media and this has resulted in a class- and, to a large extent, a caste-restricted movement.”

It’s important to remember that sexual harassment and assault take place at the intersection of caste, class, religion, gender, and linguistic backgrounds, she says. While nuances are complex, it’s necessary to stop the movement from being divided on the basis of class and caste.

Dhanaraj says it’s also important to look at how harassment in the workplace can be non-sexual. “I don’t think we talk about this enough,” she says. “Non-sexual harassment is still harassment, but we don’t talk about it enough because in some ways we assume that women can only be sexually assaulted.”