Not A Trend!

These past few weeks have brought newspapers full of closeted stories and astonishing revelations to our doorsteps. I read on and on, determined to keep my peace in the blog-sphere. There are already innumerable articles, eloquent and gripping, which bring the point home, and I knew I had nothing new to add. My previous post had already dealt with it, though of a different form, and I believed that I had my say.
Cool headed, to the point. Job done.
So I read on, shocked at the heart wrenching senate testimony from a different country, appalled at the accusations by Ms. Tanushree Dutta against a revered actor like Nana Patekar and a hundred others which followed.
There was a faint hope when support poured in, when more tales of assault and rape, previously buried in the tormented halls of the survivor’s minds, came tumbling out like a domino free fall. The hope was that people would be more open, would not hesitate to call out a molester, would be more active in reporting it, would be willing to take shelter of law.

Then I started reading & hearing comments, thoughtless opinions which crushed that faint hope and replaced it with a slow, distressed and boiling rage.
Comments so crassly left on social media accounts:
That AIB is overreacting!
A new weapon for cheap publicity for girls now a days in ‘Sexual Harassment’
Isn’t it too much of feminism?
Are these new trending memes? I’m confused!
And conversations between people which I actually heard:
It’s a fashion nowadays to proclaim #MeToo!.
Why are they speaking now after so many years, it’s all bogus!
She wanted favors, and since she didn’t get it, she is accusing him..

When the proverbial common man has such common thought, when people cannot recognize a wrong which is so obviously a wrong, there is something hugely lacking in the society which we are creating for the future.
And here are certain things which I want to address and explain, a squirrel’s offering in the grand scheme of things, if you will.

The most common accusation against the women who are speaking up seems to be this: Why are they talking about being harassed after so many years? Why now?
Please, pause and think.
Our society still suffers from the legacy of the British stiff upper lip. Anything dirty, anything which ripples the illusion of clean and normal, is swept neatly under the rug and not talked about. People are afraid to voice opinions. People tend to ignore the unpleasant. Things like catcalling, a woman being stalked, a woman being groped, lewd propositions were considered so common & frequent that they were not commented upon. I find no words which describe it better than these by Shakespeare:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’s with the hands of war,
All pity chok’d with custom of fell deeds.
And when certain women were brave enough to point fingers, the general tendency had been to label her a “Troublemaker!!”
Though this is changing, it’s a very slow change. When, in this so-called “woke” stage of evolution, people can be subjected to such ridicule & hurtful trolling, how it would have been, say, 15 years back is anyone’s guess.

And addressing the issue of “Why Now?”
It is always easier to speak about your torments when you know that someone else has grappled with something similar. When one woman starts talking about a sexual assault, it is easier for another woman to start talking about it too. There is an environment at the moment which is giving courage to assault survivors to bring out their hidden stories, a hope that they will not be shamed, a pining that they will be believed. When there is more educated thought, when a small bit by bit of society is moving away from lowbrow practices of victim blaming, why would they not want to come out and unburden nightmares which had never found a voice before?

The practice of ours to take everything in stride, to shut up and bear it has had many unhealthy implications. Psychological trauma has a stigma attached to it, and many people ignore its existence.
Yes. Rape is traumatic. Sexual assault is traumatic. Sexual harassment is traumatic.
And each person deals with and reacts to trauma is their own way. Some people are enraged, some people are petrified and are unable to leave their houses. Some people go in to shock. Some people become bitter. And some people just shut it all out. Your rational reactions are suspended, and what would be termed as normal behaviour becomes an impossibility.
When there is no counselling readily available, when mental health is not sufficiently addressed, these reactions only magnify and consolidate. To judge a person because they did not react in so and such a way, to judge a victim for reacting late is scandalously unfair. Only a person who has lived through it can know what it means.
Remember the words of advice that Nick Carraway’s father gave him “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Many seem bewildered that there are so many instances of harassment and which are only now coming out. And a majority of those shocked at the quantum of these cases are men.
To them, I tell this: This is nothing new.
Ask any woman you know if she has ever experienced something which disturbed her, or if she has ever been groped and at least an 8 out of 10 will answer with an affirmative. They might have just not talked about it with you.

I do not want to come across as a feminist fanatic. Don’t I realise that not all the stories which have been hash-tagged #MeToo could be a tool? Could be a fantastical fabrication? Could be just women wanting their spot of sunshine on a sunny day? Could be a way of getting-back-at-him?
I do. Contrary to how this rant of more than a thousand words must seem, there is pragmatism in me. I do acknowledge that not all accusations are true.
What I want to put out is this: When you see a story of #MeToo, it is not always about rape. There are several ways a woman might be intimidated.
It is wrong to touch her when she doesn’t ask for it.
It is wrong to call her a slut when she is wearing shorts.
It is wrong to tell “She was asking for it yaar” when she is on the road at midnight and is assaulted.
And these things, if done, is what discomforts a woman. A #MeToo story is just another woman telling that she experienced it too, and to name the person who did it.

So, what needs to change is that first instinct of disbelief and dubiousness and for the birth of a tolerant consideration. And when one reads the next story with this hash tag, to not think “Oh god! Not another one! This is becoming a trend!” but to contemplate on a woman who was violated and made to feel humiliated about her own body.