Me Too

No newspaper, no TV.....yet what news needs to reach me, I believe, does.

The 'Me Too' movement is one such. The first I heard of it was a couple weeks back from Dhruva, when he asked " Did you hear of the Tanushree Dutta accusation of Nana Patekar amma? I've been following the US Me Too movement, and I'm so happy to see it picking up in India as well",  and that triggered a long discussion on it.

Apart from being glad that women are finally finding the space and the voice to speak out, I also felt good just listening to him be so vocally supportive.

Especially so, when what I'm hearing on the other end is so many men being critical... almost playing victim. To the extent of saying "I'd be scared to hire women in the work place", "I'm now scared to even talk friendly" "There are women who will misuse it".....and so on and so forth.

So sad.

That so many women have lived with it for so long is seemingly not visible to them. I know hardly anyone (my age group) who hasn't faced some form of sexual abuse or sexual harassment at some point in life. To think women have finally found the courage, the strength to overcome the stickiness and difficulties to talk about it........the issues it carries with it once out, and to not be even understood by their own male peer group.

Where is the fairness in this?

And this fear of misuse, which these men don't seem to be able to see beyond..... I can see two arguments against it. 

One; what it takes to come out is so sensitive and painful, that most women would cringe at the process, (look at what Chetan Bhagat's doing), and the courage it needs can come only from those who've suffered it. 

Two; no one's saying all women are paragons of virtue, they (we) are as human as the men. So even if there is a segment that does misuse, is that reason enough to let the rest of the female demographic suffer and suppress in silence?

What would it take for these men to know that all that's being asked of them is to understand 'consensual'. Or is that something that's not part of their lexicon...  part of a larger social issue of equality. 

Is what they are afraid of just simple 'fair and equal behavior' ??!!??