Elaborate the ‘Me Too’ Movement and its impact in India. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Sociology, Paper 2)
Sexual Harassment of women/girls at the workplace has been alive for several years, right from the time women were emancipated and stepped out of the safety of their homes and tried to figure alongside men. In 2006, Civil rights activist Tarana Burke used the phrase ‘” ME TOO” to boost awareness on the existence of harassment. She wanted to spread the message to the lady survivors that “You’ve been heard and understood”. However, in 2017 actress Alyssa Milano helped start the present phase of the movement to stress the “magnitude of the problem”. It became a grassroots campaign for ladies of color who experienced sexual assault.
- MeToo increased awareness about the prevalence of harassment at work and redress measures available. Me Too movement stirred companies into action. There was alertness across corporate India. It jolted them out of their passiveness.
- There was renewed specialization in doing sessions with women, getting their feedback on the office situation. Giving training on aspects of harassment and getting feedbacks on any complaints and reassuring them of support.
- Many Companies now feared negative publicity and undertook due diligence of all senior person profiles and encouraged self-reporting. This saw a rise in complaints by almost 14-15% in 2018 -2019, because of the movement and increase in support by organizations fearing reputational risks. The NCW saw an increase in complaints from 570 in 2017 to 965 in 2018.
- Women were feeling empowered. Companies started doing more and more and ladies employees became more confident. Many companies have gone beyond the legal requirements and put gender-neutral policies in situ.
- It has caused fear within the minds of perpetrators, who will consider before doing something. It motivated organizations to unravel harassment issues.
- Many skeletons are beginning of the cabinet, all this is often being taken seriously by ICC and victims are becoming a justice. Even the lower-level employees are feeling empowered. Several states have passed laws prohibiting nondisclosure agreements.
Though #Metoo was just a movement, but it gave the spark to the citizens to fight against the harassment. However the courts have been actively involved in issuing directions to the states to make sure that the Internal Complaints Committee for the organised sector and Local Complaints Committee for the unorganised sector have been established by the authorities. However the actual need is to educate the women about what actually constitutes sexual harassment as they might have been facing the same but ignoring because of stigma that may be attached to them if they complain about it.
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