We are aware of how the #MeToo movement began in 2017, in the United States of America, and spread to other parts of the world. I will not go into the timeline here. I will, though, begin with how it hit the Indian sub-continent. In 2018, as the movement spread in media, politics, film industry, art worlds etc. in India,[Read More…]

The court’s verdict in favour of Priya Ramani who was acquitted of defamation in #MeToo case must be acknowledged as a strong salutatory effect rather than a victory for India’s #MeToo movement as victim had to stand up in court as an accused. The outcomes of the India’s #MeToo movement after more than two years of its passage appear to[Read More…]

The # MeToo movement may have started out in the West but in the true spirit of ‘ sisterhood’ it has managed to draw in women set apart at least geographically…In India the first salvo was fired by Tanushree Dutta, an actor in the Indian film industry, who naturally was counter questioned by every passionate, concerned patriarchal voice who thought[Read More…]

While sifting through my Instagram feeds, I accidently stumbled upon a weird video of the actress Rakhi Sawant in which she wears a chain and a lock around her waist. In the video, she mocks every other woman coming out with the stories of the sexual abuse suffered at the hands of men and disparagingly suggests women to wear a[Read More…]

The  courageous  all-India  Me-too  campaign  has  nailed  powerful   male  personalities  ranging   from  film  directors  and  actors   to  media  journalists  and   political  leaders.  I  expect  the  veteran  Congress  politician  Renuka  Chowdhury  to  join  the  campaign,  since  according  to  her  own  account  she  had  suffered  sexist  remarks  from  no  less  a  person  than   India’s  present  Vice-President   Venkaiah  Naidu. To  recount,  in  March [Read More…]

The ongoing #MeToo revelations have rattled the Kerala society and taken down some names with it. Prominent among them are veteran journalist and resident of The Hindu in Kerala, C.Gouridasan Nair, the co-founder and secretary of India’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Riyas Komu and poet A. Ayyappan. Gouridasan Nair was relieved of his duties and forced to go on leave after Delhi[Read More…]

The Minister has spoken about her #metoo. Yes, in 2004 it was the two female ministers who did a #metoo when they thought that Mrs Sonia Gandhi might become the prime minister of the country. Ms Sushma Swaraj and Ms Uma Bharati threatened that if that happen that they would live like ‘widows’ by shaving their head and doing so[Read More…]

India is witnessing the crucial change where a few women courageously came out with their experience of sexual harrassment they have faced at their work placeand shared with the hastag #MeToo on the social media. Though, their number is small, yet the movement is reaching and spreading out. Still, what is being shared is just the tip of iceberg. There[Read More…]

Last year when more than 70 women came out with allegations of sexual harassment against celebrated movie producer Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo Movement originally started by Tarana Burke succeeded in grabbing headlines. But Weinstein was not the only one who faced such accusations. Many other actors were accused of sexual harassment. Some like Kevin Spacey of House of Cards fame[Read More…]

Before we talk and discuss these perceivably status quo challenging movements, we are loud and clear that we have no contention in expressing full sympathies for every woman on the globe who undergo traumatic experiences due to their contact with the respective interaction points with Male chauvinists. This #MeToo movement is actually a movement imported from west started a year[Read More…]

Not a single one of us can’t say Me Too. Not once, twice or thrice, Each of us were several times.   I was a little girl of seven, buying a loaf of bread Some uncle came from the back, Pressed his crotch in my butt crack. I squirmed and looked at others for help, With their business as usual[Read More…]

The persistence of ‘Me Too’ as used by Tarana Burke in 2006, was to endow women through empathy, mainly young and helpless women. In October 2017, Alyssa Milano refreshed using the catchphrase as a #tagMeToo, to help reveal the extent of problems with sexual harassment and assault by displayinghow many people have faced these events by themselves.Several #tags about sharing stories of[Read More…]

  Recent months have seen a righteous outpouring against the pervasive abuse, harassment, sexual assault, discrimination, humiliation, and degradation women are forced to endure in every realm of life. This is extremely positive and takes on heightened importance in light of—and, no doubt, is fueled by—the ugly shock of Trump, a bragging sexual predator, assuming the presidency and using the[Read More…]

Are we going for retribution or transformation?   In the last two weeks, there has been a great deal of controversy and commentary on recent comments from the actor Matt Damon about the #MeToo movement. This has ranged from substantive critiques to complaints that the problem is that he, as a man, is speaking at all. There has even been[Read More…]

The recent controversy over Jimmy Choo’s advertisement that critics are calling tone-deaf has me wondering who indeed is above reproach here.  No doubt, such ads are incredibly demeaning to women and in the age when powerful men are being exposed as Emperors with, well, no clothes, this ad is in incredibly poor taste, but in our rush to brandish our[Read More…]

The overthrow of iniquitous power relations is a point many would celebrate. But such overthrows are themselves marked by the contradiction of their origins. Any revolution must, by its very nature, suffer inconsistency, defeats and weaknesses. In the United States, a different sort of sexual revolution is taking place.  It is not linked to liberation in the way sex was[Read More…]

Rats fleeing a sinking ship – the ship of white male privilege The floodgates have opened. All the disgusting, depraved details are surfacing. Now the “public” is learning what the majority of us already knew – that men of power have been sexually abusing and harassing women for generations. It was simply the norm. Most women have experienced it in[Read More…]

The social media is flooding with #metoo (me too) hashtags. Sexual assault survivors are using this hashtag to call out on the cancer-like spread of sexual crime in our society. This is a consequence of the disclosure of Hollywood’s larger than life (nay, God?) figure Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predatoriness . More and more actresses have publicly stated their harassment at[Read More…]