Way back in 2012 my sister gave me some Hollywood
magazines which she was reading in her long flight to India. These are the
tit-bits for any reader who would like to know what is happening with the lives
of film stars and celebrities who mesmerise us on screen. I got to see how
several film stars of West including Hollywood were affected by voyeurism by
enthusiastic fans and profit making photographers. Indeed these fans and
photographers may make huge money because of a huge group of consumers: the common
cine lovers. Soon there was more news about celebrity hacks; their gym photos,
private holiday photos, private moment photos, private bathing photos were
leaked online and by the time one or two victims could get back to the police;
the world knew about their private lives. The positive point to think over this
issue is, several women film actors had taken such online privacy infringement seriously
and either took the matter to the police or had filed law suits against gossip
magazines or channels who unethically published their private photos or videos.
I call this “positive” because these women had defied the common understanding
that approaching the police or the courts for online harassment including
sexual harassment like leaking of private photos or videos is nothing but
publicity stunt. Unfortunately in India several female film stars including upcoming
film stars or serial actors also fall prey to the same sort of victimisation and
when they turn towards the police or the courts, many a times, it is seen as
publicity stunt: not to forget, their Western counter parts also do go through the
same. But at the same time, I have not found many Indian women film stars and
serial actors who took the matters of online sexual victimisation as seriously
as their Western counter parts ( I addressed this issue in my article “Celebrities
and cyber crimes: An analysis of the victimisation of female film stars on the
internet” http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-6637/2016/1450-66371604355H.pdf
).
But women actors may be the most ‘exploited’
species among working women: consider the blunt, straight forward speech of
Madona during Woman of the year award in 2016. Social media channels were
flooded with comments, emogies and thumbs ups praising her for boldly
expressing how she had been sexually violated in real life and how she
continues to be violated online at present. Why she had to be the victim of
sexual violation? Apparently it is because of the presence of ‘God fathers’ in
the workplace who may coerce the women to enter into a non-consensual sexual
relationship which would ensure continuous job protection. For the last couple
of days, several female actors from Hollywood have started protesting against
such sexual exploitation with #metoo . The campaign had been so strong and
viral that it has touched almost all continents and millions of women who may
have been sexually victimised or violated either by way of penetrative sexual
assault or by non-penetrative sexual assault or by sexual harassment in workplaces,
public places as well as in their homes, have opened up about their
victimisation.
India has also been touched by
#MeToo campaign. Several women have expressed their solidarity by pasting on
their time line the following lines:"Me
too... If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me
Too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.
Please copy/paste.". This was originally shared by actress Alyssa Milano
and others as a protest against sexual victimisation by Harvey Weinstein, a
noted producer-distributor who had been
ousted from Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 15th October, 2017.
Most of my 900 friends on Facebook
who had been sporting #MeToo in their profile time lines for past 72 hours had
been sharing several forms of victimisation; most common is definitely sexual
gazing at public places and work places. I had posted in my time line about
online sexist comments and pornographic stuff
including misogynist posts which I often get to see in my message box (thanks
to continuous privacy ‘tactics’ that I practice for my Twitter and Facebook timelines, I do not
get to see such violating and victimising stuff in my time-line except on rare occasions).
Several of my friends and acquaintances have simply shared the “metoo” message to show their solidarity with the cause, which
I am sure, has definitely affected them, but they may not be feeling comfortable
to openly express the same. Two posts however have actually attracted my
attention even though they do not speak about cyber sexual victimisation or
workplace victimisation : one by Sauranshu Sinha from Delhi and the other by
Dr. Kalki Subramaniam from Pondicherry. The latter, a transgender activist and
a trans-woman herself wrote a poignant note using #metoo. A part of her message
(which is open for public) reads as follows “.........................................Around
the world, every transgender woman, and in India almost every cis/transwoman
goes through this brutal, uncouth, insensible torture. No more can they do it
to me today. I stand tall and strong. Yet, i must say I was a victim too.”
Sinha is the first man I noticed who wrote about his experience of being sexually
violated when he was a 6th standard student. A part of his message
(which is open for public viewing) using #metoo stated that while he was travelling
in a bus, a man touched him inappropriately and opened his zip to show Sinha his
private parts (translated from Bengali). Sinha was a victim of sexual
exploitation as a young boy who shared his solidarity with #metoo.
I know several of my friends,
women and men who did not share their own experiences or neither shared #metoo,
would have been victims themselves at one or other point of time. There are
several individuals who may probably never understand that even comments like “hi
sexy” or “wanna talk, reply back” may also be victimising especially when the receiver
feels insulted, hurt, alarmed or feels his/her modesty has been harmed. There are
several victims of online sexual harassment who may never speak up about their
bitter experiences due to fear of more exposure. Thousands of women may remain
silent even when their friends are marching along with #metoo to expose the
sorts of victimisation they had gone through and alert the society. Yet, I welcome #metoo campaigners. When people
dare to share, there remain positive chances for the policy makers and law-makers
to executors to note the pain. Let us hope that #metoo brings a change not only
in the mindsets of people, but also in the process of implementation of laws. We
need to understand that women who had been victimised and turned up to share
their experiences, should get due protection and respect from all of us. Let us
unite to defy sexist misogynist trolls from making #metoo and all of us victims
again.
Please
Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use
informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article,
please cite it as “Halder D. (2017), "#MeToo : Tales
of victimisation in real life as well as on internet, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
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