On Sexual Harassment
March 15, 2008
The Literary Society, Ramjas College held a discussion on Gender and Sexual Harassment in collaboration with The Blank Noise Project on November 5, 2007.
The following is a piece I wrote about it, published in a university journal.
Why have so many cases of sexual harassment come up in Delhi University in the past year?
Surely, sexual harassment is not something that is peculiar to DU. It has been established beyond doubt that there is no demographic to harassers and they may come from anywhere in the social strata. My guess is, the big difference is due to the awareness about the issue created through active public discourse.
The major reason behind inviting The Blank Noise Project to Ramjas College was to continue this process of change. Blank Noise, being a public-participatory art initiative, tried to take it beyond the annals of discourse. We discussed strategies for shifting the power balance in a public domain which remains largely male-dominated. This reclaiming of the public space is an important step if we aspire to gender equality. The abdication of the public space to men is nothing but abject surrender. For it is clear, more powerful than harassment is the threat of harassment, the internalization of fear and potential aggression.
In the light of what happened at Ramjas recently, the discussion with Blank Noise acquired a new context. We had planned it a month before the issue engulfed Ramjas, which only showed how pertinent it is. Blank Noise’s emphasis was largely female-centric sexual harassment, but the interaction also went beyond gender. More than girls, we had boys speaking about experiences of sexual harassment. I thought, the unique part was that people felt comfortable enough to speak about difficult things in an audience of about a hundred people. For once, there was no shame attached to being harassed. Maybe it was a small occurrence, but also a powerful step in the process. When we find the courage to speak about it, we make it more and more evident that there is a problem. And the fight against it must go on.
