Week 8 - Gender at Workplaces & Educational Institutions
The discussion for this week of the course manual was Gender at workplaces and educational institutions. Though we all like to believe that we study/work at very liberal places that do not see much sexual harassment, or have the proper mechanism to deal with the same, if a case comes up, it is sad that this fact is not entirely true. Even today, many women face sexual harassment at their place of work, or study. Be it serious cases, or mild, it is a problem that exists very prominently. However, what is even sadder that even though it is the 21st century where everyone claims to be more aware of things, more supportive, more "feminist", when it comes down to it, people show their true colours.
Sexual harassers who happen to be at high positions, academically, politically, socially, financially, or in the business, often get away scot-free for their actions. In colleges, administration is often wary of looking into the cases of sexual harassment by these people in a high position, such as professors, or the children of highly influential people, since they are more concerned about the consequences, the backlash, and the reputation of the institution, than getting justice for the survivor. The same has been illustrated in Huffington's post "#MeToo in India: 75 Professors, 30 Institutes, What Happened to Raya Sarkar's List of Sexual Harassers?". In her list, Raya Sarkar had named sexual harassers from esteemed educational institutes. However, most of these colleges refused to even acknowledge these allegations, and did not look into them since there were no "official" complaints made against these people. But, despite some official complaints, most of these harassers still do not face any repercussions. The lack of results after following due diligence, is the reason the #MeToo movement was started by Tarana Burke. The power that these people hold lets them get away, despite the official complaints. It is much easier to shush the survivors. This is also the reason why most of the sexual harassment cases are not reported in the first place. For these survivors to get justice, the first step is to not let power destroy the path to justice.
The discussion for this week of the course manual was Gender at workplaces and educational institutions. Though we all like to believe that we study/work at very liberal places that do not see much sexual harassment, or have the proper mechanism to deal with the same, if a case comes up, it is sad that this fact is not entirely true. Even today, many women face sexual harassment at their place of work, or study. Be it serious cases, or mild, it is a problem that exists very prominently. However, what is even sadder that even though it is the 21st century where everyone claims to be more aware of things, more supportive, more "feminist", when it comes down to it, people show their true colours.
Sexual harassers who happen to be at high positions, academically, politically, socially, financially, or in the business, often get away scot-free for their actions. In colleges, administration is often wary of looking into the cases of sexual harassment by these people in a high position, such as professors, or the children of highly influential people, since they are more concerned about the consequences, the backlash, and the reputation of the institution, than getting justice for the survivor. The same has been illustrated in Huffington's post "#MeToo in India: 75 Professors, 30 Institutes, What Happened to Raya Sarkar's List of Sexual Harassers?". In her list, Raya Sarkar had named sexual harassers from esteemed educational institutes. However, most of these colleges refused to even acknowledge these allegations, and did not look into them since there were no "official" complaints made against these people. But, despite some official complaints, most of these harassers still do not face any repercussions. The lack of results after following due diligence, is the reason the #MeToo movement was started by Tarana Burke. The power that these people hold lets them get away, despite the official complaints. It is much easier to shush the survivors. This is also the reason why most of the sexual harassment cases are not reported in the first place. For these survivors to get justice, the first step is to not let power destroy the path to justice.
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