Safe Place For Women: Lessons from Bollywood !

Its 2020 - a year of pandemic, political chaos and climate change, yet I feel compelled to write about Bollywood - and on a professional platform like LinkedIn, No less. But bear with me. I want to draw your attention to recent films like Maatr, Delhi Crime and Mardani 1 or 2 - films that have shown violence against women, and more importantly have shown how justice was served by going beyond the law.

I bring these films up for two main reasons - One, because I want to highlight that violence against women continues unabated across all sections of society - and it finds enough resonance among the general public to be the focal point of major masala films. This trend confirms that even though we live in 'modern India', nothing much has changed. Women continue to be ill-treated the way always have been. All the conversation about women empowerment has only been talk- and women aged.

7 to 70 continue to feel unsafe in the country. So when we talk of encouraging women in the workplace - we should focus on ways in which we can minimize the 'risk' of sexual abuse at the office. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.

The other reason I brought up this topic of rampant sexual abuse of women - as shown in these films and in the stories that lace our newspapers - is to highlight that our judicial systems have failed in setting strong enough deterrents to prevent crimes against women. This is also the case with our corporate grievance redressal mechanisms. It seems that crimes against women are widespread affecting women across ages and socio-economic classes. It further is clear, that , on the whole , we do not expect our institutions ( corporate or judicial) to work. It is easy to proclaim that we must take justice in our hands- and that we should 'hang the culprit'. But we know that that vigilante justice is never the ( complete / long - term) answer. Important as it may be to see swift justice, we have to provide space for neutral enquiry and unbiased action. 

But because we can't hasten justice and we can't ignore the problem any longer - I am saying that we must look for (and address) the root cause. The main problem is that , up until now , we've been focusing on 'women education'; women empowerment' etc. to counter violence against women. But we must acknowledge that violence against women is perpetuated by men, even though men themselves may be enabled by other women. Think of a mother-in- law witnessing her son beat his wife - and choosing to keep quiet to preserve the family's social standing. The MIL has erred twice. One, she raised a son who does not see women as worthy of respect. Two, by not supporting her daughter in law against the son, she has silently condoned his actions. The message the man receives is " it's OK to disrespect my wife, even beat her up".

Think of a son witnessing that his father looks down upon he mother because she is a 'stay - at home mum' and 'does nothing' . The message he receives is " My father earns the money - so he is the head of the family. My mother ( and her wishes and opinions) doesn't matter as much as dad does".

In my view, that's where violence against women starts. Rapes don't happen because a girl wears a  mini- skirt . Rapes happen because men believe that they are somehow superior; that it's OK for men to force a woman into submission; and that because they are men they are not going to be held accountable for their actions.

Even in more civilized spaces, including offices, this arrogance is visible in how most men treat their women colleagues- in how they summarily dismissing their ideas to how they actively harass them without fear of consequence.

As a woman, wife , mother and a professional - I believe that we need to raise awareness among men regarding the need to treat women respectfully. This education, of course, begins at home but its impact will surely reach our workspaces.

As a mother, I pledge to raise an aware, sensitive and respectful son. As a woman professional, I know that I would love having similarly raised men as colleagues, seniors and juniors.