TOGETHER, STEP BY STEP

For gender equity, women need to work collectively, not drop out of the fight

SOMETIMES WE HAVE to realise that the journey for women’s equity in public discourse is not linear, measured by the steps taken, not taken or the two steps taken backwards. It is a constant churn in a systemic process that must squeeze out latent misogyny. Women around the world have begun to understand that. That’s why, despite repression or regression, women’s movements are only gathering steam on a slow burn.

The incarceration of many human rights activists before her didn’t stop 29-year-old Saudi activist Manahel al-otaibi from propagating women’s equity or rejecting male guardianship through the hashtag #societyisready. As she spends her time in jail, support for her is bubbling up globally. Iranian women got support from marginalised women in Afghanistan as they resurrected the Kurdish women’s chant of “Women, Freedom, Life!” Women in Mexico are helping their US counterparts negotiate abortion bans.

There will be comeuppance for the likes of Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer who is in jail for sexual assault following testimonies that spurred the #Metoo movement. But there will also be patriarchal mockery of the kind that legitimises former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Singh through the backdoor. His son just got a BJP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kaiserganj in Uttar Pradesh, keeping the family’s power privileges intact while riding roughshod over the concerns of champion women wrestlers. Yet every maledominated establishment will espouse women’s equity.

The truth is that the term “women’s empowerment” is the hand-me-down of an egotistical male largesse or guilt-tripping. The agency doesn’t lie with the women, who are never asked what they want but merely given what men think they need as a dole. If anything, it only ingrains in women a sense of powerlessness. Besides, traditional cultures have always upheld inequity as a norm rather than the exception.

That’s why women have to be more strategic than exceptional, stay within the system and earn leadership on their terms and never exit midway. If they quit, that would be the real end-of-the-road dreariness, worse, hopelessness. Nowhere else is this more apparent than in the workplace where sexual harassment, despite redressal mechanisms, has seen women survivors leave their jobs, unable to deal with mental scarring and sidelining, besides the judgmental gaze and curiosity of colleagues. However, by giving up, they would be relinquishing their stake in leadership. With just a handful of women in senior management, no form of harassment or discrimination will be acknowledged and addressed as an organisational problem. It will be seen as an aberration and, worse, a liability and will be used to justify the male argument about the muscle needed for the top job.

Sexual harassment is never about physical desire — it’s a coercive tool to eliminate women competitors who, statistics show, are outperforming men, even in bastions of male expertise. This pushback by sexualising women co-workers then is also about a reluctance to cede territory and reclaim it with greater ferocity. This represents a larger societal collision that already has disastrous consequences of not only browbeating the survivor but the ecosystem around her. The scales can turn only when the redressal mechanism, be it at home or the workplace, treats the sexual harasser as both a social and economic liability. The lens has to change from “protecting” women to “punishing” abusive oppressors. An existing male leadership cannot turn the wheel as much. A female leadership is needed for that countervailing push.

According to UN Women, decision-making processes around the world continue to be disempowering with just 27 per cent of parliamentary seats, 36 per cent of local government seats and 28 per cent of management positions held by women. Only 61 per cent of prime working-age women have jobs compared to 91 per cent of prime working-age men.

This is not just about the gender divide. Women are taking on a bigger battle of reversing normative behaviour, a far tougher climb that men have never had to negotiate or know about. And for that, women need to push back collectively, not become another dropout or a beneficiary.

The scales can turn only when the redressal mechanism, be it at home or the workplace, treats the sexual harasser as both a social and economic liability. The lens has to change from ‘protecting’ women to ‘punishing’ abusive oppressors. An existing male leadership cannot turn the wheel as much. A female leadership is needed for that countervailing push.