It was December 7, 2017: The TIME magazine had declared the daring women, who had exposed powerful men who sexually assaulted them, as the ‘Person(s) of the Year’. But here in New Delhi, 14-year-old Poonam, who had just come, very silently, in a train from Bengal, alighted at the Delhi station. Her ‘handler’ directly took her to a ‘rich customer’ who wanted young ‘chicks.’ The ‘customer’ was supposedly, a powerful guy. And, even as netizens were celebrating The Silence Breakers of the Me Too campaign, the ‘chick’ was being butchered, again, and again.
Disruption is the one thing which is a constant today, it seems. Perhaps, one disruption, of the dozen knowns and a hundred other unknowns, is the women’s social power and equity movement also called by many names like Weinstein Movement or, the more popular Me Too campaign.
This movement incidentally began even as the phenomenon of Trump came to power in America. And, like the plasters peeling off a wall, one after another, women started exposing men, who had sexually assaulted them. This movement got validation when the Time magazine honoured The Silence Breakers. It is another thing that the Time had previously also declared Hitler and even Trump for its Person of the Year trophy.
Today this movement is being called as a watershed in the awakening of the she-power. The feminist clergywomen who are trying to build an organised religion around this movement are doing the same mistake all clergies do while making a new religion- exclusion. The Me Too movement can safely be called, the movement of the celebrities, by the celebrities, for the celebrities, and those who hang with them. At the heart of it, this was a very daring attempt by a few women to expose the mighty, but nasty men. However, the moment, it was hijacked by those keen to make it organised, and religious, the whole purpose started diverting. There were angels and demons in this religion; there were the clergy and the fighters in this religion, and there came even the merchants in this religion. Unfortunately, there are even untouchables in this religion as are pagans and villains and heathens. The chance of such movements erring like the great communist movements, wonderful in intent, but outrageously flawed in execution, is a living possibility.
While the feminist clergywomen claim that this movement will usher in an era of she-power, the question is, will it? Will this movement ever touch the tribal girl who was raped by a paramilitary soldier or a Maoist insurgent? Will this ever touch the poor girls who are brought from Nepal and Bengal and sold to ‘powerful customers’ in Lutyens and other such centres? Will this ever touch the middle-aged lady in a remote village, who has been beaten by her drunk husband for decades? Or will it touch the young lady harassed by in-laws, even in, urban localities, but who remains silent, to keep the family name?
Perhaps, the origin of such assaults by men has biochemical reasons. But, then, why were humans given a brain? However, what if even that brain is damaged, not literally, but habitually?
Every time a guy calls a girl, ‘an item’, objectifying the women, I doubt how long this movement will burn. Every time, man laces, and some women accomplice, risqué remarks in casual conversations, I doubt how long this movement will burn. Every time, swear words on mothers and sisters are uttered, I doubt the fire’s burn-ability! In fact, the movement’s fire should also witch hunt all the traces of sexual assaults on women; physical, verbal and entertaining, and burn them down to take this movement to its logical conclusion.
The sacred feminine at the centre of this movement needs to be awakened, lest we find even this religion go the way of all other religions- into the decadence!