Wikipedia defines sexual harassment as “bullying or coercion of a sexual nature or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.” With the rising number of cases of sexual harassment and sexually inappropriate behavior in academic institutions and workplace scenarios, it must be the youth of the country that should step up and take the reins of the social order in their hands.
I proceeded to talk to certain individuals on my campus and away in order to process how the perception and boundaries towards sexual harassment vary across regions and genders. The demographic interviewed for this article consists of males in their late teens or early 20s. The following is just their views of the concerned phenomena and their reasoning for the same.
Aameen Amitoj, a student of History at Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College, Delhi, labels sexual harassment as both physical and verbal. Although his view on the physical aspect is precisely limited to inappropriate advances without the involved party’s consent, he strongly feels that sexual harassment in its verbal form needs to be more clearly defined, as this gives the perpetrators an easy loophole to shake off the blame. He also believes that it is the college authority’s duty to organise various workshops on consent and the use of appropriate language.
He says, “We are entrenched with misogyny and sexism in our pop culture and we might be using inappropriate language that can be disturbing for a person we know or even care about.” He feels that it is the duty of the authority to not only provide justice but also provide a safe space for education and sensitisation of such topics.
Vighnesh Shenoy is a second year engineering student at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus. According to him, the term sexual harassment includes the uncomfortable staring/leering or any of the unsolicited means of advances without the other party’s consent. On being asked specifically about the working of sexism in colleges, he points out certain situations wherein the gender bias stares right in the face of the student crowd, for example, the influence of a person’s gender on department selections and the student body elections. Although he blames this on the highly skewed gender ratio of engineering colleges, he does feel that there is an inherent stereotypical perspective that everyone has about the other gender which strongly makes their decisions strongly biased.
Harikrishnan R Unnithan is a student at BITS Pilani, Goa campus and is currently working on a thesis. On being asked about his definition of the boundaries that must be encompassed under sexual harassment, he feels that although the Wikipedia definition grasps the true meaning quite accurately, the word ‘bullying’ in the actual statement is sometimes blown out of proportion. As an example, he compares the misuse of this word as in the trivial situation of a misguided person looking at a girl. He further adds that there are a lot of issues in today’s world, both in campuses and outside, which continue to devalue the seriousness behind real sexual harassment.
From the above interactions, it seems clear, to an extent at least, that the young minds of the country do ponder on issues that affect the society as a whole. With the recent case of JNU’s Atul Johri’s bail against allegations of sexual harassment, it is us, the youth of India, that must pave a way for future guidelines and rules.
The interviews provide sharp signs that although the basic premise of the problem seems clear to most, the intricacies and the details of certain aspects must be worked upon. That can only be achieved through a process of discussion and education. It is only through talking and facilities like sex education in schools that we can aim to prepare the next generation and hand them the tools to draw appropriate lines and respect them at all times.
Other than this, knowing how the common crowd perceives problems like sexual harassment helps the lawmakers to take reasonable steps. For example, labeling cases of oppression and the like as non-bailable offenses and total suspension of the suspect from the concerned position of authority. Although a long-term consensus is difficult to achieve just yet, we must take a step at a time and come up with a basic premise for the problem so that we can aim to solve it in a better and concise way.