Dear Newslaundry Team,
I was really impressed with the coherence and clarity in the discussion with Swati and Sayani. All three came ready to listen to each other, and both agree and disagree. Abhinandan stated that Al Franken resigned due to allegations by Tweeden, in fact, he resigned after multiple allegations of misconduct (not assault) surfaced. I agree that all misconduct or assault is not equivalent, nor are they being treated that way by law, at least.
Please, try not to frame these debates as a “men vs women”/ “us vs them”. If young men are confused on when to draw the line in dealing with women, young women are not given agency and shamed when they are unable to express what they are comfortable with. If all were given equal rights and responsibilities, we wouldn’t need to take sides.
What are your thoughts on the BJP’s proposal to create the digital profile of citizens?
Here’s an endorsement to fund independent media. It’s from the book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder.
Manjari
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Hi NL Team,
I am glad you took help from subscribers to develop a deeper understanding of gender at the workplace and at NL — it had been superficial indeed.
Here are a couple of points, only to highlight not all of us think the same like it was implied:
The conversation related to the Farooqui judgement was limited because only one had read it. Reasonable doubt is right there and I applaud the court (the Nirbhaya reference is especially ludicrous in the matter). I urge Swati and Sayani to read it.
And not being able to have a clear table of number of gropes and corresponding penalty is making light of those in the profession of pronouncing judgements after a lifetime spent understanding what the law states, intents, means and lacks, and is expecting the law to help us define our relationships, not just negotiate our conflicts. I have done a role, a very long time ago, in an organisation that allowed me a direct view into sexual harassment cases, among other matters of human frailty, and having worked closely with the legal teams, such matters are complex but not difficult; and that was just a tiny element of what our courts go through.
The conversation in the workplace, while indispensable, is disproportionately all around us when the real difference in future generations can be made more at home, by the people who one grows up with. Hoping for fear of action by the assaulted (re-discovering their rights as a human being) is uni-dimensional for change and punitive by intent.
Sex is nuanced. We as women need to explore sex as a topic and experience beyond compliance issues; conversation and lens being applied only of reproductive benefits/patriarchal rights or consent is indeed a tad hysterical (a deliberate use of the word, now that we know its etymology.
Sonali Singh
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