Will a hashtag make a difference?

CHENNAI: During the late hours of October 15, two very simple unassuming words became part of a powerful worldwide freedom movement of a whole different kind — ‘Me Too’. In the next couple of hours, social media was on fire, and scrolling down the feed, it took only a few panic-stricken minutes to understand what was going on.

Almost every woman on my friends list had written about a distressing experience of some form of sexual harassment — felt up in a bus, molested by an uncle, flashed by an autowala, the ‘accidental’ touch by a boss or colleague — the list went on, relentless and unforgiving. I cringed terribly, and I wasn’t alone — everyone present on social media, shockingly, realised just how pervasive sexual harassment is, and the full spectrum of degrees in which it existed.

Though the #Metoo movement began more than a decade ago by Tarana Burke, a black woman in the US, it took the world by storm when Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano hashtagged it on Twitter to express her outrage on the Harvey Weinstein issue. For many, this movement served as a show of solidarity. “This is a way to unpack trauma, it has helped me come to terms with my own past,” says Namithaa Jayasankar, activist and social worker. “This movement has broken the stereotypes with respect to sexual assault,” she adds.

As the movement gained in momentum, men and members of the LGBTQI+ community too came out with their experiences of abuse and violence. “Those who do not conform to society’s norms of ‘appropriate’ gender presentation and behaviour are subjected to harassment through much of their lives,” Shankar quotes, from his article Different published on Orinam, a Chennai-based community collective that addresses gender and sexuality rights. Sexually abused as a child, Shankar says both known and unknown persons have victimised him. “No matter who we are, we fall victim to such harassment. That’s what this campaign has achieved in establishing,” he asserts.

Malini Jeevarathnam, filmmaker and queer activist, concurs. She adds, “Abuse is not just physical, but verbal too, especially for the LGBT community at large. The sheer volume of posts shared by women, men and the queer on my timeline was staggering, and included  persons of diverse sexualities.”
“While campaigns such as #MeToo draw attention to its magnitude, preventing it requires attacking its very roots: patriarchal norms that normalise violence as a tool of power and control,” says  L Ramakrishnan, a public health professional.

How will an online campaign change anything in the real world? “If not a drastic effect, it will create a ripple to the already ongoing feminist movements,” asserts Balasubramaniam, admin member of Nirmukta.com. The movement has also succeeded in bringing out the realisation that even the smallest acts that are brushed off as ‘boys will be boys’ are in fact malicious and come under harassment.

Namithaa concurs, “There is a need to unlearn the toxic masculinity that is so deep-rooted in our culture. Saying ‘I will not stand by and watch it’ sound really poetic but real-time steps need to be taken. Will you call out your best friend for having or cat-called a woman?” she asks.

Like all things on social media, the rapidity with which the movement began has now gradually fizzled out, but we hope the lessons learnt from it are indelible. The perpetrators or victims of sex abuse can never be identified by looking through the lens of gender, because sex abuse never was, is or will be based on gender. It can happen to anyone, and the trauma is the same for all. A hashtag may not stop it all, but it has given several victims solace through solidarity; and the rest, the realisation that it is not enough to not be part of the problem, but necessary to be part of the solution.