Everything is gendered and a person from your close quarters touching you inappropriately is normalised, pointed out Radhika Ganesh, emphasising the need for a discourse on two aspects — abuse and harassment. She said, “There have been cases of men harassing men and even women harassing men. That makes it necessary to  look at these in a bigger perspective and not as individual instances.” From the time she has taken up the issue of abuse and harassment, there has been a caustic opposition to it. 

“When we discussed abuse in the music fraternity, or when we took up an instance in the Dravidian party, we were accused of being sponsored by the opposition or outsiders,” said the cultural, social and political activist, who founded the organisation in 2015. She also observed that when one looks around, everyone is abused or harassed. The panel chosen for the hearing has representations from all walks of life — dalits, religious minority, differently abled and transgenders. “The fields are also diverse, including literature, media and education. The idea is to keep it well represented and find a positive constructive way to look forward,” she added. Radhika also believes that the discussion should come from the margins to the mainstream. 

“The effort is to bring rural women and give them a platform to voice their stories and take the movement to a larger audience,” she said. The initiative has found support from singers like TM Krishna and dancer Swarnamalya Ganesh. “Swarnamalya is working on a nine-point agenda that will be presented to the Ministry of Culture,” she added. Alongside the hearing on Sunday, a booklet ‘Towards Safer Equal Spaces — A Guide to Identifying and Dealing with Sexual Harassment and Abuse’ was launched.  The booklet in Tamil and English answers critical questions. 

“No one seems to know what is harassment and that consent has to be explicit,” she said. The idea is to also help survivors’ access legal recourse.  A website also will be launched in the next 10 days, addressing the issue.