"What could possibly happen?" Priya Ramani encouraged everyone to speak up against injustice and brace for the consequences at the Bangalore International Centre last year. Yesterday, after more than a year, she was acquitted in a case of defamation filed by MJ Akbar, the former Union minister she accused of sexual harassment.
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00:00Young women you can't mess with is my new favorite category of Indians
00:05They're ready to face the consequences of speaking up. Many know they're fighting for their lives and
00:11the lives of their families
00:16Is there anything more powerful than a woman who has braced herself and is ready to withstand the impact of her words and actions
00:24I don't think so
00:27In Time magazine a writer wrote in 2017 that women's anger delivers deliberate messages
00:34Men's anger tries to shut down the voices of others
00:38Today's angriest women galvanize
00:41Today's angriest men murder
00:43the author said I
00:49Think they could have been easily talking about anger in modern India. I
00:54Highly recommend speaking up. I believe we don't speak up enough
00:59Despite me to despite all the conversations and stories. We've heard these we've been having and the stories
01:05We've heard these past few years across the world
01:08There is still so much women haven't shared even with each other
01:13There are so many stories and so much anger we still keep hidden
01:18so when you look at the huge numbers around the me to conversations on social media a
01:23Recent report by UN women, for example
01:26Calculated that there had been 36 million tweets across
01:30195 countries using 25 hashtag variants of me too
01:35When you look at these huge numbers, you must understand that these numbers don't indicate that women are exaggerating what they've experienced
01:43In fact, we are understating
01:46the power of the me to movement may have been in the strength of its numbers and
01:50Yet those numbers just scratched the surface of the horrors of sexual harassment and sexual violence
01:59Me too is our latest response to rape culture
02:02Think about that the next time it's so much as crosses your mind that it's a plot against men by vindictive women
02:10The movement has raised pertinent questions about how we should handle sexual misconduct
02:15It puts pressure on courts and workplaces to implement laws that already exist
02:21Sure, we have a long way to go
02:24But
02:26This free pass to treat women as non-sentient beings
02:30Starts when we bring up our daughters on the blame-shame diet
02:33And when we keep telling them we keep repeating that mantra of less than you're less than this you're less than that
02:40But India is an unsafe place for all children. Not just little girls
02:45We make it worse each time we tell our sons that the world and everything in it women included
02:51Belong to them to use as they please
02:54Men are tough. They don't cry men don't discuss their problems. They don't share their feelings men
02:59Don't keep quiet when people insult them
03:02Men take all the big financial decisions in the house. A woman must look after the kitchen and the children
03:09Sometimes women need to be beaten a woman should be ready to have sex whenever her husband demands
03:14No, a man doesn't need to bear a condom with his wife, please
03:18There's a world of women out there and they are all potential sexual conquests
03:23it's challenging to teach boys and girls about consent in a country that doesn't even criminalize marital rape and
03:30One in which half our children experience some form of childhood abuse
03:34Here's another way to think of me too
03:36All the stories you heard and the ones you didn't hear
03:40About sexual harassment at the workplace are one big reason why so many women opt out of the workplace. It's not safe
03:48Rampant sexual harassment is
03:51Everywhere from the fancy IT companies to the city's garment factories, which are powered by women workers
03:58Of course many women don't have the option of opting out
04:03One study released today by the network of women in media in India
04:08Found that a third of all journalists report having experienced sexual harassment at workplaces
04:14More than half or 53 percent did not report it to anyone. No country can be a superpower if half its workforce feels
04:23unsafe at work as
04:25Has been said many times before women's rights are human rights
04:29When I began working there were no rules against sexual harassment in the workplace
04:33We didn't even have the language to describe sexual harassment
04:37We were fighting other battles
04:39The right to be on the table
04:42The right to choose who we marry and we were certainly not encouraged to speak out
04:47We shared our stories with each other often as a way to warn each other
04:52It was only in 1997 that we got the Vishaka guidelines and then in
04:582013 after Jyothi Singh's gang rape the sexual harassment law
05:04Our normality is built on histories of inequality and injustice that we are reluctant to disturb or even scrutinize too closely
05:11Which is why so many of us when forced to see find it easier to disbelieve or dismiss everyday violence
05:20Don't do that
05:21Instead when someone screws up the courage to say me to
05:24Feed off that courage to question that which you have learned to see as normal
05:28If you're not speaking up at least be there for those who are I haven't spoken properly to my parents in a year
05:37Every time we speak my mother asked me worriedly
05:40Daughter, are you sure you okay?
05:43She uses a bad news voice the one she reserves
05:46To tell me someone died
05:48Of course I'm okay, I reply somewhat irritatedly
05:53sometimes cheerily
05:54But the honest answer is I have no idea if I'm okay. I don't spend any time thinking about the question
06:00I haven't really checked what's going on within me. I'm not using this period for self-reflection
06:06Everyone should speak up. Let's not make it something special something that's praiseworthy
06:11I know our nature and culture don't encourage us to speak up
06:15Our school system and family value families value obedience above everything
06:21Early in life. We are taught the virtue of falling in line
06:25Although somehow we still don't know how to form a line
06:28But now more than ever we need to put aside this reluctance to speak if we do not speak up against violence
06:35Injustice fake news hate we will lose this version of India in our lifetime and our children will never know what this country was like
06:44Stop worrying about the consequences of what will happen even before you speak up
06:49Speak freely and responsibly
06:52What could possibly happen?
06:54Do you think we'll be charged with sedition if you sign your name on a letter that condemns mob lynching?
06:59Or if you stage a school play against the CAA
07:03Or that you lose your job as an editor if you try to track hate crimes
07:08Do you think you'll have to face tax terrorism?
07:11Or
07:12Raids or be detained just for speaking up or because you're just in the opposition
07:17Do you think some industrialists will file a defamation case against you for reporting on a defense deal?
07:23Do you think they'll question your motives for speaking up and your timing for speaking up?
07:28Do you think they will analyze the words you used when you spoke up? Do you think they'll slut shame you for speaking up?
07:35Do you think you'll get rape threats on Twitter?
07:37Do you think you will anger your customers if you make an innocuous statement such as who doesn't have a religion?
07:45Of course all the things I said have happened to people and this is precisely why more of us need to speak up
07:51Don't let the bullies and haters take over public discourse
07:54Don't relinquish the same spaces in this new sharply divided India. There's so much to speak up about
08:07You