Feminism, sexual violence and the times of #MeToo in India

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article begins with the aftermath of the Delhi gangrape in 2012, which shook India and the wider world. It examines what new insights emerged as sexual violence and harassment became a touchstone for naming what ails women in India, in public life and for feminist politics. The essay goes on to point out how the special focus on violence has obscured the contexts structuring and constraining young women students’ aspirations, namely the peculiar twin developments of near parity in access to higher education coupled with one of the lowest female work participation rates in the world. The arrival of #MeToo in India from 1917, first in academia and then in several workplaces, brings in a further twist. Through the controversial staging of anonymous lists and collective testimonies through social media, the experience of #MeToo in India has revealed the ongoing force of a politics of naming acts of sexual harassment in a hostile climate where “job loss growth” is only going to increase most women’s exclusion from employment and their greater dependency on men. I liken this contradiction to a new form of “hermeneutic injustice,” which calls for vigilance and understanding as protests change their face yet again.