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Before we move on with this episode of the scene in the unseen do check out another awesome podcast from IVM podcast
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Cyrus says hosted by my old buddy Cyrus Brocha
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How should we treat other people how should we behave in society when I first started thinking about the seriously
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I was drawn to the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative never treat another person as a means to an end
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But as an end in themselves that is
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Respect every individual's autonomy and agency don't think what use they can be to you now
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This is obviously easier said than done and might even be impossible
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There's a natural limit to how many people we can regard as worthy of a moral consideration and our relationship with everyone else is transactional
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We try to get as much out of them as we can as if we are at a subsea Monday and driving the hardest bargain
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Maybe we are driven purely by biological instincts and all our so-called civilized behavior
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It's just a performative veneer even if that is so I would say that in this case
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Performative is a good thing if all of us even pretended to respect other people and not treat them as a means to an end
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The world would be a better kind of place, but we couldn't be further away from this
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One of the things that the me too movement makes clear is that men always treated women as a means to an end
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this includes women who are strangers women at our workplace women who are friends even women and our families and I'm not just talking about the
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Obvious illustrations of this of using women for sex or as live-in housemates in a million insidious ways
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Women are treated as second-class citizens
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diminished in countless ways
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Constantly shown their place and this is so normalized that we take it for granted and we don't even question our behavior
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That's why for me me too is so important. It puts his behavior in the spotlight
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Not just obvious crimes like sexual assault but casual everyday sexism that is reflexive to all men
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Including me. This is the most important cultural moment of our lifetimes
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And I believe that despite all the turmoil now in fact because of all the turmoil it will make the world a better place
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Welcome to the scene and the unseen our weekly podcast on economics politics and behavioral science
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Welcome to the scene and the unseen my guest for today's episodes are two remarkable journalists
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Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena despite my brief rant in the intro
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I promise I'll spend most of this episode shutting up and just listening to them as I think most men should do to briefly
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Introduce my guests, Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena
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I'll spend most of this episode shutting up and just listening to them as I think most men should do to briefly introduce my guests
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Supriya Nair is a journalist I've known for a while
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Welcome to the show Supriya. Hi. Thank you for having me Amit
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Nikita Saxena works at the independent magazine The Caravan and a couple of years ago wrote a brilliant long read report for them about RK Pachauri
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Welcome to the show Nikita. Thank you for having me Nikita
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I want to start this episode by talking about that report of yours
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But before we begin, let's take a quick commercial break
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Welcome back to the scene in the on scene. I'm Veshupriya Nair and Nikita Saxena
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Nikita I loved your report in Pachauri when it first came out and when I was reading
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Reading it again today morning
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It struck me that much of what you describe in that story is universally true of our culture
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The work environment where sexism is normalized the persistent patterns of psychological and emotional manipulation as you put it
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The gaslighting of the victims where they are made to feel as if there is something wrong with them
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And they are overreacting the act of victimhood by the accused when they are confronted with their actions a use and misuse of power
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Which proves a dictum that power always corrupts
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What was it like reporting on the story for you as all these layers reveal themselves?
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So the story initially had sort of taken form at the time
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That the case that one of the survivors had filed in
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Sort of started getting attention and Raghav Modi who was the journalist from Economic Times who broke the story had doggedly been following it
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And the idea initially was just to see in a short report
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What this journey for someone who tried to take recourse through due process looked like?
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I think by day two we had a sense that we were actually looking at a way larger story and
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Think you really do not anticipate the kind of challenges
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You're going to be facing on reporting a story that has such direct repercussions for you
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Because as a woman to be reporting on multiple stories of sexual harassment
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Also meant for me that I was revisiting a lot of my professional and personal experiences that I had for the longest time
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Kept buried which was not comfortable at all
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But in a way it also meant that with each interview
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I was privileged with information and insight that I did not have earlier that also helped me navigate this space on my own
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And I'd like to think that I was able to use that insight to report the story
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The other thing was just the sheer repeated like the just the other thing was just the
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The repetitions in patterns to the point that it was almost
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banal, you know and that was what surprised me after a point because I
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Remember sitting when I was just going to start writing
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I sat with all the transcripts of my interviews and I'd done multiple interviews and
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After a while all of it on my desk started looking the same
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Because he was following the same pattern with all of these women. It could have been at different points of time
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They could have been different ways to enter
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The equation but largely when you sort of looked at it from the top, it didn't look very different
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So, you know, one of the things was for example
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The young women that he chose to prey on or women who were coming from situations that would make them
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Perceivably more vulnerable
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So to kind of make use of the insecurities that
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Professional women are anyway coming in with at any office and this is something I think about often that
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It's so happened that this story was of Terry
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But the idea that men who make sexist jokes who are known to make
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What they loosely call passes at women, which is such a civilization of what actually happens
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We all know those people in our offices and we all know men who condone those jokes and we all have been
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Complicit in not supporting women who may have wanted to come out with these complaints earlier
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And I think that's a larger problem. Not just a Terry problem to come back to Pachori. I mean
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You know, so one was that you would see that there were a lot of young women that he decided to
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Act as a mentor to and for me that was personally the most
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Corrupting part of it, right? Because all of these women would enter into their interactions with him believing that
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They're being approached because of their intellect or because of what they bring to the office
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Because of what they bring to the organization and then to be dehumanized at the point that you realize that it is all so that
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With you know, an asexual intent or a gendered intent. I think
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to be to be listening to their recollection of that was the hardest because
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That betrayal of trust or the betrayal of the idea that you were worthy of the attention
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Intellectual and professional of a man who you deeply admired
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Um isn't comparable and that's the part sorry that I think we tend to overlook when we're talking about sexual harassment
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It's not just the physical
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You know, it's not just the physical transgressions. It's also the
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Confidence of a woman trying to reinforce the idea that you are always going to be your gender
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Uh, sorry, supriya. I think you were I had a question
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Can you tell us how many women you spoke to approximately through the course of the story?
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So I spoke to about 50 to 60 people for the story in its entirety and apart from three women including the main complainant
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Who had already put out their versions either through a legal complaint or through open letters. I spoke to six
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women, uh who were survivors and this was
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Over the course of the 30 years that terry had started. So the oldest employee so to speak that I spoke to was someone who worked in terry in the early 90s
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Um, so we're also talking about something that was allowed to continue
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for very long for way longer than it should have and the kind of
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Devastation that this leaves the women with um
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You know, so for example, I remember one woman telling me that she went into another office, uh after she left terry and
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And she remembered immediately noticing that there are a lot of women in that office and that the boss is male
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And she said I was immediately distrustful and as it turned out later, there was no reason for her to feel that way
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That's how the alarms went up because that's what had been conditioned into her after her time at terry
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And so much of it was so textbook, right? So he would
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Um, you know tell the women about how smart they were how far he wanted to see them go
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Uh, then he would start talking to them about his marriage and there would be conversations about how it was failing
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You know how he did he was not comfortable with the kind of equation he had with his wife
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It was a big decision for me to
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Think over whether or not I wanted to put it into the story
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because on some level it does feel unfair to me that almost always we tend to put the spotlight on the women associated with men
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which is not to say that it's not justified but
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Tend to put that spotlight more on the women than the accused themselves
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But it seems so intrinsic to his modus operandi and I remember
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Reading his book this uh terrible book called return to almora
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Uh, which got really famous for its uh, I mean it was talked about a lot because it has a lot of very badly written sex scenes
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But that part is actually the least interesting part of the book
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Um, I think he meant for it to be autobiographical semi-autobiographical in nature
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That's the sense one gets as a reader
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And there are parts of the book in which he's almost describing the modus operandi to you because
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Uh, there's an instance in which the protagonists, you know
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Agnes, you know fleeting love interest who makes an appearance in and out of the book
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Has fallen in love with an older man and there is an entire paragraph that I remember reading in which
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Pachauri has written about how this older man had probably gotten her
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Uh, you know this naive young girl to fall for his advances because he gave her the same tired old story about a broken marriage
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And at this point, I know what he's done with the survivors themselves and I thought it was uh,
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Almost revoltingly self-aware, you know
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And so there was that then he would isolate them and that's again so dangerous because you're basically
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Consciously cutting off channels for these women to reach out to if I don't have colleagues
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I can trust if I'm constantly being told that you know, everyone out here is not looking for your well-being
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You're also making sure that these women are going to ask themselves
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Ten times more whether or not they want to alienate the only supposed ally who also happens to be the boss of this organization
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Who also happens to be the chair of the IPCC that has won a Nobel under him
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Do I really want to cross paths with him and maybe I'm getting this all wrong because you know
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He's been looking out for me this entire time
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And that's when he would move into the territory of
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Using this amplified vulnerability to justify his abhorrent actions
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Either the verbal comments he made or the kind of physical advances. He thought it was kosher to make by this time
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Even if the women are sure and they know what's happening
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You're also aware of the power of this man
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You've kind of seen it through the course of the grooming that he's put you through in some cases
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He would ask to meet their parents
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You know and one woman said that I was sure he did this to give me the sense that if I can't even talk to my parents
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Then you know, where am I going to go?
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And that is a grooming is something that you know
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People who are child abusers do with children so that the children do not feel comfortable to confiding in their parents about their experiences
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And then of course there were the threats there was the there were decisions to take away work
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There was the demeaning of the women's professional abilities
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The objectification of them as women who invited this upon themselves and
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This is again a really interesting defense that I see with especially men in positions of power who decide to sexually harass women
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You made me do this. I can't take control of my feelings because you just you know, you've
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You kind of put the responsibility back on the woman for how she has
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Filled you with passion that you didn't know existed. I mean, it's part of a template
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But uh, you know the women are made to feel like this is a unique case and somehow they are to blame for it because they're
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You were just so beautiful that I didn't know what else root has never happened to me before and now because these women are not
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Speaking to each other because that's the structure you've consciously created
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In most cases, they're not even sure that this is a part of a template or even if they could have some idea
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They don't know if they are going to be able to confirm that suspicion
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And then also comes the part about you know, playing up both what you could bring to their life
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The havoc they are creating supposedly on your life
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And what you could do to them if they do decide to speak out and this is said in insidious ways, right?
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Funniest part for me in a very bizarre way of all of this was that finally after I was done reporting a few days
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Before the story went to press. I did end up meeting. Mr. Pachauri
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And I felt like I was meeting someone I knew already, you know, because I'd just been thinking about him for so long
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And there were things that I knew he did with other women that I saw him doing with me and I was a journalist
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He knew that he was talking to me on the record. I had a recorder switched on in his presence
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And I remember that the minute I sat down, uh, and there was a photographer who was with me
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He said before we start the interview, can I just can I ask you something?
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And I just thought that was fantastic because how can you be so audacious? You know, I mean and after which
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For example, there were these things he would do. This was also a man who was
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Obsessed with the idea of power very much like a lot of men that we know in these positions and
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One of the projections of that was to talk often about his cricketing prowess as a way to talk about his virility
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Cricketing prowess as a way to talk about his virility or he had this very strange habit of getting back
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From his trips abroad which people in terry would go to collect because that was the kind of cult he had created
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During our interview at some point. He did start talking about his cricketing ability
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He didn't ask you any naughty questions. The naughty question was what Pranoy Roy's reaction to the NDTV story was which I thought was
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Quite boring. I mean it was not naughty at all. You were disappointed. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't disappointed
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I just thought that i'm talking to someone who really lacks in awareness about how they are to conduct themselves considering
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He had a very very public sexual harassment case being filed against him because of which he had lost professional opportunities
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I don't know if it was the lack of self-awareness. It just sounds like a marvelous confidence
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It is it is and I think just the idea that you can get away with this because you've been getting away with it
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A scenario within which you will not I mean think about it someone who's done this for 30 years
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This is behavior. I mean, this is
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This is your nature now
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You don't know how else to be I think and what I found as disturbing in your account as these patterns of behavior
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Is the fact of how other people looked upon them?
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For example, you've quoted someone talking about him and talking about mr. Pachauri and saying oh
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You know and and they'll talk about
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Him affectionately and how he plays the field and he has a roving eye and all that as if all of that is okay
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And it's standard and that's what you expect and kind of and I I imagine at some level like what is disturbing
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Is that these patterns of behavior were probably known to a lot of his colleagues and they didn't find it wrong
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And perhaps therefore he had the confidence to behave like that even when you went to interview him because he didn't find it problematic either
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I wonder if that's true of the reactions of a lot of men who are watching what is happening
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in these days and weeks
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And who sense that something big is going on but aren't quite able to understand why?
#
I think even more than the hashtag me too why women are saying times up. I don't think anybody gets that there's a ticking clock
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um and amit maybe you know something about this because uh, you occupy spaces that
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Nikita and I by virtue of our gender don't necessarily do
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Um, and I I really want to ask you and Nikita. I want to talk about what what men are thinking at this time
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I think many men are shaken up, but most men are largely in denial
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It's it's almost as if hey women are overreacting. What's the big deal?
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And people will point out again a point that i'll bring up later about that. Hey, there's a spectrum of abuse
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And some people are assaulters
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But a lot of these are bad dates or somebody cracking a bad joke on a date
#
And my point and this is not a view I would have held I think 10 days ago
#
but my point I I think one realization that i'm coming to is that
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This me too movement is not about the sexual assaults or crossing clear lines of consent. Everyone agrees that is wrong
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of sexism in our behavior
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Which are so normalized that we don't even know like the classic example of that would be if you're in a mixed group
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making jokes with sexual innuendos
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Which are perfectly fine and then gaslighting the women if uh, if somebody protests and saying oh, you know
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You're too sensitive and all of that
#
and one thing i've realized and I I I did an
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Episode with the three of the women who work at takshashila a couple of weeks back on the metrics of empowerment
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How can we figure out who women are getting empowered and one revelation that kind of came up there was that
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That every single moment of my life. My maleness doesn't matter to me. I take my gender for granted
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It is not a factor in how I interact with people
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It's the exact other way around for women every single moment of your time as a woman
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Your gender is a factor. You're getting onto a local train. You're getting into a restaurant
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You're talking with a man in a cafe. It is a factor and therefore this makes it
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imperative on men to make sure that they are cognizant of this and therefore that they make that extra
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effort and apply that filter to make sure that women are not
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Uncomfortable in any way in their presence
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Which could be something as simple as making sure that you change the kind of humor that you do in mixed company
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which could be something as
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Sort of simple as say for example, you know as a middle-aged man
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I I grew up in the 80s and the 90s and all of that
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And the norms of how you greet women have changed earlier
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You would just nod or some circles to a namaste then you shook hands
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Now you hug and all of that which I found very awkward to navigate
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So the best solution I think for any man in that case is if you're meeting a woman in a social setting
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Uh, just let her make the first move
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You know, just go with that. Just I mean this sounds very sort of masculine
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But think of it as a game theory problem that I will optimize
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my behavior in such a way that the chance of the woman feeling uncomfortable is
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Minimized and this is something that I don't think men get
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That they behave in ways they think are normal and they don't understand the reactions of women. Why are you laughing?
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I don't think game theory is masculine
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I'm also sorry. I also noticed that even though Amit and I have known each other for years today
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He waited for me to hug him
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Thank you Amit, I appreciate that
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And I also appreciate what you're saying. I realized that
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Change and that it's as difficult for men to navigate as women in many ways
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One of the things I think many of us have realized or under underscored for ourselves in the last few days
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is that women have to bear the brunt of that
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to an unimaginable extent and
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One of the things that frustrates me is that the sort of radical empathy that this
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Confessions and this discourse is generating among women for each other doesn't seem to have reached men
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And I feel like the onus is on on men to
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If you if you can't feel our pain quote unquote
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At least recognize that what your discomfort is and do something productive with it
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Instead of brushing it under the carpet and waiting for all of this to go away
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And that's doubly ironic because in the world that we are in
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It's the unfortunate fact that men make more of a difference to these things and women do
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So it's incumbent on men to speak up which is therefore the dilemma. I also face
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You know, I was asked to write a piece about this for the Hindu which I'll probably write tomorrow
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And the dilemma I face is that men speaking out the danger you're in is you could be virtue signaling
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Which we see a lot of or you could be making it about yourself suddenly which again men tend to do
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But it is about but it is about men
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Yeah, but you know in a different way as if you're showing how compassionate you are and how enlightened you are and
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So on and and that's a danger you face
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But at the same time it's it's the men also have to speak up and I think a few have
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I think one of the conversations that i'd like to hear from men instead of
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you know, for example when
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The entire thing had started and it started with someone from the comedy circuit sort of being
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held accountable for a lot of his
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What I would have liked to really hear is from other comedians exactly how they thought they were complicit
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and I think one of the issues with men when they do decide to speak about this is that
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We don't hear often enough of how they are holding themselves accountable. And even now I feel like I see a lot of women
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Doing this introspection, you know the ways in which we have enabled environments that we feel unsafe in
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And enabled men who we are now recognizing have done many problematic things
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And what is it that we need to change?
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To make this better because really what something like this is asking of all of us is to be better
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People is to be more kind more compassionate more considerate and that kind of goes against everything that we've been
#
You know societally or individually conditioned with and I think that that's incumbent on both men and women but even now
#
Along with the kind of trauma that reliving this kind of abuse brings with it and reading stories of it brings with it
#
I still see more women at least thinking out loud
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About the ways in which they could have contributed and I feel like most of the men I am hearing from
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Are either completely detached in the way that they're saying that we see that this is happening to you
#
Whereas this is happening to all of us, you know, we're creating safer environments for all of us
#
I really felt the truth of what you tweeted yesterday. Yeah, could you repeat it?
#
I think it was something on the lines of you know, women are going about their daily jobs. They're grappling with anxiety and guilt
#
They're collating these lists. They're responding to legitimate criticisms of what's happening
#
And on top of this, they're all checking in on each other
#
You know, like I think I've spoken to more women in the past four or five days than I had in months
#
And I love it because they're all constantly checking in on whether you've eaten. Have you had enough water?
#
Are you getting enough rest? Are you taking care of yourself?
#
Switch off when you need to and I had a conversation with supriya right after I came to bombay
#
And it was the first time I was actually speaking to someone about what had happened because I'd been traveling for work
#
And I just felt such a great amount of comfort
#
And from men, I just want so much as a you know, how are you doing?
#
I hope you're okay, and I'm not even hurting that much and that for me personally is really frustrating
#
I respect the silence of a lot of men
#
I know who may be thinking about this deeply or who may feel uncomfortable or feel like it's not their place and I get why
#
Men feel like it's not their place to intrude on a conversation that women are having
#
But without pointing fingers
#
I also want to say that there is a certain kind of silence that is a complicity of its own
#
and if it's the silence, that means that you're waiting for something to blow over
#
Or that means that you can't
#
Unsavory behavior or that you can't condemn misconduct
#
Because you're thinking back to something you've done yourself and thinking oh boy now, I really can't say I'm sorry about this because this is how I behave too
#
Then you know there's work to be done over there as well
#
Going back to what Nikita said about women talking more to each other and you know that kind of shared
#
Is this in that sense a watershed moment in the sense that earlier if something happened a woman felt she had no choice
#
But to keep quiet let it pass get over it move on to the next moment
#
But now they feel the solidarity and because other people are speaking up
#
They feel that they can speak up as well and suddenly if the you know, one person accuses man x
#
Nine other people will feel emboldened by that and come out and and is that happening?
#
I think one way I would qualify that is that the number of women
#
Involved in this conversation is still very small and that it's very stratified. Yeah
#
We've we we know that there are women in smaller towns who speak languages that aren't english who aren't upper caste or upper class
#
Have constraints that are unimaginable to those of us who are speaking up or participating
#
Or even just reaching out to each other
#
To the second part of your question. I'm
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Because there's more data out in the environment now. I think we can say that the conversation has broadened
#
I don't know if this is
#
Wholesale different from how women spoke to each other the phrase the whisper network has come up very often in the last few days
#
And that hints at this sort of unstructured
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Unstructured um private way in which women spoke to each other warned each other of
#
Men or institutions that they knew to be problematic
#
What I think has changed though is a new awareness of a pattern
#
And I think an underlining of the fact that none of what happened to us or our friends was okay
#
I can't tell you the number of times. I have seen a story about a prominent man come out on twitter and think
#
My friend told me the same thing about the same man
#
Uh, except that instead of happening to her at a conference and go I'd happen at a party in delhi. So this is a pattern of misbehavior
#
The same story I felt bad for her
#
I filed it away as a black mark against the man in question and I moved on and now I realize that uh
#
that it was far from an isolated incident and the patterns are becoming really clear to me and
#
That I think shows me about the the breadth of the problem
#
In fact before you guys got here my producer swati was telling me about how
#
There haven't been any me too from hindi journalism or language journalism or so on
#
I think there are some regional journalists who are coming out
#
And I think supriya sharma had a fairly interesting sort of insight on this which is
#
That the kind of concerns that uh women in english language media were facing, you know a few decades ago
#
There are a lot of journalists in smaller cities and towns
#
Uh who are still facing those concerns and I think like supriya was pointing out a I think
#
I don't know if this is a watershed moment. I think this was something that has been in the making for many
#
months if not years now, so for example even the idea of
#
Naming predators first came with losha or the list that raya kind of collated and some something that
#
We introduced that list. Yeah, sorry. So there was basically raya sarkar who at that time I think was a law student
#
Had put together a list of men in academia who are known to be predators based on complaints that she was receiving
#
And at that time the list had generated a lot of controversy and that's why I think there is a need to introspect on
#
How we look at this particular moment as being unique because i'm not sure that it's unique
#
I think it's broadened the scope in terms of the conversations that are happening. But even that broadening
#
Should be I mean we should look at that broadening with some amount of skepticism because I think
#
What had happened at that time was not very different from what is happening now in the methodology
#
I mean here also there are women who are either choosing to put out their complaints
#
Or to navigate their complaints through women they trust and there are a number of women on twitter who are
#
Are doing the very hard work of kind of keeping track of complaints and putting them out where the complainants want anonymity
#
Raya was doing that as one person now neither of these
#
Um, as I think make peace was pointing out on twitter neither of these can claim to be perfect
#
But they were uh in themselves movements that tell you about how broken the system is there is statement about that as well
#
And so I feel like raya kind of set that in motion and so for example even the radical sort of empathy
#
That we were discussing
#
Unfortunately at that time we didn't see and so clearly there's also still a lot of work for this very
#
If you would call it a movement or this very space to do in terms of also becoming more inclusive
#
Can I ask something? I've been wondering there are many obvious reasons for why?
#
The list of shame as raya sarkar's list which came out last year was called
#
Got less sympathy and less attention
#
Than the current wave of accusations
#
I've been trying to think of why?
#
One of the reasons as many people have pointed out is that
#
The degree of anonymity
#
Of the accusers in that case
#
Many of the accusers were not only anonymous but they were also coming from positions of marginality
#
They were juniors in academia, they were students
#
They were women who were entirely dependent on on men and on institutional power
#
For the jobs and the and the work that they were doing
#
Many people have pointed out that because raya sarkar is dalit there's an element of marginality
#
And a lack of sympathy from upper caste women that's kind of hard-coded into how
#
They approached anything she did or said
#
One of the details that i've been focused on is also that
#
However, is also the fact that the
#
Accused in this round of
#
Allegations are just higher profile
#
And I think there's a and because they're involved
#
In the media and in the creative industries and because there's a degree of celebrity involved there that you know
#
Partha Chatterjee doesn't have for all his fame
#
This kind of becomes headline news in a way that the list of shame didn't
#
I'm not trying to find excuses for why we're reacting now differently from the way we reacted then
#
I have an observation slash follow-up question today
#
I mean one reason could of course be just the nature of the industries that was academia
#
But one thing that has struck me now is that one of the things that drove the anger then from all of these women
#
Were that due process isn't working
#
That's why we have to do this and one of the things i've noticed about this current thing
#
What has happened over the last week is that we actually see due process
#
Working in some cases. I don't know whether it's as a consequence of that
#
But business standard fired one reporter hindusan times when the political editor stepped down all india bakhchowd has been cancelled by hotstar
#
You know mami pulled films by rajat kapoor from their list
#
And I know of various other organizations which are taking this kind of action fairly seriously and not as
#
But that's actually not necessarily due process right because the I think in fact the response
#
I think in fact the response to these accusations versus the accusations that came earlier is on the institutions
#
There was no reason for institutions to not put in place due process then it was just easier because
#
The debate became fractured in a way that it became easy to delegitimize raya's efforts
#
And I think it's also important to remember that at that point this was one woman
#
Who was also being blamed for all sorts of bizarre things like
#
Creating a void within feminists in india etc. Which I personally found rather strange
#
And laurence liang for example there was actually due process that got put in and that's the one name I remember
#
I think there were at least
#
There were multiple men that I remember in some institutions either did take actions
#
Action at sadhan and men in for example is a very good example of someone who was on that list
#
The institute did not take any action and finally a survivor also who had I think contributed to the list
#
Decided to come out and now we know that due process hasn't worked
#
But I don't know if that's on the list itself
#
Or on the institutions and the way in which they chose to react then versus the way in which they're choosing to react now
#
Because even the scale of this is defined by our ready acceptance of this
#
Wave of allegations versus the list then and I think that's as much on us and the institutions
#
More than you know, just the people who are spearheading the efforts
#
And of course, I think there have also
#
I mean we are now like we were discussing in day six and you know, there's also been
#
For some reason because of the kind of momentum that has been driven by for example institutions taking action or the fact that these are journalists
#
We've read of or heard about and also tanushi datta
#
I think who kind of also set things in motion by talking about her experiences with nana partikar
#
It has continued for longer. I'm just not sure if it's the nature of
#
The original efforts themselves or also some of our own prejudices that caused one effort to
#
You know really catch momentum while another just sort of got sidelined by all the criticism that was lobbed at it
#
I think it's absolutely clear that the failure of due process was what?
#
Instigated the list of shame in the first place and I think most universities with some exceptions behaved shamefully
#
uh in light of those accusations
#
refusing to treat them as forget about delegitimizing them they uh,
#
You know, they ignored them. They called them ill-informed and vague. I'm quoting exactly from what acgs said
#
In the case of sadhan menon who was a junk faculty over there at the time?
#
And who not only got the support of his institute, but also of a lot of other influential women including feminists who put out a letter
#
Uh saying that uh, oh, you know, we should be more responsible about these sort of accusations
#
There is an infrastructure of responsibility, but it is but it was entirely on the institutions
#
Who abdicated their role in that responsibility and forced?
#
To lash out if you like in the way, they did uh raya and I think her, you know
#
people who supported her said very clearly that
#
Look, whatever happens. I mean they were like look we're tired and
#
You should know that if if you're entering the halls of academia that if this guy is like has you on his radar
#
And I you know, I I respect that I I recognize of course that there's potential for abuse and so did everybody involved
#
but uh the me too movement
#
From the very beginning I think over the last year ever since the Weinstein story came out
#
Has been anarchy in nature and we've had to take it and roll with it and for all those who were worried about
#
false accusations, particularly
#
as far as academia were concerned
#
And I have to say this for those who were worried about false accusations against male academics
#
Like this was your chance to make due process work if you were worried that the women had violated some kind of boundary
#
Why didn't you let your institutional mechanisms do the work of clearing the names of the men you were concerned about very few people did that
#
And I mean look as a result what we have now is men like sadhan and men and named on a second list
#
now with multiple accusations
#
Of misconduct against him and you know, i'm i'm not sure I I feel like our focus should be on the abusers
#
but I also want to ask the women who
#
Publicly backed him to think about what they did and uh, and and how they hampered
#
Sorry, I just realized that we misgendered raya because the
#
Their preferred pronouns are there in them. Oh, sorry. So apologies for that on behalf of all of us
#
I'm really sorry. I didn't know that right. We'll take a quick commercial break and then we'll come back and talk about anonymity
#
Hey everybody's another great week on ivm podcast
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This week on cyrus if cyrus is joined by ad man and author ambi
#
Parmeshwaran ambi talks about what he learned from the prominent people he has met and also how things will change in the
#
Advertising world in the light of the me too movement
#
On croc tales listen to two standalone stories by anand based on the concept of love lust and relationships
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On the prakriti podcast pavan and hamsi talked to the co-founder and editor in chief of the news minute danya rajendran about online journalism
#
And building a digital news platform on the kinetic living or me spoke to nicky gupta the owner of the italian bistro
#
Mia cucina nicky shares her experience of training for the mount everest base camp and how it changed her perception towards fitness
#
This week anugara shrivastava from small case talks to anupam about all-weather investing and why it's important to investors
#
And with that let's continue on with the shows
#
Welcome back to the scene in the unseen my guests today are supriya nair and nikita saksena
#
One of the issues that you brought up yourself with regard to the last list by raya sarkar was that more of those complaints were anonymous
#
And that's an objection that people have been raising even now that uh, you know
#
What do you do about anonymous complaints anybody can make up anything and put it out there
#
I know that both that list and this current wave of allegations seems chaotic, but
#
Actually, if you think about it, it's
#
There is a structure to it in the last list raya tremendous risk to themselves
#
Became the conduit and the curator of these accusations
#
So because they were assuring you that they knew the identity of the accuser they were in some sense doing what?
#
Uh, we do in formal institutional settings as well
#
Which is to protect the identity of an accuser in a complaint involving rape or sexual harassment
#
women on twitter who through whom
#
Um these complaints are being aired anonymously in when they are anonymous
#
And I think the discourse has pretty quickly picked up
#
um and sensitized itself to
#
Good faith in all of these cases
#
They've there are reasons for them to trust the women who are putting out these anonymous accounts
#
while we're still evolving our sense of
#
Of objectivity in these cases. It's not entirely absent. In fact, it's almost happened in real time in the sense that
#
uh, you know, we've seen some of the fake allegations happening, but also
#
Uh, the ecosystem has evolved just within the last six days and I also know that okay
#
If I see like ritu purno's account at masala bhai or sandhya menon's I know I can trust them that they're verifying this themselves
#
So even if they put out something which is anonymous
#
They have in some way given a credibility and verified it
#
So, you know you can kind of trust those accounts
#
I mean which I think was very much the case with raya's list as well because there
#
They were also doing very much the same work that I imagine people who are putting out
#
Complaints on twitter right now are and I also sorry
#
I think the the one thing that this round of allegations has that the list of shame didn't though is
#
the abundance of screenshots
#
So the sense that you have something that's not just a name on an excel sheet, but also a story
#
Um that you can see that someone has dm'd this person
#
That offers you details that offers you texture. I feel like psychologically that's made a difference to readers
#
So, but does it worry you that people could jump on this bandwagon like over the weekend?
#
For example starting sunday night. We you had a flurry of
#
Clearly fake accounts by clear sock puppet handles which were run by somebody's it cell
#
I'll put which were easily rebutted but nevertheless there is a worry that then people jump on the bandwagon use a me
#
To hashtag make up anything they want. How do you how do you deal with that?
#
The element of fake news evolves in this case
#
What you've described right now because it's so clearly easily rebutted
#
Just pulling up a couple of sock puppet accounts and deciding to point fingers at someone because you don't like them
#
Isn't necessarily going to work
#
But i'm interested to think about what the future might hold though and how how as this conversation evolves
#
uh the sophistication of threats against
#
People against whom someone might have an agenda also evolves also
#
I feel like we've kind of been through these concerns again
#
And just to go back to the list also, is it the list of sexual harassers in academia or list of shame?
#
Oh, sorry. I know just the list of shame
#
What's the distinction? I mean, it's the same acronym. Yeah, I just i'm wondering what the full form is
#
It's called yeah, it's called hashtag low sharp
#
When people talk about it amongst themselves, so but I thought even with the list for example
#
A lot of people at that time for various reasons
#
Uh known to them were saying that oh, we don't know if these complaints are actually legitimate because they're anonymized
#
And at that time I remember that
#
I knew some people who were far more
#
well versed with the world of academia than I was and
#
You'd come back and you'd say oh, okay
#
This person is on the list too and they'd say of course we've heard stories about them
#
And even in this round like supriya was pointing out I feel like at least up until now, of course
#
it's shocking the spectrum of men who seem to have
#
I haven't seen anything that would worry me in terms of being
#
If it were a fake allegation
#
that to me has matched up to you know, the hype threads that we hear about destruction of reputations or
#
Um, I mean, I think we should prepare for efforts like that
#
I'm just not sure what those efforts would look like and uh, but maybe there's someone sitting somewhere in
#
frantically thinking up ways to get me to believe allegations against uh against a person I would otherwise rather trust
#
Um, but it seems like a bit of a long shot at this point
#
And a friend of mine whom I won't name because I haven't taken her permission obviously
#
But she's an editor in a major newspaper
#
Uh told me recently that when the lo-sha list came out
#
Uh, she was against it because she was worried about due process and presumption of innocence and all of those factors
#
But now she is saying she's chained to mind now
#
She's saying let there be collateral damage this needs to happen and I kind of agree with her
#
But what do what do you guys feel about that? What is the factor of collateral damage here?
#
Which is of course is something that men will stress on. Yeah an overstate in my opinion
#
Remain with or without collateral damage because they're essentially moral
#
So if you do worry about for example the presumption of innocence and you believe that the same principle that applies in a courtroom should apply
#
In how we relate to each other in public life?
#
Uh, then that problem doesn't necessarily go away and I don't think these allegations or the previous ones
#
but if you look at this as an opportunity to think about drawing distinctions between how
#
Institutions can and should process complaints
#
The reforms that we want to make
#
in culture and society simply by airing out these problems acknowledging that they're problems, uh, and
#
You know and discomforting some individuals in the process then you should see these as a good thing
#
I agree that it seems unfair
#
and i'm thinking right now particularly of a friend of mine who uh was not accused of abuse but who
#
Admitted to complicity in covering up an episode of abuse and has taken the hit for it professionally
#
while I have some sympathy for the fact that
#
This one man has suffered for doing something that many men have done
#
um, I also recognize that that's
#
That's where change begins
#
um and because of one person
#
Taking the hit as I said, um if it allows more people to introspect about uh
#
about their own behavior and and to not make the same mistakes then
#
Then i'm prepared for that, you know, I mean women have been taking taking hits for for a very long time
#
Sorry just to jump in but that last part to me is also something that i'm very curious about because one of the things that i've
#
noticed tends to happen with the discourse is that we are still centering the men
#
you know, uh the men who are
#
Going to be affected by the allegations made against them. What kind of apologies they're putting out
#
And I wonder what it would look like to center what the women have lost because
#
I fear that the scale of that is so large that it's difficult to talk about
#
Yeah, what would reparations look like for example, which is something I think that rega also pointed out
#
But it's something that I am deeply interested in because I do think that what happens is that in these cases
#
I mean you're talking about such a large volume of women
#
Who have been affected professionally personally mentally emotionally physically that we can't
#
It's difficult for us to fathom what it would look like to start talking about what we do for those women
#
I mean, what does justice or what does some form of justice look like when you've suffered that much and
#
One of the interesting aspects what we were beginning to talk about was men and what happens with collateral damage
#
Uh for men, which I think i'm kind of on board with what supriya is saying
#
But for me, I wonder when we can reach a point where we can start talking about what happens to the women who've come out and spoken
#
They I mean how how do we make up for all the lost time?
#
Because when people talk about the careers of these accused people getting ruined, but what about the women like
#
You know vintananda for example whose career ended 19 years ago
#
And you know, and how can you then show I mean one of the interesting things about this me too movement
#
And maybe i'm being too optimistic about this, but where I think it will work and where I think it will not work
#
Why are you laughing? It's just
#
Hard-coded cynics of women
#
Yeah, I'll tell you what i'm cynical about i'm i'm i'm i'm cynical that is necessarily going to get women justice for what has happened in the past
#
Or that all all of the people who have been predators or who have been complicit will be brought brought to account
#
What I am optimistic about is that it will change the culture in the future in in just something as simple
#
As even if men don't change the way they feel internally it changes the incentives for their behavior
#
So now the next time you are
#
You know on a date pushing past someone after they say no for the first time
#
Or the next time you're cracking an inappropriate joke or putting your hand on someone's thigh
#
You're going to think twice earlier. You could get away with impunity because you were you know, you were just being friendly
#
It's chilled out. Oh rangili mizaj ke as
#
Nikita quoted in pachari's
#
Instance and I really do think that's going to change
#
I think men have to think twice even if they're thinking twice for the wrong reasons. Hey, what if I get exposed?
#
Even if they're doing it for the wrong reasons, some of that behavior will surely change don't you think so?
#
I also think that the behavior of women will change because
#
When someone puts their hand on your thigh
#
Instead of normalizing it and keeping your keeping how shaken you feel or how bad you feel about it to yourself
#
You hopefully you'll now think
#
But he's not allowed to do that and react and react quicker
#
And hopefully some of the stories that have taken 20 years to come out won't take 20 years to come out after this
#
Uh, I i'm well, i'm a pessimist of the intellect in this case, but an optimist of the will to quote graham. She
#
That nikita's excellent story, I think
#
That is the truth about this culture is that that hashtag times up
#
Isn't so much a warning to men as I think it is
#
A call to women and it's not a call to say that an era has ended but that our work has just begun
#
And the fight is going to be endless
#
You only have to read the pachori story to realize just why
#
Hopefully this means more women realize that they have fellow combatants and they're not alone
#
My buddy would just be that are we also going to see more people come out of this?
#
behavior that they witness because I think the role of a witness in these cases and it doesn't necessarily have to be
#
An act of physical transgression that you view but like we were talking about the culture of an office. For example
#
We haven't even gotten into conversations about gender discrimination
#
With journalism, for example the different kinds of stories and this I would like to see
#
Is less true today than it was say 10 years ago, but it is still very much a part of the truth
#
which is the kind of beats that one tends to assign women to or
#
The kind of very masculine understanding we have of being on the field
#
We haven't even begun to get into those conversations
#
But even before that if we are to talk about a culture that's changing
#
And we have to talk about women who feel more empowered to articulate the kind of discomfort. We know we've been having for years
#
I'm also hoping it means that we're able to help others articulate that discomfort as well because I think a large part of this
#
Silence is that we're told silence is status quo. So doing something other than status quo feels strange
#
So for example if pachori was picking women up on the street
#
That was something that everyone could see and if no one spoke up then I would think
#
That real change would begin when they start recognizing that as problematic or for example, if there was a man
#
Who I knew was very supportive of the complainant, but then started complaining to me about how he could not understand
#
The women not speaking up about pachori because and I remember this verbatim that
#
Men have families to look after so I get that they're worried about their jobs, but these women they're just doing the job to buy makeup
#
And the thought was quite violent from someone who was actually supporting a survivor of sexual harassment
#
And I hope that along with behavior the idea that this is a problem for women to deal with also changes because
#
It's a problem for all of us to deal with
#
And it cannot be the onus of just uh, you know the people or from across wages sections
#
Uh who are oppressed trying to make it better because I don't think the work will get done then
#
Yeah, I think it's significant that in many of the industries where names have been named so far
#
That are kind of open in front of the people who are trying to make it better
#
Uh, there's a sense that that a kind of open informality a liberal workplace culture
#
Makes a place more humane. It makes it more personal. It allows for creative freedom of some sort
#
When in fact all of these are encoded in patterns of domination that are very very harmful to the people being dominated most often women
#
That sexual harassment is actually a tool of that inequality that it's normalized to such a degree that as much as
#
paying women less or keeping them from promotions
#
Just the simple act of humiliating them in a million different ways
#
You know allows you to well exploit their labor or exploit them as laborers
#
If people are saying that oh this is going to end all kinds of
#
Human and personal interaction and it's not going to be the same and you know, feminism is going to like segregate us by gender again
#
Uh, or even do the things you mentioned which is to think twice about the kind of jokes that you're cracking in mixed company
#
Which people will say oh that sounds so edwardian we used to do that like a hundred years ago
#
You want to send us back to the past?
#
Well, no, not necessarily but the way to think about it is that if
#
This ushers in a new era of more formal
#
Then our worry should not be that those formalities will constrain us. We should be happy that
#
Stamp out a kind of inequality that we have refused to acknowledge all this while
#
And that they in turn will lead to new kinds of equality which leads to new kinds of freedom
#
I'd say that liberators not constrain us and also men also diminish themselves, you know by being complicit in this
#
And and you know and I'd urge all my listeners to just pick up their phone and look at whatever family
#
WhatsApp groups they have and look at the last 20 memes or jokes that have been sent there
#
And tell me how many of them you feel you should object to but actually don't because hey, you know
#
Why stir up the waters? And I mean once you get into
#
family systems, you're just talking a different kind of
#
Uh, I think you know scale of harassment altogether
#
Because I was talking about this with one or two women journalists who has also been following what's happening online
#
And we were just talking about how all of us know or have experienced some discomfort at the hands of a male relative
#
you know child abuse which kind of usually
#
We don't talk about especially if it comes out from extended family members, which is shockingly common
#
Yes, and to sorry to come back to the parallels with the pachori story
#
But I remember one of the things that I did forget to mention is
#
The other reason he made it so difficult for women to talk was because this idea that terry is a family
#
Your workplace cannot be your family. It should not be
#
Compared to a family unit and if someone does that that's really problematic
#
Because a family has a patriarch and workplaces don't need patriarchs when you kind of start
#
Internalizing the idea that I cannot air my dirty laundry out in public
#
I cannot bring a bad name to the workplace. I'm with or I will be harming the cause of climate change
#
Which was an idea that a lot of these women were told
#
Uh, even after the complaint came out. I remember a horrible piece in the Guardian wish right to suggest that this was some sort of
#
Uh climate skeptic controversy to bring the great man of climate change down
#
So when you start selling us the idea that you know, we have to operate as a family
#
You're bringing in all the problems of a family unit to the workplace
#
And I find this that this happens with smaller workplaces a lot that solidarity
#
Somehow is supposed to extend itself to secret keeping which is unhealthy for your workplace for your employees
#
And you know just for the kind of culture you're developing there
#
Sorry, I kind of failed off there. No, no, no, that's a that's a fantastic point
#
And if you're a man or woman who's left your family whatsapp group. I congratulate you. Yeah
#
Yeah, i'm kind of addicted to social media. I can't leave anything all whatsapp groups for me are like hotel california
#
It's also FOMO right it totally is what will I miss the next sexist meme
#
Uh, I Nikita also wanted to elaborate on something you mentioned before the show started which is that some fields some professions
#
Are structurally more conducive to uh, this kind of behavior
#
I mean so I can speak for my experience and I
#
I'm recognizing that I also come from a lot of privilege. So I feel like it may
#
Even not be representative of actually how
#
Heartbreaking journalism as a field can be and I was working as a business reporter in bombay
#
And I remember that at the time that I shifted to delhi because I wanted to pursue political journalism. It was almost impossible
#
For me to find an organization that would be willing to take my application seriously because it did not come
#
from a network of patronage, uh, most media organizations still very recently did not have open application systems
#
And even now finding out where there is a vacancy
#
Finding out which person to meet how you can get the interview and being taken seriously inside
#
The room where the interview is taking place is very much a function of knowing a person who can put a good word in for you
#
Visiting at least six or seven organizations, uh, one of which was a leading newspaper where I remember being
#
Asked as soon as I entered that I don't have journalism experience
#
And how I would negotiate that in the newsroom
#
And I remember being shocked because the first line on my resume was my journalism experience at the previous organization
#
I'd worked with and for that, I mean
#
I do want to acknowledge the caravan because I feel like that process
#
Intensely rigorous as it is at least gives you a sense that you're playing within
#
a somewhat level field, you know, I
#
Was very grateful at that point because it's it it it it is it is a long process the caravan hiring process
#
At least by the end of it. I felt like I had a chance to
#
be meeting different kinds of people and to give it my best shot and not be given 500 minutes or not be spoken
#
Impatiently to or being told that you know
#
We'll get back to you and not being gotten back to and I remember that at the point that I entered the organization
#
I thought that if this interview doesn't work out
#
I should just figure out some other career to pursue because it's just becoming untenable
#
and I will not be able to sustain financially like this and I think that because this network exists because we're told that it's important to be
#
Seen with the right people to have your byline read by the right people
#
to be socializing with a certain kind of
#
Journalism lends itself to the secret keeping even more because a you have journalists
#
Who are doing great work who are heading great organizations that you do not want to?
#
Antagonizing and because it is a structure within which the void between those
#
Entering the field and between those who are at the towering heights of the field is so vast
#
That it's almost unthinkable that you're going to take that kind of machinery on and I think that it
#
A variety of other fields the reason it feels particularly hypocritical within journalism is because this is exactly the kind of
#
You know idea of holding power accountable is what?
#
Journalism sustains itself on but every day is a reiteration of those power structures being enforced within this
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You know field I don't I don't know if that
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No applause. That's I mean you've that last sentence very clearly articulated the problem
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With journalism, I think the last few days of anything have shown us that journalism is as much about concealing facts and keeping secrets
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As it is about revealing them
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So there's a lot of work to be done
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For my part. I think that every industry
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Reinforces and reiterates its power structures quite brutally in different ways
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The particular way in which journalism and advertising and the entertainment industries do it is
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By enclosing us in this this sense of personal warmth and personal relations
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Everything everything is about
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Having apprentices who in turn have gurus who in turn will give them work
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I was talking to a friend of mine who's trying to make a film
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Who told me yesterday something we all know which is that it's it doesn't matter if you have the best
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Story and the best script in the world
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If you don't have a big man opening a door for you, that door is never going to open
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while all of this may seem
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Like huge structural issues that have very little bearing on what's going on right now in
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In fact, they are precisely at the heart of what makes it so easy to exploit women and to keep them silent
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So on one hand the problem of access seems to be that
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Men without access also face it. No, I think men get that access more easily. That's what I was about to follow up
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Sorry, sorry. Yeah, we both were just like no
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Yeah, but on the other hand the problem of access also perpetuates the existing gender balances because men are more likely to have that kind of access in the first place
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Right. Oh, that's I feel like that's
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Exactly what locker rooms are. I think that's what I was trying to say
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I think that's exactly what locker room culture is about and from everything that we're seeing in the United States right now
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It's grotesque that you know, just being in the right locker rooms can get you some of the most powerful jobs in the land
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These may not be completely obvious to us in how they operate in Indian business and politics
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Maybe even sports, but we know that that's the truth
#
And I think just again coming back to journalism as a field. For example, who gets mentored by whom?
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What kind of reporter do you see as being the person who can just get you the story that is you know that you need to get
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versus a reporter who's
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Going to be more troubled on the field and by more trouble
#
I mean when women go on the field there are different questions of safety of comfort of and by comfort
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I mean the level of comfort one shares with their sources or what kind of equation
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The sources are going to develop with you versus when it's a man
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Essentially, we're also talking about organizations within which old boys clubs still exist or the idea that you could
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You know, you will step out for a drink and go to the press club
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And that's when a lot of your networks and friendships are formed
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Which are not necessarily spaces that are very friendly to women or young women
#
There are also a lot of tropes that move around in these fields, right?
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So it's not uncommon for example to hear from male journalists
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Oh, like it's easier for you to get access to this report or maybe you found it easier to cover this story
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And we know how that guy is with women
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I mean one heard this kind of vocabulary in newsrooms and has been hearing it for very long
#
So, you know, you'd have to change that thinking too for it to become a more accurate way of thinking
#
too for it to become a more accessible space because if
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And I remember experiencing this particularly in television newsrooms
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Where I would often wonder if the base idea is that this woman is able to get her
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Scoop before you are because she's a woman then when she does get discriminated against for being a woman
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Why would she come and tell this office?
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I mean it seems to create a prohibitive barrier to even speaking about discrimination or sexual harassment because if i'm being discriminated within
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The very space in which i'm supposed to report such instances
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Then there's very little reason for me to have faith that these mechanisms will work
#
It would be remiss of me not to point out that Nikita's experiences and mine
#
In my opinion, while they represent a very particular set of challenges
#
In my experience are nothing compared to what Dalit Bahujan and Adivasi journalists face in English language newsrooms
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And we haven't even begun to talk about that, which is why so if you've noticed so many Dalit women on twitter and elsewhere
#
Have said while we stand in solidarity with victims
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You have to understand that
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You've made very little space in your movement for us
#
And I understand that and I respect that and I think that's something we need to introspect about
#
And i'm just wondering if this becomes a kind of a vicious cycle here because you'd earlier said that
#
Women are not considered suitable for certain kinds of assignments
#
And at the same time you brought up the sort of the accounting a woman has to do whenever she goes to report a story
#
That what should I wear? Is it okay to have a drink with a guy in the evening if he's a source and blah blah blah
#
And editors can easily then use this to perpetuate the same problem and say no
#
No, these are stories you cannot do and these are stories only men can do and it's just a vicious cycle
#
How do you break that? I mean luckily I haven't experienced that so far
#
At the current organization i'm with i've been encouraged to go out on every kind of investigation possible
#
Can sense that there is a lot of hesitation among women to also bring up the gendered experiences we have because
#
Exactly like you're saying do I really want to?
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Reinforce the idea that it's tougher for me to be out on the field because that is true. It's not untrue
#
What I think needs to change is that institutions need to recognize it not as a problem
#
But as something that they need to work on together with their reporters
#
You know, for example an instance that comes to mind is that
#
It so happened that two of my male colleagues and I were reporting from the same city in three successive months
#
Um, so by the time I reached there both of them had already deported on their respective stories in the same city
#
And they had found a hotel that they thought was you know, relatively safe
#
And they had suggested the hotel to me and I remember that the minute I entered the hotel
#
And I shut the door to my room. I realized that it didn't have a latch
#
You know and it could be opened with a key which any person in the hotel also would have access to
#
And I remember realizing that of course, they didn't look for the latch
#
It's the first thing I look for when I enter a hotel room because the first thought in my head is I don't want anybody
#
Attempting to enter my room at night. I don't I want to be able to let my guard down and it never is really down
#
But I think even that minute difference in how you assess a room
#
Is different between men and women and I think it would do all of us well to recognize it and to be able to create spaces
#
Where we acknowledge it because only then can we even think about reaching a place
#
Where incidents that lead to less women on the field can be reduced
#
I mean if we don't acknowledge it, how can we address it?
#
And I think that is a problem right now women are worried about speaking out because
#
You want to be able to get all the assignments
#
You know that all the men are getting as well
#
And I realize that really small things help too
#
So for example for me the knowledge that I can reach out to my editors at any point
#
And with any kind of problem i'm having on the field has greatly helped because
#
I'm never told that a problem is too trivial to be brought to their notice
#
And I don't know if all journalists have that uh luxury, you know
#
You're also relatively lucky to be working in the caravan, which is relatively newer those cultures aren't there
#
It's not like that and I think the caravan has put in its share of hard work in
#
So guys i've taken enough of your time today. So i'd like to sort of end this by asking what seems almost a banal and cliched question
#
But to all the people listening to this episode regardless of gender whether they're men or they're women
#
Is there something you'd like to say?
#
Let's say someone who hasn't really been on twitter hasn't really followed it to the depth that we have and doesn't have the same understanding of it
#
if anyone has violated your consent in the workplace or outside or has done something that you have
#
Normalized and justified to yourself as something that you deserve to have happen to you, but that really wasn't
#
Some women have been brave enough to speak out should be an impetus for
#
Who has a story to tell and a viewpoint to share
#
sexual misconduct sexual harassment of this culture of
#
Patriarchal misbehavior that we've normalized for so long
#
Um now is your time because you will find solidarity that you have not previously found before
#
If you are someone who is afraid that you're going to be accused or even falsely accused
#
Please don't be please understand that this is a moment of truth and that you have every right to participate in it
#
as much as the rest of us, I think I just I
#
Center this on the women. I feel like
#
Um, I keep coming back to this but it has really hit me that it is astonishing how exhausting it is for all of us
#
and if you're someone who's
#
Entering this space now. There's a fair warning that it's cathartic and it's empowering
#
But it's also very triggering and very exhausting
#
so keep your support systems near you and
#
You know, don't forget to remember that it's okay to switch off when you want to because I think what we're looking at is also
#
a collective sort of purge and
#
It's as tough as it is. Um, you know
#
Hopeful for all of us involved. I think
#
Nikita and supriya, thank you so much for coming on the scene in the unseen. I learned a lot from you
#
Thank you very much. I mean
#
Before I end this episode
#
I want to play a clip from an earlier episode of the scene in the unseen two weeks ago. We released an episode called metrics of
#
Empowerment in which my guests were devika kher, nidhi gupta and hamsini hariharan
#
When the me too moment broke last week hamsini decided to speak out against a man who had assaulted her a few years ago
#
Other women joined in and reached out to her and like many other brave and generous women online
#
She became a fulcrum for those complaints sifting through them giving them comfort and helping them speak out
#
And as she did this my mind went to that episode that ran with her just a week before that
#
When I asked my guests whether they felt more hope or despair about the progress women in india were making
#
Devika and nidhi felt that things were moving in the right direction and they felt hope
#
But hamsini said that she despaired she said it with a smile at the time and we all laughed
#
But later when my producer swati sent me the recording of the episode and I heard it again
#
I sat up straight in my chair when I heard her answer
#
And wondered how I could have missed it at the time i've taken hamsini's permission to say this
#
And i'd like to end this episode by playing her answer again
#
I do i'll tell you what um
#
A friend of mine and I were talking and he said you know if you could live in any century before this
#
When would you live and I said are you crazy as a woman?
#
Why would I want to live in any century before this? This is the best time to live, you know technologically
#
Uh than ever before um, and if I had to live earlier as a woman it would simply be worse
#
Just because our time now is better than earlier doesn't mean it's a good time to live just because we're more equal now than we were
#
20 years ago doesn't mean we're equal we're not and this goes beyond equality in what I see as
#
Uh, you may win this battle, but you have to fight another one the way I look at women's issues often
#
Is that you're just constantly fighting till you figure out what you want
#
And how to get that and not worry about other things because your bandwidth as a human being is limited, right?
#
And after a while, you're just angry at the world for taking so much away from you
#
I would like to believe in a world where we're moving towards parity
#
But I also know that this is not something that will be achievable in any of our lifetimes
#
If you enjoyed listening to the show do follow supriya on twitter at supriya n
#
You can also follow nikita at nikita 1712 and do go over to her excellent magazine the caravan at caravan magazine
#
Dot in please subscribe support independent journalism. You can follow me on twitter at amit varma
#
Amit va rma and you can check out past episodes of the scene in the unseen at scene unseen dot i n or think prahati
#
Dot com. Thank you for listening
#
Oh, it's ivy m here. Let's go with ivy m kids on the block over here
#
Just to talk taking a break from producing all day coming on this podcast cuz we got stuff to say
#
IVM daily is the name of the show monday to friday. We ready to go talking about stuff in our head
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We might even talk about our favorite bread signing out. It's ivy m here the podcast network that's in your ear
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Catch ivy m daily monday to friday on the ivy m podcast app or wherever you get your podcast
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Who said healthy food is boring who said raw veggies is just salads who said eating fats makes you fat
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Look forward to my recommendations on healthy food and exercise hacks
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On the kinetic living podcast with me coach urmi every wednesday on the ivy m app
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