I’ll be 39 in exactly ten days. I’m a mother of two daughters—21 and 15. I have all the privileges that you can count—caste, class, religion, skin colour, education, everything. My LinkedIn profile is for everyone to see and assess my professional standing. I have been writing books, book chapters, journal papers, issue briefs, policy papers, media commentaries, poetry, and even extended social media posts on gender equity, violence against women, women’s health, etc, for the past 18 years. 

Yet, I’m utterly helpless, and I don’t know when this will stop. The screenshots are self-explanatory. 

Predictably, this sexual harassment started innocuously with a LinkedIn connection request from a man named Tulsi Kumar and my polite response to a “thank you for adding me” message in May 2024. Then came a barrage of unsolicited DMs on LinkedIn, ostensibly for professional work. I ignored it all. (Us women, we get by with ignoring a lot.)

Making Women Invisible

And on the morning of 10 September, I woke up to the same old sexually charged bullshit. This man also found my Instagram earlier yesterday and left likes and comments there. I’ve had a policy of keeping my social accounts open because that’s who I am as a person—transparency, etc. 

The screenshots clearly reveal that this behaviour was entirely unprovoked, far from being impulsive, almost premeditated. And that apology? It’s as if “liking” me “too much” mandates this behaviour. I made him do it. 

What is it about men? Why must they act like subhumans almost every time? Women are made to watch over their shoulders even more in digital space.  I have written multiple times about the intellectual moorings of this trend of making women invisible by either blocking women’s entry to, or bullying them out of public spaces. It is clear that men have a problem with women in general. But the world is, generally, comfortable with it. The only problem is with women highlighting this problem that men have a problem with women. Families, establishments, technocrats, editors—all act in unison to tackle that problem.

A Daily Dose Of Hatred

“Not all men” tribe, please sit down. Unless you wake up to such crudeness and sexual harassment from random stranger women even in your professional account’s inbox routinely, don’t even think of making your case. This tribe has made it almost impossible for women to express their frustrations with this daily dose of hatred hurled at them. This hatred has many forms, and what I received in my inbox is nothing but garden-variety sexual entitlement. It’s so common, happening day after day, inbox after inbox, that our senses ought to be numb towards it. But are they?

What’s even more frustrating—almost criminal—however, is that LinkedIn doesn’t even give an option for reporting harassment on its platform when you proceed to block and report someone. The reportage mechanism doesn’t even consider sexual harassment. Digital safety, oh joy! Is LinkedIn unaware of such incidents? Its jargon-heavy proclamations on members’ safety are almost laughable when there’s not even a mention of harassment faced by women. “How our content abuse defence systems work to keep members safe” — No, whatever your systems are, they have failed miserably in keeping your members safe.

Digital Safety And Censorship

The problem with the discourse on digital safety, mirroring physical safety, is that it is vitiated by censorship. The urge to curb and ban free speech is the default one for all digital safety purposes. Add to this mix the malafide political digital activity and let’s bid adieu to any real progress on making social media platforms safe. Women are the easiest victims to ignore everywhere, and digital space is no exception. 

Such is the psycho-social impact of not taking women seriously—socio-culturally, politically, economically, and at policy levels—that women themselves tend to believe in their second-class status. “What is the point?” Nothing screams despair louder than these four words. We are almost convinced that we do not matter. How does one even complain when the problem is not even recognised systemically? LinkedIn reporting process exemplifies it.  The platform’s social media help team reached out to me only after I made a public post. They bombarded me with links to file a complaint. I’ve done it. I’ve also been trying to lodge an FIR on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, but it is glitching. The process is a punishment for the victim long before the culprit is even located.

Nobody Likes A Woman With A Voice

I once wrote a paper on how the Hellenistic division of oikos (private space) and polis (public space) doesn’t apply to women. Their oikos is also polis because they are denied a voice even in the oikos. This latest incident of sexual harassment is aimed precisely at that—breaking women from within when and where they expect it the least. We don’t want a woman with a voice, so we’ll weaponise her voice against her. I’ve only chosen to write about this incident and not all the others in the past just to assert one thing. 

Yes, we women are growing tired of resisting and revolting.
No, we won’t stop it just yet. Try breaking us some more. 

 (Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Palghar:

Police on Sunday arrested a 42-year-old man for allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl in his neighbourhood in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, an official said.

Accused Rama Ganpat Bhoir, a resident of Tarapur, allegedly committed the crime on Saturday afternoon, he said.

Bhoir entered the girl’s home when she was alone and raped her. He fled from the spot after she raised an alarm.

After being informed by her about the sexual assault, the girl’s parents filed a police complaint, the official said.

Police have registered a case against Bhoir under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 64 (rape) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the official said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The rage is different this time. Whether it is a case from a Kolkata hospital or a school in the Mumbai suburb of Thane. The dirty secret of the Malayalam film industry is already out in the open. The anger isn’t helped when one learns that even in such heinous crimes, it may take 32 long years to get justice, as in the case involving girls in Rajasthan’s Ajmer in the early 1990s.

But the outrage this time is different, and that gives us hope. It has transcended petty politics. The political class stands discredited. The police administration is frightened. The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance.

The good thing is that this time, the anger is against the powerful system where some predators shamelessly cross all limits while using power or access to it for their own benefits, both carnal or otherwise. The anger is now against the patriarchy that is at the root of all discrimination in the world.

Patriarchy And The Law Of The Jungle

Patriarchy is a disorder that operates according to the law of the jungle. Here, might is considered right. If one has power, they can do anything according to their own will – with their strength, influence, reach, by breaking the system, or by forcibly taking away others’ rights. Sexual harassment is the most perverse manifestation of patriarchy and the jungle raj it represents.

On paper, we have left behind the laws of the jungle, right? But the wild animals still roam the streets in Kolkata, Ajmer, Kochi, Bareilly, Thane, Patna, Satna, Kathua, Hathras… Thousands of names can be added to the list. There are millions of people who still believe in a false sense of superiority that the jungle playbook affords.

But this time, the anger is against those who adhere to these principles. People have begun to realise that the jungle raj serves the interests of a few. It is a kind of democratic upsurge that may lead to far-reaching and sweeping changes.

Those who are wedded to the idea of the rule of law know how beneficial it can be to maintain a safe environment for women. The International Labour Organization (ILO) conducted a survey in 2018 and came up with some startling findings. Where companies struggle to increase profit margins by 2-3%, it was found that increasing female representation on boards raises profit margins by a whopping 5 to 20%.

Some other salient findings of the survey are:

• Increasing female representation raises the likelihood of increased profits and productivity by up to 63%
• Retaining good talent becomes 60% easier
• The chance of innovation increases by 59%
• The company’s reputation increases by 58%
• Understanding consumer behaviour becomes 38% easier

Despite these benefits, changes are woefully slow to come. Look at what a recent UN report says. Worldwide, 270 crore women do not have the rights to the same kind of jobs that men have. Among the 190 countries assessed, 69 have some restrictions on women working in all sectors. And in as many as 43 countries, there are no laws to prevent sexual harassment of women in workplaces. Horrible, isn’t it?

The same UN report also says that worldwide, while only 61% of women attempt to enter the job market; the rate for men is over 90%. And if a woman becomes a mother, only half of them get opportunities to enter the workforce. Men face no such restrictions after becoming fathers. Must be the design of the same set of patriarchal forces.

Why Some Are Scared Of Rule Of Law

The discrimination is beyond comprehension, given the kind of benefits that can accrue if we do away with it. Such discrimination can only exist in a patriarchy-driven jungle raj. 

The question is, why has patriarchy remained so unshakeable for centuries? Clearly, it’s the interests of a powerful few. Those with influence do not want the rule of law to replace this jungle raj. The perks they receive due to their influence make them fearful of losing them under the rule of law.

Some patriarchy exists in all of us – in men and women both. More in some, less in others. However, the rage across the country gives hope that its hold will weaken. It happened after the Nirbhaya movement, and even after the all-powerful MeToo movement that swept the world not too long ago. We all need to fully understand that the destruction of patriarchy is in everyone’s best interest.

Shouldn’t we all unite in our quest to establish the rule of law, a system free from any might-is-right principles?

(Mayank Mishra is Consulting Editor and Vasudha Venugopal is Anchor and Political Editor, at NDTV)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

New Delhi:

A minor girl from Punjab was allegedly gang raped on a public bus in Dehradun late Tuesday evening. The incident occurred at the city’s inter-state bus terminus (ISBT) on her arrival from Moradabad.

The police registered a case late last night, prompting an investigation into the matter.

A roadways employee has been taken into custody, police said.

Latest crime data suggests over 31,000 rape cases were reported across the country in 2021.

The Dehradun incident comes amid a nationwide uproar over women’s safety after the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in Kolkata.

The medic was found dead at a medical college in Kolkata on August 9. Her autopsy later revealed she was raped before being murdered while on duty.

The incident has nationwide protests and strikes by doctors, who are demanding justice for the medic and a central law that ensures their safety.

New Delhi:

The rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College has shaken the nation, and the Bengal government and police are under immense pressure to solve the case at its earliest. City Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal said that the investigation is still underway, and questions about whether more people were involved in the heinous crime can be only after the probe is completed.

Mr Goyal said that one accused, Sanjoy Roy, has been arrested and they are looking at other people who have any connection to the incident. “Everyone has been called and those who haven’t will be. We have also started a helpline number, doctors can give us information anonymously if they suspect anyone. We are also in touch with the family. We will share the progress of information,” he said.

“We are sure that if more people are involved, we will be able to arrest them in the next four to five days. Despite that, if the family is not satisfied, what Madam said will happen,” the Kolkata cop added.

The body of the 32-year-old woman was found in the seminar hall of the government-run hospital in the West Bengal capital on Thursday night. The initial autopsy report stated that the victim was bleeding from her eyes, mouth, and private parts. There were also injuries on her left leg, neck, right hand, ring finger, and lips.

Sanjoy Roy, the main accused in the case, was not a hospital employee but was frequently seen in buildings on the campus. Roy worked as a civic volunteer with the Kolkata Police. Civic volunteers are contractual staff recruited to assist cops in various kinds of work, including traffic management and disaster response. Paid around Rs 12,000 a month, these volunteers do not enjoy the facilities available to regular police personnel.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also assured that the Kolkata Police will complete the investigation by next Sunday. She said that if they are unable to do so, the probe will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Also read: Kolkata Doctor’s Rape-Murder Accused Posed As Cop, Said “Hang Me” On Arrest

‘Remember What Happened In RG Kar?’ Bengal Doctor Gets Rape-Murder Threat

Doctors Across India To Go On Indefinite Strike Over Kolkata Murder

Bareilly, UP:

An 85-year-old woman died after she was allegedly raped in her house in Hafizganj on Monday, police said.

The police have arrested the 35-year-old accused, identified as Rakesh, who lives in the neighbourhood.

Senior Superintendent of Police Anurag Arya said the victim resided alone after her husband and son had died. The woman’s brother and sister-in-law live in the neighbourhood and her daughter-in-law lives with them.

According to the daughter-in-law, when she went to the victim’s house at around 1 pm, she was stunned to see Rakesh raping her mother-in-law, Arya said.

The police said that when the daughter-in-law raised an alarm, the accused escaped and the family immediately informed the police. Meanwhile, the old woman died after the attack.

The police reached the site and succeeded in arresting the accused.

Mr Arya said that the accused is an alcoholic and is being interrogated.

A panel has been asked to conduct the post-mortem of the woman.

 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bhopal:

An attempt to kidnap a 22-year-old woman during her wedding has shockwaves in Madhya Pradesh’s Ashok Nagar. The main accused, identified as Kalu alias Salim Khan allegedly raped the woman, defamed her with a video and later attacked her family when she was marrying another man.

The incident occurred around 6 pm when Kalu, along with accomplices Jodha, Sameer, and Shahrukh, stormed the woman’s house. When she protested, they assaulted her family, breaking her father’s leg and her brother’s arm. Her mother was also brutally beaten. The attackers, waving swords and iron rods, dragged the woman out of her house.

As the family and the woman screamed for help, a crowd gathered. Initially, the accused threatened the onlookers but fled the scene as the crowd grew larger, leaving the woman behind. During the chaos, the accused also threatened both the woman’s family and the family of the man she was engaged to.

The police were initially reluctant to register the case. It was only after intervention from workers of a local Hindu outfit late on Wednesday night that the police registered cases based on complaints from both the woman and her father.

New Delhi:

A 36-year-old woman was allegedly raped and blackmailed by a property dealer in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area, police said.

A case under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code was registered on Tuesday following a complaint by the woman, a resident of Mehrauli. The 38-year-old accused identified as Rahul has been arrested, police said.

In her complaint, the woman alleged that she wanted to buy a flat and came in contact with Rahul. They had been friends for the last one and a half years.

“She said Rahul raped her on several occasions,” said a senior police officer said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Plabennec, France:

Aimee Dupre had always kept silent about the rape of her mother by two American soldiers after the Normandy landings in June 1944. But 80 years after the brutal assault, she finally felt it was time to speak out.

Nearly a million US, British, Canadian and French soldiers landed on the Normandy coast in the weeks after D-Day in an operation that was to herald the end of Nazi Germany’s grip on Europe.

Aimee was 19, living in Montours, a village in Brittany, and delighted to see the “liberators” arrive, as was everybody around her.

But then her joy evaporated. On the evening of August 10, two US soldiers — often called GIs — arrived at the family’s farm.

“They were drunk and they wanted a woman,” Aimee, now 99, told AFP, producing a letter that her mother, also called Aimee, wrote “so nothing is forgotten”.

In her neat handwriting, Aimee Helaudais Honore described the events of that night. How the soldiers fired their guns in the direction of her husband, ripping holes in his cap, and how they menacingly approached her daughter Aimee.

To protect her daughter, she agreed to leave the house with the GIs, she wrote. “They took me to a field and took turns raping me, four times each.”

Aimee’s voice broke as she read from the letter. “Oh mother, how you suffered, and me too, I think about this every day,” she said.

“My mother sacrificed herself to protect me,” she said. “While they raped her in the night, we waited, not knowing whether she would come back alive or whether they would shoot her dead.”

The events of that night were not isolated. In October 1944, after the battle for Normandy was won, US military authorities put 152 soldiers on trial for raping French women.

In truth, hundreds or even thousands of rapes between 1944 and the departure of the GIs in 1946 went unreported, said American historian Mary Louise Roberts, one of only a handful to research what she called “a taboo” of World War II.

“Many women decided to remain silent,” she said. “There was the shame, as often with rape.”

She said the stark contrast of their experience with the joy felt everywhere over the American victory made it especially hard to speak up.

– ‘Easy to get’ –

Roberts also blames the army leadership who, she said, promised soldiers a country with women that were “easy to get” to add to their motivation to fight.

The US Army newspaper Stars and Stripes was full of pictures showing French women kissing victorious Americans.

“Here’s What We’re Fighting For,” read a headline on September 9, 1944, alongside a picture of cheering French women and the caption: “The French are nuts about the Yanks.”

The incentive of sex “was to motivate American soldiers”, Roberts said.

“Sex, and I mean prostitution and rape, was a way for Americans to show domination over France, dominating French men, as they had been unable to protect their country and their women from the Germans,” she added.

In Plabennec, near Brest on the westernmost tip of Britanny, Jeanne Pengam, nee Tournellec, remembers “as if it was yesterday” how her sister Catherine was raped and their father murdered by a GI.

“The black American wanted to rape my older sister. My father stood in his way and he shot him dead. The guy managed to break down the door and enter the house,” 89-year-old Jeanne told AFP.

Nine at the time, she ran to a nearby US garrison to alert them.

“I told them he was German, but I was wrong. When they examined the bullets the next day, they immediately understood that he was American,” she said.

Her sister Catherine kept the terrible secret “that poisoned her whole life” until shortly before her death, said one of her daughters, Jeannine Plassard.

“Lying on her hospital bed she told me, ‘I was raped during the war, during the Liberation,'” Plassard told AFP.

Asked whether she ever told anybody, her mother replied: “Tell anybody? It was the Liberation, everybody was happy, I was not going to talk about something like this, that would have been cruel,” she said.

French writer Louis Guilloux worked as a translator for US troops after the landings, an experience he described in his 1976 novel “OK Joe!”, including the trials of GIs for rape in military courts.

“Those sentenced to death were almost all black,” said Philippe Baron, who made a documentary about the book.

– ‘Shameful secret’ –

Those found guilty, including the rapists of Aimee Helaudais Honore and Catherine Tournellec, were hanged publicly in French villages.

“Behind the taboo surrounding rapes by the liberators, there was the shameful secret of a segregationist American army,” said Baron.

“Once a black soldier was brought to trial, he had practically no chance of acquittal,” he said.

This, said Roberts, allowed the military hierarchy to protect the reputation of white Americans by “scapegoating many African-American soldiers”.

Of the 29 soldiers sentenced to death for rape in 1944 and 1945, 25 were black GIs, she said.

Racial stereotypes on sexuality facilitated the condemnation of blacks for rape. White soldiers, meanwhile, often belonged to mobile units, making them harder to track down than their black comrades who were mostly stationary.

“If a French woman accused a white American soldier of rape, he could easily get away with it because he never stayed near the rape scene. The next morning, he was gone,” Roberts said.

After her book “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France” appeared in 2013, Roberts said the reaction in the US was so hostile that the police would have to regularly check on her.

“People were angry at my book because they didn’t want to lose this ideal of the good war, of the good GI,” she said. “Even if it means we have to keep on lying.”

AFP was unable to obtain any official comment from the US Department of Defense on the subject.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Deoria, UP:

A 14-year-old boy was apprehended on Tuesday for allegedly raping a four-year-old girl in a village of this Uttar Pradesh district, police said.

Deoria Superintendent of Police Sankalp Sharma said the incident took place on Monday evening when the girl was out grazing goats.

On learning about the incident, her family members took her to the community health centre in Gauri Bazar from where she was referred to the Maharshi Devraha Baba Medical College in Deoria, the SP said.

Based on complaint lodged by the minor’s family on Tuesday, the police apprehended the accused teenager and sent him to a juvenile home, he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)