Tanushree Dutta began the #MeToo wave in India by placing allegations against her Horn Ok Pleasss co-star Nana Patekar. Soon, we saw a huge turnout of women from all sectors walking up and narrating their #MeToo stories. Now, a new movement for the men of the country called #MenToo has kickstarted.
Giving her opinion on the same, Tanushree says, “I would like to caution the Indian Public and media against rendering their engirdled support to the #mentoo movement that seeks to protect the claims that innocent men are being framed by so called evil women with a vendetta. Some people with clearly vested interests are trying to start in India a revolution that can furthur endanger the status of the women and child victims of harrassment and sexual crimes. The reason for my erring on the side of caution is that although I believe that neither men nor women should use the law to settle scores or take our personal vendetta against each other; sometimes the lack of tangible evidence and extreme intimidation of witnesses by perpetrators makes it impossible to prove a crime to police and law but that does not mean a woman is lying or making it up.”
She further says, “It takes tremendous courage and a boldness to face stigma to make an accusation against a man in our society for a woman, hence making a movement such as #mentoo can potentially embolden real harassers, molesters and rapists and their supporters into forming organizations to shield themselves from the law and justice. Also the ratio of men to women in our country is skewed in the males favour by hundreds of millions. This is due to female infanticide and preferential male baby practices in our nation which despite the laws are still carried out. Dowry torture and killings are happening at alarming rates and so is harassment, rapes, gang rapes and molestation due to several factors. Under such circumstances empowering the already skewed patriarchy and corrupt male dominated society could spell trouble and disaster in the future for whistle blowers, journalists, social workers and female complainants. What I'm trying to say that if this movement persists then any woman who raises her voice or files complaint against bullying, intimidation, harassment, rape or gang rape and does not have enough proof as 99% of these crimes happen in private or witnesses back out due to lengthy and exhausting trials or intimidation, these victims could potentially become targets of these men’s organizations and groups. Instead of making movements and public protests protecting men who may or may not be innocent at all laws need to be reviewed and formatted so correct and proper justice is done. #metoo was a movement aimed at social cleansing by public disclosure in cases where legal justice is exhausting, difficult or impossible but #Mentoo can put doubt on any woman putting forth a complaint!! Who are you and I to decide which cases are true and which are false?? Were we there to see what really happened?? The burden of proof still on the woman but now this additional threat of men’s rights organizations can furthur threaten the safety of women and suppress them into permanent silence if it's not checked.”
Finally, she sums it up saying, “So please give a deep thought and consideration to these factors as a few women notorious for their support of notorious men have risen up in recent days with such men movements and are aggressively promoting it. Intuitively I know there’s something very sinister brewing under the surface in the garb of a movement and perhaps it is an attempt to undo the impact of #metoo in India so that the status quo goes back to quiet submission just as it was before. First Alok Nath appearing in a film and now #men too. Something is fishy!!”
Image Source : RVCJ