#MeToo and Everyone Else

#MeToo and Everyone Else

It would seem that suers and accusers are coming out of the woodwork in hordes and blaming politicians, actors, judges and sportsmen for deeds done decades ago. Well, these victim complainants were not really hiding all these years. Many of them did make noises, but they were so feeble that they went unheard or were easy to drown in the overall cacophony. It seems that either the victim has to become powerful or the molester must become big for the grievance to be heard all over again with some seriousness.

It would be unlikely that all women victims would become strong enough in course of time to be able to raise their once again with a bigger force. But, the violator, who was a middling arrival in society - an actor, a politician, a fashion designer, a dance-music guru or a professional - on his path to higher achievements is more likely to reach levels, where he can be scrutinised once again. It is these men, though there must be a sizeable number of women too, who, inebriated with new-found power on the opposite sex thought that it was normal to seduce and rape, touch, push and grope their charge. 

Questions like “why now” will be asked and sometimes corrrectly as well. After all, didn’t these women have the option of giving a hard slap to the advancing pest or just to walk away? Was a career in the chosen path the only one available, was there unemployment and starvation staring at them, was the charm of the glitzy life too good to resist? Was it the norm to succumb, was it the shortcut to success and whether it was, after all, a small price to pay since every other girl was doing so anyways? The answer to all these may be a yes. But, it is not the right answer. A wrong answer does not become the right one by a majority vote. Whereas there may be a million wrong answers, there is only one right one. Don’t we all know that from our school examination papers?

One may even argue that social mores change and they can change quickly, for the better, with modern interactive society that speaks, demonstrates and broadcasts at the speed of light. News, good and bad, travel faster than ever and people come together for a cause even without the mandatory candles and the city square squatting. Why hold a perfectly respectable achiever guilty for something he did decades ago, when it was normal to indulge in mild flirtation and maybe a couch act and weren’t there ever conceding women ready to do the bidding? The society suddenly wakes up, fired by social media, everyone’s own TV channel called the YouTube, everyone’s personal newspaper, the Facebook and everyone’s personal loudspeakers, the WhatsApp and Twitter. The society then calls to question these past masters of exploitation and demands that they at least apologise, if not face the law. But, kicking and screaming, these guys deny bluntly and fight back as if it was they who are being wronged. 

So, whereas this recent spurt in bringing out old cases may or may not lead to catharsis, it exposes the reality that the woodwork was held together only by the thin layer of glossy paint; everything within had been eaten up by termites long ago. Big names are falling like ninepins for what they did when they wielded power on the vulnerable.