A Review of Bhattacharyya ‘s Metoo Movement: An Awareness Campaign

CITATION
Bhattacharyya, Rituparna, # Metoo Movement: An Awareness Campaign (March 8, 2018).
International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, Volume 3, Issue 4, March 2018.

ARTICLE IDENTIFICATION
The report, “#Metoo Movement: An Awareness Campaign,” was written by Rituparna
Bhattacharyya, Independent Researcher and Editor-in-Chief, Journal Space and Culture,
India. 2018.

REVIEW
Sexual harassment in workplace and the consequential #metoo movement has a deep
impact even in India, far from the origin of the movement in Hollywood. The opportunity for
women to voice their pain and support each other in this endeavour is pointed out by
Bhattacharyya in her article. She chooses to use this #metoo movement to advocate on
sexual harassment in India, especially among the women within educational institutions,
public/ private organizations, and communities. She being an accomplished scholar in her
chosen field which started with her master’s thesis ‘Changing Status and Role of Indian
Middle-Class Women’, has propelled her to search on topics which would baffle us. She has
received numerous grants from various institutions to conduct field studies and research,
both in India and abroad.

The author’s audience is largely the entire population, but with special focus on the women
and seems like an appeal for them not to remain silent. Her purpose is to point out that
incidents of sexual harassment happens and the victims should not be silent about it. Her
main thesis is to find out the reasons why most victims of sexual harassment chose to
remain silent. Even though some of the victims are well-known names.

Bhattacharyya uses the example of India to portray how customs and traditions of a society
hinders the reporting of sexual harassment (Bhattacharyya, 2018), despite the stringent
laws already in place. By comparison Bhutan’s laws aren’t friendly with the offence of sexual
harassment being a petty misdemeanour which warrants imprisonment for one month or
more but less than one year (Penal Code of Bhutan, 2004). She mentions that most people
(including women) bear a patriarchal mindset and misogyny is rooted deeply across cultures
(Bhattacharyya, 2015; 2016a; 2016b; Zeilinger, 2018).

Her logical sequence of arguments starts with defining sexual harassment and the #metoo
movement. Then the focus shifts to India with examples, and ends with why the victims fail
to accuse the perpetrator. It is safe to point out that the #metoo originated form the west,
and its waves reached India too, but there is a subtle difference between the easy-going
western women and the traditional Indian women, as depicted in her argument of Indians
being patriarchal. But she also implies that even in the developed Western countries,
women still choose to remain silent for years.
She specifically uses examples of how famed western celebrities like Ashley Judd, Susan
Fowler, Adama Iwn, Taylor Swift, and Isabel Pascual choose to break their silence after
years.

There are various sources that she uses to highlight the different areas of her argument, and
all these sources are well researched and documented, but I feel that her arguments all
support her thesis, and have little to none opinions of the male gender.

Her logical sequence of arguments starts with defining sexual harassment and the #metoo
movement. Then the focus shifts to India with examples, and ends with why the victims fail
to accuse the perpetrator. It is safe to point out that the #metoo originated form the west,
and its waves reached India too, but there is a subtle difference between the easy-going
western women and the traditional Indian women.

So, there is a gap in the logical sequence that she uses to argue her point. The chief being
that most of her references are all made to her earlier studies and publications, especially
her take on the Indian women as bearing a patriarchal mindset and misogyny being deeply
rooted across culture (Bhattacharyya, 2015; 2016a; 2016b; Zeilinger, 2018). She has
references to her 6 earlier articles and books which makes any reader rethink regarding the
flow of her arguments, which are all dependent on her earlier arguments.

To conclude, her logical sequence of arguments starts with defining sexual harassment and
the #metoo movement. Then the focus shifts to India with examples, and ends with why the
victims fail to accuse the perpetrator. It is safe to point out that the #metoo originated from
the west, and its waves reached India too, but there is a subtle difference between the easy-
going western women and the traditional Indian women, as depicted in her argument of
Indians being patriarchal. But she also implies that even in the developed Western
countries, women still choose to remain silent for years.

REFERENCES
Bhattacharyya, Rituparna, # Metoo Movement: An Awareness Campaign (March 8, 2018).
International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, Volume 3, Issue 4, March 2018.

Bhattacharyya, Rituparna (2016a). Street Violence against Indian Women in India: Mapping
Prevention Strategies, Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 10 (3), 311-325,
DOI:10.1111/aswp.12099

Bhattacharyya, Rituparna (2016b). Gender Discriminatory Attitude-An Example from the UK,
Souvenir Fourth Convention of Gauhati University Alumni Association, retrieved 27
December 2017 from,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306379991_Gender_Discriminatory_Attitude_-
_An_Example_from_the_UK

Bhattacharyya, R. (2015). Understanding the spatialities of sexual assault against Indian

women in India, Gender, Place and Culture, 22 (9), 1340–1356,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2014.969684