Raising male children in the #MeToo era

With #metoo stories dominating print and television headlines and the social media during the past two months, the role of parents in educating male children about women’s rights and freedoms, mutual consent, and practising gender equality from early age, has begun —even if belatedly — to receive academic interest and attention – Sruthy Susan Ullas A year after it kicked off a firestorm in the US, the #metoo movement i.e, a mass protest against sexual harassment of women in the workplace, has gone global. Last month, the #metoo movement swept over India like a tsunami, outing sexual predators lording it over the entertainment and media industries. A Union minister, celebrated editors, artistes, veteran actors, directors and stand-up comedians have been exposed as serial offenders as numerous highly educated and accomplished women professionals shed their inhibitions and posted their stories of sexual harassment and intimidation in the workplace on social media sites. A year earlier, sexual abuse accusations against Hollywood films producer Harvey Weinstein triggered America’s #metoo and Time’s Up revolutions, as several famous actresses opened the pandora’s box of #metoo stories on social media. Lionised as ‘silence breakers’ by the iconic globe girdling Time magazine, they were collectively honoured as Time Persons of the Year 2017. Likewise, India’s #metoo movement was ignited in Bollywood in September, when former actress Tanushree Dutta accused veteran film star Nana Patekar of sexual misconduct on a movie set ten years ago. Dutta’s adamant refusal to retract or conciliate sparked an unprecedented pent-up fire of #metoo accusations with women in several professions and vocations giving vent to long suppressed outrage. Top-level apologies, resignations and counter-attacks followed in the wake of India’s #metoo tsunami. The major celebrity swept away in the flood was M.J. Akbar, a brilliant editor-columnist and Union minister of state for external affairs. Among the severely damaged: Prashant Jha, political editor of the Hindustan Times; K.R. Srinivas, resident-editor of Times of India, Hyderabad; Chetan Bhagat, best-selling writer-author; Vikas Bahl, film director; actor Alok Nath and Hindi news channel veteran Vinod Dua. With #metoo stories dominating print and television headlines and the social media during the past two months, hitherto peripheral issues of gender equality, women’s safety, sexual assault and consent have sparked furious debates in the drawing rooms of the country’s fast expanding middle class. As educated professional women are shedding traditional inhibitions and asserting their rights to freedom of movement and safety and dignity in workplaces, the role of parents in educating male children about women’s rights and freedoms, mutual consent, practising gender equality from early age and empowering girl children to speak up against sexual abuse, has also begun — even if belatedly — to receive academic interest and attention. “The #metoo movement has raised the very important issue of women’s safety in our patriarchal male-dominated society. As a parent, I am delighted this issue has come out in the open as children and young adults need to be educated about mutual consent, the social and legal consequences of sexual assault and…