Women, our voices are louder together

I was mesmerised by the final scene of the first episode of Working Moms A new mother whos had a rough last few days is out running in a forest her baby in tow in a pram She suddenly confronts the bear that wed been earlier told had escaped from its sanctuary Its a tense moment The bear notices her She is briefly paralysed by fear The bear faces her and growls aggressively After a moments hesitation she postures herself protectively in front of her baby and growls back at the bear who sufficiently intimidated retreats The scene resonated with me because Id been thinking recently about how we frame the narrative of empowerment as something aspirational What if as women it entails an act as ostensibly simple as standing up for ourselvesIf I could identify one attribute about my personality that has changed most fundamentally over the last few months particularly in the aftermath of the MeTooIndia movement its been my evolving ability to confront and engage with men from a position of strength and not defensiveness Its been the consequence of an active decision I made to identify within my behavioural patterns my tendencies to react defensively because Ive felt as if something within my core was under attack I found that I behaved like this because somewhere I still sought validation from the person I felt was attacking me usually a cisgender male Cisgender denotes a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex I am cisgender female for example What the movement did for me was help me find the vocabulary Id been looking for all my life with which to call out certain abusive racist and misogynist patterns of communication For instance Id noticed years ago that white men and women dont take kindly to any accusation you may make about their behaviour or speech being even mildly racist The kneejerk reaction is to tell you youre imagining the offence which I now know is called gaslighting The other is for them to aggressively counter your arguments which I know now is called weaponised defensiveness If youve shared a story with someone about a potential incident of sexual abuse you encountered firsthand and if the person in question alleges you were somehow primarily at fault for either dressing or speaking provocatively it is an example of victim blamingOne evening some weeks ago when I was at Monas place wed been talking about our frustrations with the movement How it seemed like some men who were serial predators and sexual abusers had gotten away almost scotfree while some with weaker allegations made against them were paying a heavy price and were being socially alienated We were concerned with the question of accountability How could we hold men to task for the toxicity they perpetuated For how long should they be punished Was it our responsibility to ensure they were rehabilitated into society if they seemed penitent enough I was speaking specifically about an abuser against whom allegations had been made anonymously that I had then backed up publicly on social media because I knew many of them to be true and wanted him to be held to task Instead of introspecting into his patterns of abuse he of course denied any culpability audaciously claiming that hed never behaved inappropriately with anyone ever in his life which I knew to be categorically untrue because I had myself been the victim of his uninvited advances During the India Art Fair he was present at almost every important private party which immediately made those spaces unsafe for me Mona suggested that we see this from another angle While we may not be able to hold someone accountable what our testimony had accomplished was a public assertion that certain behaviours were simply unacceptable Maybe women younger than us now entering the workplace would feel more emboldened about calling out crass inappropriate behaviour Maybe what weve all been doing inadvertently through the MeToo revelations was empowering each other as well as future generations to speak up against misogynyWriting this on the eve of International Womens Day I find I have reservations about what this calendar occasion means for us in the light of the MeTooIndia movement Perhaps it could offer us an opportunity to introspect into our personal struggles with selfempowerment For it has been nothing short of a struggle Sometimes Im convinced Ive passed many trials often barefoot over raging fires Today while there are memories of the calluses and the burns I was left with I see not damaged but strong wild desiring feet capable of longdistance running and more that bear the weight of my body and the burden of my dreams without giving way I stand as an independent woman but with the knowledge that it is not I alone that is sustaining my verticality I am consciously interlinked in an infinitely expanding circle of similarly empowered empowering feet Together were holding up the new world order weve defiantly imaginedDeliberating on the life and times of Everywoman Rosalyn DMello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover She tweets RosaParx Send your feedback tomailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates