Blakwall

A common question that has been skirting the broad narratives of #MeToo is that if the movement has gone far beyond the boundaries of due process and legality. In April 2019, a few months after the #MeToo movement expanded in India, then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was accused of sexual harassment by a former Supreme Court of India employee. The committee that presided over investigation of the allegations included Gogoi himself, and unsurprisingly he was cleared of the charges. Prior to the case against Gogoi, in October 2018, journalist Priya Ramani accused MJ Akbar of sexual harassment. The former junior external affairs minister registered a 41-page defamation case against her. She won the case two years later when the court acquitted her of all charges.  The phrase “Me Too” was coined by African American activist Tarana Burke in 2006 to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual abuse and assault within the society, and help the survivors. It was the fall of 2017 when

According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 by WEF, India went down 28 places from the previous rank of 112 to currently being at 140. While the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown also played a significant role in increasing India’s gender gap by 4.3 per cent, the World Bank has estimated that female participation in the labour force has decreased to around 20 per cent over the last three decades. This decline in economic opportunities and workforce participation was initially chalked up to women leaving work to go for higher education. But the increase in the number of women going for higher education is just around 5 per cent over the last decade. In 2019, The National Statistical Office (NSO) conducted the first Time Use Survey to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities. The survey provided information on the time spent in unpaid caregiving activities, volunteer work, unpaid domestic service-producing activities of the household members. It also inclu