Opinion: ‘Don’t Do Drama’: My Story Of Online Sexual Harassment Isn’t Mine Alone
I’ll be 39 in exactly ten days. I’m a mother of two daughters-21 and 15. I have all the privileges that you can count-caste, class, religion, skin colour, education, everything. My LinkedIn profile is for everyone to see and assess my professional standing. I have been writing books, book chapters, journal papers, issue briefs, policy papers, media commentaries, poetry, and even extended social media posts on gender equity, violence against women, women’s health, etc, for the past 18 years.
Yet, I’m utterly helpless, and I don’t know when this will stop. The screenshots are self-explanatory.
Predictably, this sexual harassment started innocuously with a LinkedIn connection request from a man named Tulsi Kumar and my polite response to a “thank you for adding me” message in May 2024. Then came a barrage of unsolicited DMs on LinkedIn, ostensibly for professional work. I ignored it all. (Us women, we get by with ignoring a lot.)
Making Women Invisible
And on the morning of 10 September, I woke up to the same old sexually charged bullshit. This man, who is going by, also found my Instagram earlier yesterday and left likes and comments there. I’ve had a policy of keeping my social accounts open because that’s who I am as a person-transparency, etc.
The screenshots clearly reveal that this behaviour was entirely unprovoked, far from being impulsive, almost premeditated. And that apology? It’s as if “liking” me “too much” mandates this behaviour. I made him do it.
What is it about men? Why must they act like subhumans almost every time? Women are made to watch over their shoulders even more in digital space. I have written multiple times about the intellectual moorings of this trend of making women invisible by either blocking women’s entry to, or bullying them out of public spaces. It is clear that men have a problem with women in general. But the world is, generally, comfortable with it. The only problem is with women highlighting this problem that men have a problem with women. Families, establishments, technocrats, editors – all act in unison to tackle that problem.
A Daily Dose Of Hatred
“Not all men” tribe, please sit down. Unless you wake up to such crudeness and sexual harassment from random stranger women even in your professional account’s inbox routinely, don’t even think of making your case. This tribe has made it almost impossible for women to express their frustrations with this daily dose of hatred hurled at them. This hatred has many forms, and what I received in my inbox is nothing but garden-variety sexual entitlement. It’s so common, happening day after day, inbox after inbox, that our senses ought to be numb towards it. But are they?
What’s even more frustrating-almost criminal-however, is that LinkedIn doesn’t even give an option for reporting harassment on its platform when you proceed to block and report someone. The reportage mechanism doesn’t even consider sexual harassment. Digital safety, oh joy! Is LinkedIn unaware of such incidents? Its jargon-heavy proclamations on members’ safety are almost laughable when there’s not even a mention of harassment faced by women. “How our content abuse defence systems work to keep members safe” – No, whatever your systems are, they have failed miserably in keeping your members safe.
Digital Safety And Censorship
The problem with the discourse on digital safety, mirroring physical safety, is that it is vitiated by censorship. The urge to curb and ban free speech is the default one for all digital safety purposes. Add to this mix the malafide political digital activity and let’s bid adieu to any real progress on making social media platforms safe. Women are the easiest victims to ignore everywhere, and digital space is no exception.
Such is the psycho-social impact of not taking women seriously – socio-culturally, politically, economically, and at policy levels – that women themselves tend to believe in their second-class status. “What is the point?” Nothing screams despair louder than these four words. We are almost convinced that we do not matter. How does one even complain when the problem is not even recognised systemically? LinkedIn reporting process exemplifies it. It reached out to me via DM, bombarding me with links to file a complaint. I’ve done it. I’ve also been trying to lodge an FIR on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, but it is glitching. When I press ‘submit’, it wipes out everything and takes me back to the home page. Login is glitching, too. Full waste of time.
Nobody Likes A Woman With A Voice
I once wrote a paper on how the Hellenistic division of oikos (private space) and polis (public space) doesn’t apply to women. Their oikos is also polis because they are denied a voice even in the oikos. This latest incident of sexual harassment is aimed precisely at that – breaking women from within when and where they expect it the least. We don’t want a woman with a voice, so we’ll weaponise her voice against her. I’ve only chosen to write about this incident and not all the others in the past just to assert one thing.
Yes, we women are growing tired of resisting and revolting.
No, we won’t stop it just yet. Try breaking us some more.
(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
