Until the tiger learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter
“Weren’t you drinking that night? Oh I borrowed your cigarette? Really smoking isn’t permitted on the dance floor. How are you so sure I put my hand up your bra? Are you sure we weren’t just dancing? Did anyone see me put my hand inside your shirt? Really? How come there was nobody around to help? Why didn’t you complain sooner? Oh you were traumatized? Really because on page 14 there’s a picture of you taken a month after the harassment and you look happy. You didn’t know of the company’s harassment policy? But aren’t you a feminist activist? Don’t you write articles on sexual harassment? Because on page 13 are some links to your articles on sexual harassment. Did you speak to me after the harassment? Really because on page 12 I’d like to point out that you once borrowed my access card.”
One year ago, I was sexually harassed at my workplace.
I know that you are tired of reading stories about sexual violence. Believe me, I am tired of reading and writing them myself, the same way soldiers are tired of hearing their own guns go off. I’m not writing this because this story is unique, but because it is not. This story is happening to women everywhere, and corporate Non-Disclosure Agreements are preventing us from hearing about it (if we don’t even know what is happening behind closed doors, how are we going to change it?). There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in mirrors, that if you want to make human beings into monsters, deny them at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. I think we have too few reflections of what happens to sexual assault victims. Why? Is something wrong with us? I am writing this so that others like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.
Epistemic warnings: I know some readers will TL;DR this post, but it already is a reduction of a complicated issue to 5000 words because nobody would read it if it were longer. This is a personal account. No names will be used. Use your discretion while sharing this in forums that could have people who are attracted to this kind of filth.
**
I. You are not the stances that you take
It started at an office party last year.
I don’t want to divulge irrelevant facts from this chain of events that I have told, written, clarified, and repeated for months now, till I could recite it in my dreams, till it was the only thing I dreamt about. Offlate I have noticed a trend of creating violent storylines around sexual harassment; reports of a rod up a vagina, rape behind a dumpster, stock imagery of a woman hiding in the shadows, the trajectory of a tear down a cheek. I do not need to convey the horror of my sexual harassment through violent, graphic details. The mere idea of sexual harassment is and should already be horrific.
So, to avoid all “cultured” lines of reasoning, it doesn’t matter for now if I was groped, raped, drunk, wearing a short skirt, or eating Chowmein. This was a man from office whom I had never spoken to before. It was dark, crowded, and loud. I was helpless. He sexually harassed me and I didn’t consent to any of it. I was making my opposition to his advances perfectly clear. Like, “no means no” clear, like “the alcohol in your system isn’t an excuse” clear, like “an intoxicated person can anyway not consent” clear. Through all this, he heard, “try harder”.
In the months that followed, I didn’t know how to be around this man in my office. Workspaces function that way — if someone asks you how your weekend was while you’re at the coffee machine, you have to smile back and answer them. Maybe even look out of the window, and tell them it looks cloudy today. You can’t look at them with angry eyes that beg to answer the question of why they’re smiling at you after they violated you.
Should I report? Should I not? Every night, I’d fall asleep thinking, “I am not the stances that I take”, with the feeling that this understanding contained in it a profound wisdom. Each one of us passionately supports something — it could be a sports team, a political party, a social cause, something, anything. We spend our lives defending it. And when the time comes to act upon an affrontation to it in our personal lives, sometimes we cannot do it. I just want to say, it’s okay. Always advocated for environmental conservation but didn’t save the trees from being cut down in the neighbourhood? It’s okay. Spent years empowering individuals to speak out against sexual abuse, but didn’t report harassment in your own life? It’s okay. It is difficult. You are important, but you don’t carry the burden of changing the world. You are trying your best, you will get there some day. Till then, one’s gotta do what one’s gotta do — so keep at it. Just remember — You are powerful, you are untouchable, you cannot be silenced, but you are not the stances that you take.
I hesitated for almost 3 months before filing for Sexual Harassment at the Workplace. This next part begins where that hesitation ends.
**
II. Crying (wolf?)
After I filed the case, I thought there’s no way he’s going to deny any of it. There were witnesses for at least the milder parts of the harassment. I thought he would apologize, any penalties that the law deemed fit would be placed upon him, he would realize his mistake, and it would be over.
Instead, in his legal response, I was told that I am filing a false case out of malicious intent. He didn’t have to play the devil’s advocate; it seemed like he had already hired one when he used words such as “in toto” and “arguendo” in his written depositions. One who had dug into my personal life; there were Annexures attached at the end of the document with links to my published articles stating my personal views on sexual harassment and the need to speak out against it. I was told (I stopped counting after the first 3 mentions of it) that it was unfathomable that an outspoken feminist activist such as I would wait 3 months to file a complaint. Group pictures from office events were pulled up to show look how happy I was in the pictures taken in the months after the harassment, how was it even possible that I was harassed? I was told that the harasser’s career mattered so much to him and his family, so could any charges against him please be dropped? I was told that I should be punished for filing this “malicious” complaint.
My personal life, personal views, inane and irrelevant facts were accumulated, and used as a weapon against me to try and find an excuse for this guy who had gotten drunk and violated my consent.
I was told in 15 pages that I was lying.
**
III. You said I was filing a false case that has hurt you
Once the proceedings began, I used to cherish any little time I got off the case. And I dreaded every weekend when the next response would be slapped across my face. What would I be alleged for by him next? How many pages would I be able to get through without breaking down…this time?
I started avoiding public spaces within the office such as pantries and balconies for the fear of running into him. I began eating out more often during the lunch breaks, and spending an increasing amount of time eating lunch at my own desk. I pretty much stopped going to the usual Friday night parties at bars with colleagues. What if I ran into him? What if I was alone? What if he would be drunk again? What if my no would never mean no?
A lot of the people whom I had considered my friends till then, even my own (then) flatmates, turned a blind eye. Not only was I never asked how I was feeling, I was continually subjected to their interactions with him as they uploaded pictures with him on social media, and included him in conversations, as though nothing had happened. How can anyone be so insensitive? Maybe they did not seem to think this was serious. It felt serious. I moved out of my house.
Before I got another place of my own, I began staying at my parents’ apartment more frequently, and so I informed them about the ongoing case. But I never gave them any details of the harassment or the proceedings. I knew they’d worry about my well-being and safety, so I would just lock myself up in a room and pretend to be asleep so as to avoid answering their concerned questions. He made my own home an uncomfortable place to be.
I started going on runs every morning (never alone, always with my father) to channel my frustration into something healthy. At first, I used a timer, but soon I realized my personal best was just running faster than anyone who might be following me.
Looking back, I don’t know which was harder — the harassment or the legal proceedings that took place after. So many nights, I have caught myself wondering if any of this scrutiny and stress was worth it. If maybe I should have not complained at all. Would life have been easier that way?
You said this has hurt you? There is nothing in the world that would compel me to go through such a stressful trial, constantly being held up to scrutiny, out of any malicious intent, least of all against someone whose name I didn’t even know before the harassment. I was not lying. Something is wrong with a situation if I have to keep explaining this.
**
IV. You said that it was unfathomable for a vocal feminist activist to not have been strong enough to file a complaint sooner
I have fought every day for my beliefs. From articles, to documentaries, to poetry, to workshops, I have spoken up against sexual harassment my whole life. I fight every day for my beliefs, so someone, somewhere, listening to me, reading my words, might be saved. You tried to use my own strengths against me? You called me weak? Sometimes I think we only like the idea of a strong woman; we don’t accept her as a living, breathing being. You do not touch me or my beliefs.
My vocal activism does not imply that I will no longer feel intimidated by sexual harassment, nor does it mean that someone who does not respond in a specific way is a lesser victim of this horrendous crime. Activists are just as prone to human emotions such as shock, distress, and trauma as the next average victim of such disgusting acts. We live in the same society as everyone else does, and are shaped by the same fears that come along with reporting a wrong — how helpful will the process be, fear of backlash, professional and personal life impacts, etc. I don’t believe that being a feminist entitles anyone in the world to hold me to or demand from me a higher standard of accountability, either in principle, formal inquiry proceedings or before a court of law. How dare you?
**
V. You said that I should have shown clear signs of suffering
Yes, I did not cry openly in public. Yes, I did not act distraught and depressed around strangers. Yes, I did not think my life was over after it. How is any of this a bad thing? Why was this an allegation being made against me? Why have I had to defend rational, thought-out behaviour for months? You made me feel guilty for smiling in photos, guilty for feeling any degree of happiness.
I have caught myself wishing I had been weaker. Caught myself regretting behaving normally at the workplace. Caught myself wishing I was a perfect victim. Then maybe someone would believe me. Do you know how horrific a thought that is for someone in such a situation?
For much of our history, the “good” rape victim, the “credible” rape victim has been a dead one. You do not take a call on how a victim must conduct herself in the aftermath of harassment — should I smile in photos, should I keep writing about sexual harassment, should I be strong, should I check if the vodka bottle I drank from that night read “30% alcohol, 70% her fault”?
**
VI. “Was she also drinking that night?”
What did I expect after drinking? A hangover. I expected a hangover. Drinking isn’t a crime. Sexual harassment is. And if that explanation isn’t as nuanced as the average think piece, that’s because this whole incident proves that we, as a people, are not.
Alcohol is not an excuse. Is it a factor? Yes. But alcohol was not the one that pushed its hands up my shirt and found its way to my bra. When I tried to fight free and said stop, it was not alcohol that heard try harder, moving on to my pants. When I ran out of the dance floor, it was not alcohol that followed me out and began caressing my hair and my face. It was not alcohol that sent me online stalkerish messages, starting as early as the morning after the harassment. It was you. All of it, was you. Yes, I was also drinking that night. We were both drinking that night, the difference is I did not touch you inappropriately and stop you from running away. That’s the difference.
**
VII. “You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word Shatter.”
I learned more about myself through this process than anything else I have endured so far.
When I read the first response from him, when I read the pages after pages shaming me, finding ways to distort the facts, when I read that he had asked for me to be punished for complaining, I broke down. I walked up to my ex-boyfriend who worked in the same office, took him to a meeting room, and cried. Just cried. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. I didn’t want anyone to think I was weak. I didn’t want myself to think I was weak. I didn’t want him to hold any power over me. I realized I had developed what my therapist called a ‘victim identity’; a survival technique where you think it is “better to go ahead and just realize that life is a long fight with City Hall that you always lose, than to get your hopes up that you just might win every now and then”. I had given up.
I applied for a leave from office over the next few days because I felt absolutely crushed that I couldn’t get back on my feet. That I didn’t want to fight back anymore. How did I get to this point? I was always an angry, take-no-nonsense girl. My dad always told me I was stronger than what I suffer, and I always believed it. What happened?
In those few days, I learned something important about the human spirit — Our braveness does not make us valuable. Everyone who’s ever been sexually assaulted — in fact, everyone, period — has a right to be unapologetically weak. We have every right to shy away from our trauma; this is a natural response to enduring a painful experience. We have every right to exhibit what some may call “cowardly” behaviour. We’re valuable, whether we seem “brave” or not. We’re certainly valuable when we’re vocal and unafraid, but we’re also valuable in the private moments when we’re scared beyond measure, when we’re tired, and when we want to give up. Finding that value for myself, in a body that didn’t feel entirely mine anymore, was enough.
A week later, I filed a 30 page rebuttal to his allegations.
**
VIII. Justice within a sexual assault case regardless of the verdict will always remain an illusion
At first, when I was told to be prepared in case I didn’t win, I said, I can’t prepare for that. In my head, he was guilty from the start. No one can talk me out of the hurt he caused me. Worst of all, I was warned, because I didn’t have witnesses for all the events constituting the harassment that he would remain innocent until proven guilty. I was taking time to figure out in excruciating detail, how I could prove this, when I should have been healing. That helplessness was traumatizing.
But what happened next was something nobody had told me to prepare for, and no law would have deemed fit. While the investigating committee at my workplace found him guilty of sexual harassment — instead of offering me justice for what I had suffered- they asked him for an apology. An apology. Like, when I was caught talking to my friend in Maths class at school, my teacher asked me to issue an apology saying that I wouldn’t talk in class again. An apology is less of a “punishment” and more of an “acknowledgment” of the harassment.
A week after I received this judgment, I found out from a friend of mine, that he had witnessed what had happened that night, but not come forward. This was entirely new evidence that could have dramatically improved my testimony, so I filed an appeal. I appealed on the grounds of new evidence and humanity, but it was rejected on grounds of a technicality in the company policy.
It is the duty of the employer to provide a safe working space for all employees. If a private, confidential apology is all it takes to sexually harass someone, then that working space no longer makes me feel safe. Harassment can’t just be theoretically illegal, it has to be literally punishable. I would have even considered a lighter punishment, but in insulting me, calling my character into question, making me relive this entire experience by making me constantly defend myself, making me wait so long for justice, he has mocked my suffering. What has he done to demonstrate that he deserves to walk away free? This committee’s remedy is a mockery of the seriousness of his crime, an insult to me and all women. It gives the message that a stranger can violate you without your consent and he will receive no punishment for it. It is an indication of the kind of society that we are moving towards, what we are teaching young boys and girls. And I do not want to live in a society that teaches them sexual harassment can be dealt with a “sorry”. An apology is not retributive, an apology is not rehabilitative, an apology is not justice. If they call this justice, then the justice system has failed me.
After a point, I wasn’t sure who I was fighting against — my harasser or my company. I was running around what seemed to be bureaucratic circles, getting answers from nowhere. I was getting one-hour notice periods for depositions, or told that I could wait another week for the meeting with the lawyer to be rescheduled. I was getting caught up in statements like, “Since you waited so long to file the complaint, you could wait a bit longer for the final findings report.” After breaking down into tears during meetings with the committee, I began carrying a roll of tissues in my pocket before every deposition (along with the thick skin I began keeping tied around my waist like a cardigan, ready to throw on before meetings and trials), in case the meeting room did not have some.
I fought for an entire month to remedy this, calling for harsher punishment and sensitization counselling for him and all employees. They agreed to put this on his HR records, but these records would be kept confidential with the company and would never reach his future employers. They offered me counselling at the company’s expense so I could recover, but none for him so he could continue harassing women. The committee specifically imposed a confidentiality clause upon me (a non-disclosure agreement); I was disallowed from speaking about this experience while I was an employee at the company, even though the case had been closed, and he was no longer the “accused” to be held innocent until proven guilty under the law, he was already proven guilty.
I was advised by a legal counsel that a company can fire you without giving any notice or grounds. Do you know that your company can fire you for talking about getting sexually harassed by their employees even if the harassment was proven by law? Why don’t more of us know about this? Because we don’t want to believe it. Because it feels wrong. Take a moment to let that sink in. Imagine having to live with that feeling, to lie in bed and hope to fall asleep every night before you fall apart. It feels wrong. I have been living with that feeling for over half a year. My ‘winning’ felt a lot like losing. My experience of ‘justice seeking’ has been de-humanizing and demonstrated that my rights and experiences of violence are irrelevant in a capitalist world.
We have lowered our standards to survive in this world. I lost count of the number of times I was told to be satisfied with the verdict, at least they had found him guilty, at least I was getting an apology, most people would not even get that, I should consider myself lucky, really. I am expected to feel good because the legal system did what it is supposed to, at least in convicting him. If we are told to be grateful for receiving the bare minimum, I am incredibly concerned. Accepting things simply as they are because “it could be worse” is the antithesis of progress.
**
IX. If there is a God, (s)he will have to beg my forgiveness
I knew from the start that nothing the law could ever do to you would make this better. But this made it worse. There were times I did not want to be touched. There were times I wanted to be touched just so I could erase your touch from my skin. My life has been on hold for over a year, months of anger, uncertainty, depression, and sleep-deprivation. In witness testimonies, I had to endure questions about myself such as, “Do you think she is a credible person?” Every night, these questions would come back and haunt me. The only times I felt at peace was when my (then) boyfriend would come to town — he’d hold me in his arms and put me to sleep every night. Nothing can give me back the sleepless nights I endured.
When I read about rape cases and my heart shatters into a thousand pieces; when I break down sobbing uncontrollably if I’m watching a movie and a woman is harmed; when I can’t drink around strangers anymore; when I don’t feel safe at even friends’ houses anymore, and insist on returning home early instead of staying the night; when my best friend has become my pepper spray; when my sister calls asking me for the procedure to complain against a guy she was harassed by and instead of taking her through the process, I say I don’t know if it’s worth it, then I do not forgive you. You can get your lawyer to write meaningless apologies on your behalf, but I do not forgive you. And I do not forgive this company for it.
This year, the annual office party that would commemorate one year of my suffering took place at a resort without alcohol, and ended before midnight. That’s not how you avoid sexual harassment. You avoid sexual harassment by educating your employees. It’s been a year. I think they still don’t get it. That could change, but I’m not holding my breath.
One day towards the end of the case’s closure, on a Thursday morning, as I walked into the office at 1 PM (I was working a UK shift), I saw notice boards put up in every room of the company. They must have put them up in the morning I thought, as I walked towards one of them wondering what they were for. Nothing I could have ever done would have prepared me for this. There, behind a shiny glass case, was our company’s Anti-Harassment Policy listed out in detail. I broke down in the corridor and began crying. Among the many things I had fought for during this case, I had fought every day for this. Every time I had given up on this case, told myself that nothing was worth this, that maybe I should just drop the proceedings, be denied of justice — this moment made that struggle somewhat worth it.
It is not enough for a policy to exist in theory, it needs to be practically accessible. There is unquestionable power in being reminded of your rights every day, a power that one may seldom take notice of, but that nobody can take away from you. Until you’ve been in the ignorant dark, you will never realize how powerful it is to be in the known. The people in my office will not understand this privilege, to be reminded every day when they walk in through those doors, that there is help if they were to ever need it. Without any of you even knowing it, I have fought for you, every day. And there it was, symbolising that fight, embodying the world’s ability to make a difference, shining behind its glass frame, undeniably there, and untouchable.
But with time, the more I stood in front of those notice boards, staring at their glass faintly reflecting me in its sheen, the less they reminded me of a clean reflection that can turn around and walk away anytime it wanted. Soon, it felt like the boards began to turn on me, closing in on me from every side, every wall. Even as I was struggling to put this experience behind me, these boards, wherever I looked, wouldn’t let me forget for even a brief while. I felt caged within my own escape.
I knew I had to quit. But quitting a job is not a choice for everyone. It wasn’t for me in the past one year.
Towards the end of last year, I handed over my resignation. I want to take a moment here to recognize my privilege in being having able to do so. Quitting may not be for “losers”, but it certainly is only for the privileged. Quitting a well-paying, stable job means that you had such a job to begin with, it means that you could afford a decent education which could land you such a job, and it means that you have a financial safety net. For me, this meant losing a few things — my financial independence, a hefty signing bonus, and the rented apartment I lived in (I couldn’t afford rent and bills without a job). It meant moving in with my parents, cutting my investments, diving into my savings, and of course — unemployment.
Now? It hasn’t gotten better, but I think I’ve gotten better. I’ve been attending weekly counselling sessions that have helped me deal with it. I now do part-time research for a feminist think-tank, and I will shortly begin a Masters in Gender Studies. I plan to follow this up with a PhD to be a professor because our education system is failing somewhere if it is producing the men that have harassed me, the lawyers that have defended them, and corporate leaders who have let them get away.
**
X. You can’t write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen
At the start of 2017, I put up a Facebook post about my new year’s resolution (which was to take back agency) in which I briefly said that I was sexually harassed at my workplace before I quit it. While I received a lot of empathy in response, I also received a lot of triggers sans trigger warnings. The first question many well-wishing colleagues and friends asked was, “Who did it?”. When I explained to one acquaintance that I did not wish to speak about it, I was told that something is “wrong” with me. “Seriously, think about it!”, one said; like I have the privilege of not thinking about it, like I have not been up all night, every night thinking about it. My experience of harassment and guesses about the identity of my harasser became the subject of WhatsApp group discussions. When I refused to reveal details, other common friends were turned to — “Did she tell you?”. It felt like I had reported a thrilling horror story; I was turned into a dehumanized spectacle, a piece of gossip for tea breaks. Ignorance is not bliss, it’s a privilege. What I want most nowadays is desperately for someone to understand that. Perhaps one does not want to be liked as much as understood.
I spent a good part of last year performing spoken word poetry, where I’d word my experiences of violence through humorous rhymes so people would listen. I believed that making it easier on everyone is the best way to tell our stories because no one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about her pain in a way which suggests that it may not end. But I haven’t performed since the proceedings ended; I don’t have this kind of poetry in me anymore. There is nothing poetic about the way this experience has tried to drown me, smother me, and devour me whole. (Though there is something beautiful to be said of the ways I have survived it). I don’t anymore have the strength to keep covering up the wreckage by laughing and rhyming in the face of trauma, all in the hope that someone will finally notice that this is all not very funny. Are you noticing?
Words and what we do with them are important that way. To an extent, we think in words, don’t we? When we say “blue”, we think of the sky, the seas. But blue was the last color to have appeared in most ancient languages (in “The Odyssey”, Homer describes a “wine-dark sea”). There is enough evidence to back the finding that until the word was introduced in some ancient languages, while people saw the color, they could not differentiate it from other colors that they already had words for. Similarly, in his novel 1984, George Orwell describes a totalitarian world where loyalty to the empire is achieved by destroying all heretic words and thereby narrowing the range of thought; if there were no words to express heresy, how could you think it, least of all commit it?
All of this leads me to wonder, can we really understand something if we don’t have words for it? Insofar as thought is dependent on words, non-disclosure agreements not only censor the expression of our experiences, they also cut out our (and others’) ability to understand those experiences. If I am not allowed to put words to what happened to me, did it still happen to me? Naming what is happening to us, telling the truth about it — as ugly and uncomfortable as it can be — means that we want it to be understood, we want it to change. That is why I wrote this.
You steal my voice no more.
