Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 07 May 2018 | Page 42

T H E L IST
OPI NI ON
‘mistakes’. Those who support
naming and shaming clearly want
this status quo changed, and
changed by whatever means
necessary, to also misuse a revo-
lutionary allusion slightly. The
clearly imperfect method of
naming and shaming challenges
the privileges that self-identified
‘radical’ straight male intellectu-
als have arrogated unto them-
selves in the smug belief that they
are a cut above other men
because, in Visvanathan’s terms,
‘we were inventing a way of life.’ It
is exactly this way of life, a set of
sanctioned behaviours and cul-
tural privileges which the LoSHA
puts up for discussion; not bec­
ause joyless feminists can’t grasp
ineffable beauty and transcend-
ent longing, but because ‘toler-
ance’, ‘intimacy’ and ‘humour’
often become alibis for the exp­
loitation of power differentials in
ways that inevitably advantage
heterosexual men. Such exploita-
tion also often takes place in private and ‘evidence’ is
impossible to come by. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
A
T the same time, as noted feminist and legal
scholar, Ratna Kapur, pointed out to me, it is
important—and those who have generally sup-
ported the LoSHA must reflect on this—to not
conflate different categories: sexual violence, sexual
harassment, sexism and sexual speech are all very
different things requiring different responses. The
supporters of LoSHA must reflect on questions of
degree and difference as well as the potential abuse
of such lists especially by the politically hostile.
The LoSHA is better seen as an experiment, warts
and all, in creating mechanisms of challenge and
opposition to dominant sexual cultures. Alongside
strengthening mechanisms of due process, it is time
to have a brutally honest conversation about the
kinds of behaviours that become ‘normative’ and
form the seedbed of what is known as ‘rape cul-
ture’—the entitlement of straight men at all times to
women’s minds and bodies. This is a culture where
even consent—which Visvanathan has elsewhere
claimed is ‘fetishised’—is at times given under
pressure or duress. Every single woman I know has
exp­erienced these things in academia: pestering,
cajoling, inappropriate language and unwanted
touching, predatory pursuit, molestation that can’t
really be ‘proved’ as it takes place privately or
invi­sibly, and so on.
Due process is a vital instrument but it cannot
42 OUTLOOK 7 May 2018
At the
same time,
LoSHA’s
supporters
must
reflect
on the
potential
for such
lists to be
abused.
a ­ ccount for the subtleties of the exercise of power.
One young woman said to me in the wake of Raya’s
publication of the LoSHA that it made her feel guilty
for not speaking up herself because she and others
recognised the ‘truth’ of the list before thinking
about its politics. When I first glanced at the LoSHA,
I instantly recognised three names there from per-
sonal experience. It is clear that this generation—
who don’t need Visvanathan to explain feminism to
them as he likes to do—is a lot less willing to put up
with low-grade exploitation and predatory behav-
iour masquerading as radical forms of love and
friendship. They are not actually questioning ‘reci-
procity’ but precisely the opposite: the absence of
the possibility of reciprocity in situations marked by
huge power differentials. A female undergraduate
cannot really experience a ‘reciprocal’ relationship
with a male teacher, especially where there is also a
big age difference—even consensual relations in
those situations are very unlikely to be genuinely
‘reciprocal’, a situation which requires, at the very
least, a nominal equality. Visvanathan feels that
there is a ‘one-sidedness’ to the ‘pain’ expressed by
his women students because it doesn’t take men’s
feelings into account; imagine, then, how much
more one-sided should a situation of sexual engage-
ment be where the power differentials are huge.
Enough with the self-pity and finger-wagging: we
need radical cultural change alongside due process.
As the new movement declares: time’s really up! O
(The writer teaches at Cambridge University)