#Metoo Is the Single Most Important Political Movement: Shobhaa De

Repeat offenders are being rehabilitated. Society accepts them as if nothing happened.

Shobhaa De, Author and Columnist

Columnist Shobhaa De, who is known for her sharp observations on politics and the society called #MeToo the single most important political movement in the world. “I call it a political movement because you cannot divorce politics from women and the inequalities they have endured for so many centuries,” she said, at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

However, there seems to be a great deal of confusion around rehabilitation of offenders, De said. “People simply don’t know the way forward.

‘#Me Too Is an Endurance Test For Women’

Other women start to doubt them, other women refuse to stand by them. Women against women, accusing victims of doing it for publicity, for their fifteen seconds of glory.

Shobaa De, Author, Columnist

While #MeToo has been hailed as a watershed moment in India’s history, De called it an endurance test for women, pointing at men forming old boys’ clubs to cover each other’s backs. “If they are not resolutely at it, there is going to be a time when sheer exhaustion will make a woman say, do I really want to go ahead with this?” De said.

The power structure which is in favour of men, coupled with their contacts in influential places, has further intimidated and terrorised women, De said.

Talking about how the movement has not developed with the same kind of seriousness and momentum as expected.

“But that does not mean the movement itself is going to vanish. It’s here to stay,” De said.

From her comments on the women’s cricket team to the battle between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, De, who has walked into a volley of trolls with her feisty remarks, said, she stood by every single article written in her life. “I pay zero attention to trolls. It must frustrate them a lot because I never respond. But, I stand by my words,” she said.