Man complains to waitress about roaches, gets slapped and charged with sexual harassment

On 25 March 2017, a video clip went viral in India. The video was taken inside a Cafe Coffee Day outlet in Jaipur. Cafe Coffee Day is a large chain of cafes in India. The video shows an ice cream freezer and a male voice could be heard saying that the freezer contains cockroaches and the staff had placed menus on the glass-top to hide it. Then the camera points at a female staffer who is also seen filming with a phone. The male voice says that this particular staff member had shouted at him and told him to stop complaining. At this point, the female staffer rushes towards the camera and the resounding sound of a slap is heard. She could be heard saying, “Why did you take my picture?”

The video was shared and reshared several times on the social media. People complained about the overpriced beverages served at Cafe Coffee Day and their unhygienic cafes. Several vowed that they would boycott the company. Soon mainstream media picked up the story. After the issue was forced into the spotlight, the company responded with the following statement:

“This incident has been brought to our notice and is currently under thorough investigation. The lady team member referred here hails from rural Orissa and is part of the programme run by NGO Gram Tarang to uplift weaker sections of society and girl child specially. She underwent rigorous training on joining us to become a team member and was posted in Jaipur. As per lady team member, she had objected to her video being taken by the customer and her repeated requests were also not heard, thus invading her privacy. Till the time thorough investigation is being done, lady team member has been kept off duty.”

The statement is quite sly because of two reasons. First the company tries to shift the focus from how unhygienic its outlets are to how its social welfare programmes are benefiting the society. Then instead of apologizing of the aggrieved customer, they accuse him of violating the waitress’s privacy. Given the current public sensitivity towards crimes against women in India, this is a very clever attempt to put the ball in their court.

Soon afterwards it was reported that the woman had filed a sexual harassment complaint against the man. In the complaint, she claimed that the man and his friend had threatened to grope her and called her a bitch and a slut. Now the social media has split on the issue whether the woman was actually sexual harassed or not. The fact that there were roaches in the fridge and a man was assaulted has almost been forgotten. The man who is the victim in this case has now tweeted that companies’ lawyers are bullying him so that he would withdraw the cases. He has also tweeted to the Prime Minister’s Office’s Twitter handle requesting intervention in this case of blatant misuse of sexual harassment laws.

Feminists are mad that Casey Affleck won an Oscar

Recently, actor Casey Affleck was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. Soon after the announcement, feminists on Twitter had an collective outburst because Affleck had been accused by two coworkers for sexual harassment in 2010.

Most feminists expressing their outrage either did not know or choose to ignore the fact that the charges against Affleck were never proven and both accusers had accepted the out of court settlements.

One of the feminists tweeted, “Casey Affleck won Best Actor. Donald Trump is president. Tell me again how sexual assault charges can “ruin” a man’s career. 😒” Thus refusing to acknowledge millions of men worldwide who have had their lives ruined due to false accusations.

The Vogue Australia reported that actress Brie Larson who was on stage while the award was presented did not applaud, apparently because she is an advocate for sexual assault survivors and won her own Oscar for the portrayal of a sexual assault victim in the film Room. Constance Grady writing for the Vox detailed the accusations that had been brought against Affleck and claimed that “hurting women often does not hurt men’s careers — not if they’re rich enough and white enough.” She also mentioned that actor Nate Parker’s career had ended after an old rape accusation resurfaced but added that should count as “Nate Parker is black.”

Why very few people want to be called feminist anyone

Is Tanmay Bhat right about feminism? Did Lisa Haydon really misinterpret feminism? Or has Feminism gone from a movement for women’s equality to a misandrist and self-serving cult?

In March 2015, Shyama Krishna Kumar in an a column for the The New Indian Express argued, “Every day, women on the Internet and in the real world are called out for being feminists — labelled as bra-burning, man-hating liberals; when the opposite is true. Feminism is not an attack on men, but an embracing of the fact that all humans are equal, whether they are men, women, transgender or otherwise.” She was advocating the introduction of feminist teaching in Indian schools.

Recently in an interview with the The Times of India published on 22 May 2016, actress Lisa Haydon rejected the label of feminism. She said, “I don’t like the word feminist. I don’t think women trying to be men is feminism. I also don’t believe in being outspoken for the sake of it, or just to prove a point. Feminism is just an overused term and people make too much noise about it for no reason. Women have been given these bodies to produce children, and the spirit and tenderness to take care of people around us. It’s fine to be an outspoken and working woman. I don’t want to be a man. One day I look forward to making dinner for my husband and children. I don’t want to be a career feminist.”

Her personal choice to not be a feminist was highly criticised on the social media. Even several left-leaning newspaper and blogs condemned her statements. Writing for the DNA India, Nirmalaya Dutta proclaimed that, “Dear Lisa Haydon, if you believe in gender equality then you are a feminist“. On Miss Malini, a celebrity gossip blog, Priyam Saha wrote, “Lisa Haydon’s take on feminism is everything that’s wrong with the world“. Urmi Bhattacheryya writing for The Quint said, “Sorry Lisa Haydon, but you know nothing about feminism.”

Around the same time, Tanmay Bhat, a Youtube comedian turned TV star, made a rant about feminism on SnapChat. In it he ptoclaimed, “If you believe men and women should have equal rights, that makes you a feminist. That’s it. There’s nothing else.” For his opinion, he got lots of pats on the head.  On the Firstpost, Swetha Ramakrishnan wrote, “Lisa Haydon should take tips from Tanmay Bhat on how not to misinterpret feminism“.

I could find only a few bloggers siding with Lisa Haydon. On The Frustrated India, there is Kalpojyoti Kashyap with his article “Why Lisa Haydon makes more sense than all feminists combined?” A journalist for The Times of India, Piyali Prakash wrote in a column, “Why Tanmay Bhat got feminism wrong“. She argued that she uses various perks offered to women like metro coaches reserved specially for women, thus she is “conveniently sexist”.
So, she asked Tanmay Bhat not to brand her as a feminist without her consent. The article brought outraged women to the comments calling her idiot and stupid.

 

Despite for all their arguments, increasingly a lot of people worldwide are avoiding the label of feminism. In 2014, the hashtag #WomenAgainstFeminist went viral in US. It was started by women who said that they believe in true egalitarianism, and also supported men’s issues. Some of them believed that feminism censors dissenting views. More recently in January 2016, it was reported that according to a survey in UK, only 7% of the people surveyed called themselves feminists, but 86% of the men and 74% of the women supported gender equality. The survey was done by The Fawcett Society, a feminist charity, which choose to published report under the title of “We are a nation of ‘hidden feminists’“, thus forcing the label of feminism on the very people who do not want it.

Frequently, when faced with criticism of modern feminism, many feminists pull the dictionary argument. In the case of Lisa Haydon, Quartz India wrote, “Perhaps it would help if these celebrities look up the meaning of the word “feminism” before denouncing it.” I am bemused that a movement with millions of proponents and a three hundred year history is reduced to a narrow definition of a single sentence.

Over the years, the feminist movement which can be traced to the Suffragette have taken many forms. However in recent years, it has been taking a extreme form. The symptoms of this mutation can be seen among feminists who advocate putting all men in concentration camps and focus on fatuous and first-world issues like gender roles of video game characters and manspreading instead of real issues which still affects several women worldwide. No wonder more and more people now avoid the label of feminist.