Battle Of The Sexes

How #MeToo made it to the women’s movement on campus and outside, changing the script and the reach of long, old battles

- Pragya Singh

First, a real incident, with a Rashomon-like manysidedness. This is one side, the male side, as retold by a professor at a university in Delhi in the centre of it. Not known to hold back his words, he recently asked a woman student not to smoke marijuana—or make out, depending on the version—on campus. The conversation was clumsy from the word go, he admits. He was admonitory in his tone, she got up on her feet and danced a little mocking jig then and there. He said he would not hesitate to slap her. Then, in turn, the student threatened to slap him... with charges of sexual harassment. Nothing got out. (Not even the girl’s version.) A call to “her dad” smoothed out things, but he’s left with an unsettled feeling. “There exists here the difference between story and myth—one is scientific, factual, verifiable. The other is imaginary.”