Gender and the Academia

-K. Suneetha Rani

Gender, like many other important and practical issues, is kept out of serious debate by the academic world. Disciplines, other than those that focus on gender issues specifically, either ignore or condemn the gender factor in their deliberation and teaching. It is worth thinking about this absence of, or more strongly, contempt for, gender in academia.
Thanks to the Supreme Court of India and the University Grants Commission, educational and other institutions are compelled to have an anti-harassment mechanism in place. However, implementation of this policy, constitution and functioning of such mechanisms pose major challenges. There are Universities where male vice chancellors head anti-sexual harassment bodies, despite strict guidelines about women chairs for such committees. There are Universities where these mechanisms are non-functional. There are Universities that have made the head of centre for women’s studies, warden of the women’s hostel and chairperson of the anti-sexual harassment committee synonymous terms with one functionary. There are Universities where anti-sexual harassment bodies have been functioning as mere complaint committees. In all the above instances, one can notice the interference of authority, biased notions about women’s identities and the silencing of raised voices.
Functioning of Committees Against Sexual Harassment (CASH) is beset with problems as they face a number of impediments, both ideological and administrative. The first challenge CASH faces is its status in the University. CASH does not have the visibility and familiarity of other university bodies because its objectives and ideals are unfamiliar, they are seen as insignificant or as inapplicable.
Since CASH is looked upon as a complaints and punishments committee, it is suspected, feared and held at a distance by many. Others make fun of it because it is concerned with sex and the domain of the sexual. It is often considered a stigmatised space prohibited for “decent” people. Thus, one has to be wary of the possibility of CASH turning into a police station or a court, not only because of the bureaucratic delay in solving the problems, but also because of implicit stigma it carries.
Its status as part of the university administration also automatically associates CASH with authority. Although such a committee has function autonomously under no administrative pressure and no influence, its position in the university distances it from the campus community. There is suspicion among the students against the committee constituted of teachers and non-teaching staff, who for them, represent university authority. They fear that they will take the side of the group they belong to. Similarly, the presence of students creates certain tension among the teaching and non-teaching representatives who fear that student representatives might pressurise or influence the committee and its decisions. Thus there is a constant questioning of the identities and the ideologies members represent. This distrust, suspicion, discomfort and reticence are because CASH focuses on gender issues only when there is a complaint and only when there is a need for trial and punishment. Here, gender is not an introspective, educative and consciousness-raising issue but is one that is debated only in a crisis.
CASH faces double scrutiny: on the one hand, if it responds to complaints and acts, there is a protest that CASH is overreacting and victimising the accused. Suddenly people become sensitive to the language and tone CASH uses towards them, and allege that CASH is becoming tyrannical.  On the other hand, if CASH takes time to ponder over the complaint before beginning the procedure, there are complaints about its non-functioning. While both allegations may be correct in different contexts, both haste and delay have their advantages and disadvantages based on the specific issue. However if CASH faces these reactions every time it receives a complaint how does it function? This pushes CASH into a counterproductive defensive position.

Quite often, institutionally powerful parties step into the inquiry and begin directing CASH. In such situations, the University administration could turn hostile as well because it does not want any disturbances on campus due to the action taken by CASH. How would change set in if there is no disturbance of the status quo? Thus, CASH is both owned and disowned by the University administration.  The lack of money, space, infrastructure and staff for such a complex and continually alert mechanism add to the problem. There is also a lack of coordination between the administrative departments and an ambiguity over the provisions related to CASH.
There are apprehensions that complaints might increase with the presence of CASH, and that false complaints might victimise innocent men. While men feel targeted by gender divisions, women feel embarrassed by open discussion about sexual harassment1.  Suppression of information, delayed decisions and hostile treatment towards the complainants by CASH would also affect its credibility.
Campuses bring together various cultures, religions, regions, castes, languages, beliefs, identities and lifestyles. While such interactions can be enriching and learning experiences, they can also become sites of shock and conflict. If one carefully observes the complaints that are lodged with CASH, one notices a pattern in most of them: sexual relationships turning into harassment. The reasons could be cultural and other kinds of diversities that affect understanding between people. Women who step out of smothering isolation and deprivation feel suffocated in a relationship when the man they have accepted as a companion starts controlling their mind, body and life. This control is no different from other kinds of control that a woman is subjected to and for her it is like moving from one regime of control to another.  Abuse results from both this strain and from men’s power leading to oppression and exploitation of women.
Any discussion related to gender is considered unnecessary, excessive and as drawing unnecessary attention. In addition, educational institutions are seen as purely academic and the focus is seen to be exclusively on education. CASH activities are considered to be non-academic, distracting and trivial. In one university an attempt made by CASH to organise a self-defence demonstration programme for girl students was thinly attended. Moreover, teachers seemed unhappy about such a session because it was not academic work and that time given to such programmes would be a waste. This raises crucial questions: what should universities teach? Why does university teaching cause such isolated, disempowered and restricted identities for students?
Thus, the profile of CASH as merely a complaints committee has to change.  It has to become a committee that thinks about pro-active initiatives to make the campus harassment free. Emphasis should be more on this part of the programme. Having gender sensitization programmes, conducting discussions, counseling sessions, mentoring groups, support systems and introspective deliberations could become a constructive part of such initiatives.
In the given general environment in which CASH functions, one can imagine the condition of disciplines that teach and research gender. Their status, respect, credibility are all questioned constantly. However, it is precisely with the help of such disciplines that discrimination towards gender and gender related discussions has a chance of being challenged.   Some thoughts about these directions follow:
While gender awareness has to be discussed as a basic issue in specific courses, there is every need to integrate gender into disciplines through their curriculum. This gender approach should not be one that sees women as helpless, victimized, suffering, deserving and waiting for protection from men. Rather it should try to liberate a healthy, positive and mature interaction. Specifically, segregation on the basis of gender will not eliminate sexual harassment. Rather it is the realisation that all genders should be treated with dignity that will lay the foundation for a harassment-free atmosphere in educational institutions or for that matter anywhere, including in society as a whole.
There are several discourses that focus on decolonising the classroom/pedagogy of the colonialist tendencies towards race, caste, class, language, and region. There are discourses on teaching different disciplines in a democratic and liberating manner. However, not much has been discussed as to how to decolonize classrooms and students with respect to gender.  Making the disciplines gender sensitive and aware of their hierarchical nature will not only help in establishing a better campus atmosphere but will also help the disciplines liberate themselves from the implicit burdens of masculine hierarchies and patriarchal hegemonies.

K. Suneetha Rani teaches at the University of Hyderabad

Notes:
1. One non-teaching staff member of a University suggested that the term sexual harassment on CASH posters and circulars does not look decent.