Sometimes, it is evident that most media people write irresponsibly. There is big news now in print and electronic media that former journalist and present Union Minister MJ Akbar has employed a whopping 97 lawyers to fight against an accuser woman active on the ‘MeToo' whirlwind which has turned out to be much more fierce than the Cyclone ‘Titli’ which blew over parts of Odisha just a week ago. The fact is Akbar has employed only two of the 97 lawyers at work in the law firm engaged to fight for him.

The MeToo' campaign is a recently-witnessed phenomenon in India although it had started in 2006  by one Tarana Burke, a social activist and community organiser in the United States.

She had begun using the phrase "MeToo" on the popular 'Myspace' social network to promote "empowerment through empathy" among women who have experienced sexual abuse, particularly within underprivileged communities especially after a 13-year-old girl confided to her that she had been sexually assaulted. She made a documentary film titled ‘MeToo' then and the expression became madly popular.

 Later in October 2017, Alyssa Milano, an American actress, liberal activist and former singer encouraged using the phrase as a hashtag to help reveal the extent of problems with sexual harassment and assault by showing how many people have experienced these events themselves.

On October 15, 2017, shortly after The New York Times and the New Yorker published their initial investigations into the allegations of monstrous behaviour by Harvey Weinstein, the actor Alyssa Milano sent out a Tweet: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” That very suggestion sparked 67,000 replies and expanded the movement instantly.

And the expansion, in turn, subjected #MeToo to the familiar physics of American political entropy.

The movement Burke had created about the survivors of sexual violence soon stretched far beyond sexual harassment and assault in purview: complicities, and celebrities, and pay disparities, and power structures, and whisper networks, and affirmative consent, and the myriad ways American culture has dreamed up to tell the marginalised that their rightful place remains in the margins. Soon, millions of people started using the phrase across the globe and the purpose changed and expanded to mean different things to different people today. Tarana, however, is keen to return to the original, and specific, purpose of ‘serving as a counter to sexual violence'.

Tarana Burke says emphatically that the seismic power of women is immeasurable. A 2017 poll by the ABC News and The Washington Post also found that 54% of American women report receiving "unwanted and inappropriate" sexual advances with 95% saying that such behaviour usually goes unpunished. Others state that #MeToo underscores the need for men to intervene when they witness demeaning behaviour.

Burke says sexual violence is usually caused by someone the woman knows; so, people should be educated from a young age they have the right to say ‘no' to sexual contact from any person, even after repeat solicitations from an authority or spouse and to report predatory behavior immediately.

Burke says the current purpose of the movement is to give people the resources to have access to healing and advocates for changes to laws and policies, highlighting goals such as processing all untested rape kits, re-examining local school policies, improving the vetting of teachers, and updating sexual harassment policies. She has called for all child right education professionals to be fingerprinted and subjected to a background check before being cleared to start work.

Burke supports the #MeToo Bill in the US Congress which would remove the requirement that staffers of the federal government go through months of "cooling off" before being allowed to file a complaint against a Congressperson.

A more aggressive Milano states a priority for #MeToo is changing the laws surrounding sexual harassment and assault, for example, instituting protocols that give sufferers in all industries the ability to file complaints without retaliation. She supports legislation making it difficult for publicly traded companies to hide cover-up money from their stockholders and would like to make it illegal for employers to require new workers sign non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment.

 ‘MeToo' has triggered some policy-based changes too in the domains of managerial oversight; creating clear internal reporting mechanisms; more effective and proactive disciplinary measures; and creating a culture that encourages employees to be open about serious problems.

In France, a person who makes a sexual harassment complaint at work is reprimanded or fired 40% of the time while the accused person is typically not investigated or punished. In the US, a 2016 report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission states that although 25–85% of women say they experience sexual harassment at work, few ever report the incidents, most commonly due to fear of reprisal. There is evidence that in Japan, as few as 4% of rape victims report the crime, and the charges are dropped about half the time.

A spreadsheet from the United Kingdom called "High Libido MPs" and dubbed "the spreadsheet of shame" was created by a group of male and female parliamentary researchers and contained a list of allegations against nearly 40 Conservative MPs.

It is also rumoured that party whips maintain a "black book" that contains allegations against several lawmakers that can be used for blackmail. When it is claimed a well-known person's sexual misconduct was an "open secret", these lists are often the source. In the wake of #MeToo, several private whisper network lists have been leaked to the public.

In India, a student gave her friends a list containing names of professors and academics in the Indian university system to be avoided.

The list went viral after it was posted on social media. In response to criticism in the media, the authors defended themselves saying they were only trying to warn their friends, had confirmed every case, and several victims from the list were poor students who had already been punished or ignored when trying to come forward.

The main problem with trying to protect more potential victims by publishing whisper networks is determining the best mechanism to verify allegations in a way that is fair to all parties.

Some suggestions have included strengthening labour unions in vulnerable industries so workers can report harassment directly to the union instead of to an employer. Another suggestion is to maintain industry hotlines which have the power to trigger third-party investigations.

Interestingly, it has been noted that 1 in 6 men have experienced sexual abuse of some sort during their lives and often feel unable to talk about it. Tarana Burke and others have asked men to call out bad behaviour when they see it or just spend time quietly listening.

Some men have expressed the desire to keep a greater distance from women since #MeToo went viral because they do not fully understand what actions might be considered inappropriate.

For the first few months after #MeToo started trending, many men expressed difficulty in participating in the conversation due to fear of negative consequences.

So, it seems in India people including those in media are more interested in sensation than the primary objectives of the movement started by Burke in 2006.

They find it easy to become prominent by pulling in celebrities and dignitaries the moment their names crop up on the wrong foot.

Akbar, celebrated artist Jatin Das or a big number of male cine stars may have erred in conduct, but the girls young or not so young are only engaging in shameful acts of shaming males only to provoke people to lose trust in the male species, believably to gain publicity apart from settling old scores.

Yes, it’s true they have gained courage to speak up when a safe mechanism came in handy, but some of the self-proclaimed preys might find it extremely difficult to bring the predators to book for lack of acceptable evidence.

All the same, the ‘Metoo’ campaign is certain to make the ‘womankind' a lot safer amid predators masquerading as saints, from hence.

(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)