Grapple patronising, patriocratic spaces

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for three reasons. One, for trying to hastily organise U-15 and U-20 national championships in UP's Gonda district before the year-end. Two, WFI still operates out of premises where several wrestlers, according to their complaints, were allegedly sexually harassed.

Third, the new WFI body was still controlled by former office bearers. While the order doesn't name former WFI president and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment (the case is sub judice), Gonda is his backyard and the new WFI president, Sanjay Singh, his 'man'.

While due diligence is non-negotiable, and using technicalities to suspend an organisation is kosher, the signalling has been awful. It seems like an afterthought, a damage-control exercise to offset bad handling of the case from January, when national sportspersons began their protests against Singh.

One is left to wonder how many young women have been dissuaded from taking up wrestling as a profession since because of official waffling.

The sports arena is hardly alone when it comes to women facing gender-based and sexual harassment. In other professional spaces, too, inept or reluctant handling of sexual harassment cases often leads to women dropping out of the workforce. Not to mention being patronised and worse.

This includes women in white-collar jobs and mid-management levels. The WFI case is also a prime example of why laws like the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) (POSH) Act 2013 will never be enough without unbiased processes. While any accused must be deemed innocent before proven guilty, the impression that the die is already loaded against complainants exists in far