Over the past few days, several versions of what happened at Tehelka's intellectual ThinkFest in Goa have come out in public. The initial letters written by the magazine's founding editor Tarun Tejpal to his alleged victim of sexual assault were contrite in their tone and text. But as the story played out in the media over a week, Tejpal was seen changing his defence and now claims that it was nothing more than 'drunken banter' between two consensual adults.
Tejpal has said, "I'm shocked to learn that a false complaint was sought to be projected as an incident of alleged harassment. The encounter was only light hearted banter which led to a moment of privacy between two individuals. Our meeting lasted a few seconds and no intimate moment was shared between us."
Tejpal has said that "the woman continued to party" even after the incident, implying that she could not have been traumatized enough.
Here are some openly feminist pointers to men who deal with women daily at home, workplaces and socially:
1. A woman can decide to take time to internalize and process an incident. The outward expression isn't proof of internal trauma
2. A woman can choose to file a complaint at any time she deems fit - even a month after the incident if she so chooses, it doesn't mean she is looking to make hay
3. Even if it started as a consensual affair, a woman can say 'no' at any time. 'No' means 'no'. The sooner men understand that the better it is for all parties concerned
4. A woman can have multiple sexual partners. What she chooses to do in her own time isn't your concern. It doesn't reflect on her abilities as a professional. You cannot take the moral high ground as defence against a charge of sexual assault
5. A woman's clothes aren't testimony to her character
6. Even in a feminist world, you have to be courteous to women. The tired cliche that 'if you think you are equal to us, you bloody well fight for that last seat on the tube' doesn't work for me. Women value generosity in a man
7. Often you are physically, mentally and emotionally the only crutch a woman has - as her brother, husband, lover, friend, father and colleague - to bear her cross. Don't exploit that as leverage for bargaining for her freedom and choices she makes
8. You wouldn't like to be told how to live your life. Don't tell her how to live hers
9. Her freedom - to wear what she wants, to go where she wants, to choose her friends - isn't yours to bestow. Don't play her God in your micro-cosmos
10. Nothing works better than a well worded apology when you are wrong. You don't know what a woman is willing to forgive if you only said sorry.
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