A litmus test for gender justice in higher education

Regrettably, in practice, the procedures invoked by the mandated complaints committees tended to foreground retributive rather than restorative approaches. In 2015, UGC notified the Sexual Harassment of Women Employees and Students in HEIs Regulations; in 2016, it amended definitions of ragging to include abuse on grounds of gender and sexual orientation; in 2017, the Sensitisation Prevention and Redressal of Sexual Harassment policy referred to HEIs also as workplaces; in 2018, NAAC revised its assessments and accreditation guidelines to include gender knowledge into quality assurance; in 2019, the department of science and technology announced a plan to conduct gender audits at HEIs along the lines of Athena Swan, UK; in 2020, the DST also launched Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions as a pilot project to promote gender equity in STEM fields; in 2020, UGC’s SAKSHAM portal to build awareness on initiatives of support and redress mechanisms for women went live. Stories abound on brilliant women scientists over the world denied their due or simply invisibilised — whether of Rosalind Franklin whose singular contributions to the discovery of the DNA were overlooked for the Nobel, or, much earlier, Anne Buckley in the early 19th century having to masquerade as the male military surgeon James Miranda Barry, or, closer home, the struggles of Kamala Sohonie, the first Indian woman biochemist to receive a PhD in a scientific discipline, who overcame the objections of Nobel laureate CV Raman, to gain admission to a research programme at the prestigious IISc Bangalore. The SAKSHAM report highlighted the prevalence of several retrogressive practices such as discriminatory evaluation processes as a means to “domesticate” and deter students, especially women and sexual minorities from raising their voices against gender-based discrimination; differential timings for access to libraries, labs, and student hostels; imposition of dress codes, infantilising women students and restricting their mobility by designating areas as “unsafe” for them; and intrusion into the privacy of women through “surveillance” in the garb of “protection”. {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} The SAKSHAM report highlighted the prevalence of several retrogressive practices such as discriminatory evaluation processes as a means to “domesticate” and deter students, especially women and sexual minorities from raising their voices against gender-based discrimination; differential timings for access to libraries, labs, and student hostels; imposition of dress codes, infantilising women students and restricting their mobility by designating areas as “unsafe” for them; and intrusion into the privacy of women through “surveillance” in the garb of “protection”.