#MeTooIndia: Judiciary plagued with ‘rampant sexism’?

As more names are stained and heads begin to roll amid the #MeToo movement impact in India, Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay High Court has strongly voiced his support to the #MeToo movement and said that Judiciary is also plagued with “rampant sexism”.

Justice Patel said he “fully supported” the courageous women who stood up to share their experiences of sexual harassment and name their tormentors.

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“I fully support women who are coming out and have the courage to speak because it takes lot of courage to speak at any time.

“Why women have not come forward is a very serious problem, and the reason is that because our world is so patriarchal and so biased that it does not allow our women to speak freely at times when they should or they could,” Patel said.

Patel was addressing an event organised by the women’s wing of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber in Mumbai on Thursday.

“We now need to have a discussion on how we are going to get rid of this completely damaged, mocked system that we have of judging this cause,” he said.

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Patel then said the judiciary was also plagued with “rampant sexism and the culture of patriarchy”.

“This incessant bullying of women, no matter how competent they are is because they are women and this is the archetypal, nauseating patriarchy of our legal profession. It is not discussed, it happens everywhere.

“If I find a male lawyer trying to intimidate a female lawyer, I must never allow that to happen...the effort must be to strive towards gender neutrality,” he said.