Chinmayi Tweets About Women Teachers’ Facing Sexual Harassment. It’s Disgusting

In India, the title of guru is given a lot of respect and importance. We consider our teachers to be next to our parents and even God. But in the past few years, the position of a teacher in a student’s life has changed. Where there are some students who genuinely respect their teachers, there are also some that disrespect them. And the disrespect doesn’t stop at being rude/mean to them, it has reached a point where teachers – especially women teachers – have been sexually harassed by their students. Not many of the celebrities in India are talking about the misconduct or sexual harassment that women teachers are facing. But singer Chinmayi in her latest tweet has decided to shed light on the subject.

Recently, singer Chinmayi took to Twitter and shared screenshots of her conversations with women teachers and even doctoral candidates – that have faced sexual harassment and misconduct by their teachers. Singer Chinmayi has always been a fierce supporter of the #MeToo movement and that is clearly seen in her series of tweets that highlight the sexual harassment and misconduct women teachers face on daily basis.

 

The need to speak about the sexual harassment and misconduct women teachers face started when a teacher took to her Twitter to share a disturbing incident that happened with her. The teacher spoke about how she received a “prank call” from one of her students asking her for sexual favors. And even though the teacher usually didn’t pay much heed to prank calls, this particular call was extremely disturbing for her to ignore. And singer Chinmayi shared a bunch of similar incidents that women teachers have faced.

We were discussing the harassment lady teachers were facing from their students (sending penis photos) / from the students fathers in this era of online classes and this scholar from Loyola College happened to share this. pic.twitter.com/kQufd3FNdZ

— Chinmayi Sripaada (@Chinmayi) August 8, 2021

The screenshots shared by the singer Chinmayi reveal a disturbing fact. Her screenshots reveal that some of these women teachers were sexually harassed and faced misconduct from students who are as young as in class 5 and class 6. Some of the screenshots spoke about how a teacher was groped by a student from class 6 and the other one spoke about how a teacher in her 50s received inappropriate and explicit photos from students.

One of the most shocking screenshots in singer Chinmayi’s tweet about sexual harassment and misconduct faced by women teachers shows how a male colleague who learned about the situation, asked the women teacher to keep silent and ignore it as she came from a “good family.”

These messages in screenshots put up by singer Chinmayi show how since the classrooms have become online since the Covid-19 pandemic, the sexual harassment, and misconduct faced by women teachers have increased a lot. In her tweet, singer Chinmayi questions why women teachers should remain silent about such harassment in their workplace. She wrote in her tweet, “Then these stories were shared. Our teachers cannot remain feeling unsafe in their own workplaces. Why should they go through this?”

It honestly is heartbreaking to know that women teachers are going through so much silently and no one is speaking about it. This needs to stop. Women teachers are the very foundation of a child’s education and what they grow up to be. If this is how they are getting treated by students who should be grateful to them, then there is a very big loophole in our education system that needs to be repaired immediately. Sexual harassment and misconduct faced by women teachers need an immediate solution and there is no reason to delay it further.