A few days back I was attending a session on HR practices in the workplace. And the trainer was explaining to us how discreet and impartial and unbiased HR guys are when dealing with issues that the employees face. To explain that he gave us a hypothetical example of a female who had leveled a sexual harassment charge against one colleague. The issue was resolved, but in a matter of few months she raised the same charge against a different person, and then one more time against a third person. To highlight how unbiased they have to be when dealing with such cases, the trainer asked us, what would any normal person think in this scenario. The room fell silent for a minute or two and it was easy to figure out what everyone was thinking. And as one guy voiced that thought, it irritated the hell out of me! And I ended up blurting out "Or maybe there were a lot of perverts in that company who took advantage of that one woman!" Needless to say, no one else said anything more and the trainer quickly moved on to other topics!
Thankfully, I have never had to face any such serious stuff. The two or three random minor incidents that did happen, I think, every woman has faced. (Should I be referring to these kind of incidents as minor? No incident how small seems minor when its happening to you.)And has learnt to take it in her stride. It's such a shameful thing to admit to. To have to accept such things as a part of being a woman.
This is not going to be a post for women's empowerment. I was just trying to think out aloud how on top of everything else that a woman has to deal with, harassment gets added on it. Sometimes more than the harassment, it's harder having to deal with judgmental eyes of holier-than-thou people...
7 comments:
Rightly said,Sheba.Many suffer in silence as the system to look into such issues is inadequate.The curious employees, the insensitive culprit,the embarrassed victim and a prejudiced management is a combination that would never bring out the truth.But this is an issue that cannot be pushed under the carpet.All women employees must join together to fight this menace.
A good post.
aisa kya hua tha..and wat did that guy suggest? i m still not able to get his answer.... i know u r an FCP....
Though men and women have equal rights on paper, in reality it is not true. Difference between theory and practice...........
@KParthasarathi
I hope things are not so bad that all women have to join in with a morcha..Or maybe I have been lucky not to experience or hear of anything like this happening to my friends
@Keep Guessing
Come one its easy to guess, he put the blame on the female..It was a hypothetical situation, but even if it had been a real one, the female would have been blamed first. I absolutely refuse to accept that I am a FCP. Gender has absolutely nothing with how I behave or what I do. What I do/behave may lead people to think of some not-so-flattering epithets for me, but FCP no way..
@Koyeli
Ya I know equality is not there, but I think we are lucky than a lot of other women.
A part of me says i shall give you 10/10, but then a part of me, the "MAN" part would definetly say that this is a women empowerment based post. you see anyone who reads the post will try to in
PS:i may be wrong but i kinda felt like this so wrote it down.
@Anonymous
Hmm, does this seem like a post for women empowerment?I didn't intend it to be like that. I think we are empowered enough. It's just that this incident ticked me off to write this post...
no i left it incomplete i meant to say that anyone would interpret this incident with his/her own personal experiences!!
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