Pure Pursuits

A statistic becomes more than a number, when you realize people around you, who are just like you are a part of that statistics, have stories to tell you how right or wrong the statistic is. The idea of a statistic being a mere number becomes no longer true.

A blogger friend pointed out to me a statistic, 79% of women face sexual harassment at work. I did not think this as a big deal, because I felt we are in a safe cocoon. Indian corporate world, for that matter the global corporate world does not really face this problem so much, is what I thought. I thought these type of things are more at places where there are more uneducated people, definitely not at a place where most of the people have bachelors, masters or even doctorate degrees. Sometimes you just got to be woken up, in this case I needed it, and the blogger friend did it.

The first thought which came to my mind with sexual harassment, is that the level of harassment. How can one define the level of sexual harassment?, is inappropriate touch lesser harmful, than say an indecent proposal?, or asking for a sexual favor more damaging than subjecting a co worker to verbal discomfort?. I would jump and conclude yes and yes, but I guess its not just a simple thing. Firstly I am not qualified to comment about the emotional damage caused by any of these, and I believe this is one area where sexes play a vast difference, what I consider painful might be not so hurtful to a woman, and something which I consider trivial might be a big deal for a woman. Again, its not something, which is common among all women, its very individual.

There is an old saying in kannada, “hennu sahanaya swaroopa” [A woman is personification of tolerance"]. Even though I would disagree with this wholeheartedly, for making it a sexist comment, women in my life tend to prove this right most of the time. So when it comes to sexual harassment, I would really like to see a statistic of percentage of women who end up tolerating this, I am sure it would be an interesting statistic. I am not talking about % of women who do not think it as a big deal, that again I think is a interesting statistic, I am sure the numbers might surprise many of us. I am talking about women who are subjected to sexual harassment, and they tend to just tolerate this assuming they are supposed to do so, or too shy to report this, or plain fear of social implications or fear of job loss. If you thought in this new age corporate world this number will be low, I bet we would be surprised.

Being in the corporate world, I had to take a training about sexual harassment. I have to admit some of the section were really surprising to me, I never knew they could be considered as a sexual harassment. There were some obvious ones like touching a co worker, or even trying to get them to meet you outside work, but there were subtle ones like a forwarded email which could offend the co-worker,  or a joke made light heartedly which could offend them. For the moment lets just ignore these subtle things which could still get me fired, lets talk about the physical abuses. Like trying to take advantage of a co worker, by touching in appropriately or trying to do ..you know what. Anyways I really thought these things never happened in corporate world. I think I was wrong.

Lets come to the “liberated” thinking people, who dont think its wrong to involve in such practices, both men and women, do you think we have such people in corporate world?, women/men who don’t think there is anything wrong to use themselves to move up the ladder?. Isn’t this the most cliched topic of all times, being abused in movies from ages?. But still I would really like to know the real picture w.r.t this, anybody?..have you heard/known/done things to move up the ladder?, if not have you contemplated it?.

Last but not the least, the minority of sexually harassed men at work. To be honest I have never experienced this on myself, nor think it really happens. However, I felt the same about women, until I was woken up. Now that we are striving for gender equality in everything, may be we do have the problem. How about this folks?, do you think statistics on this regard would surprise us?.