Preventing sexual harassment: Some lessons

The recent #MeToo campaign begun by Hollywood celebrity Alyssa Milano brought to my Facebook timeline personal painful narratives from many of my women students. While many were applauded - rightly so - for their courage to speak up, and in turn adding to the strength of the movement, I found myself more immersed in the details of their narratives. I must mention that their words were not doing sufficient justice to their experienced trauma. They revealed only partially the psychological and emotional struggle that they were engaged in for long. Struggle to come to terms that they were victims. Struggle to come to terms that this had happened in reality. Struggle to keep the incident hidden. Struggle to wipe away the stain of the inappropriate touch. In the train, in the car, in the shopping fall, in home, and of course in workplaces.

Sexual harassment is rampant in business organizations operating out of India. To illustrate the malaise, I will borrow a few significant findings from a report submitted by Yugantar Education Society to the Department of Women and Child Development (MHRD, Govt. of India) in the year 2003. Focused on the organized and unorganized sectors of the State of Maharashtra, the study findings revealed that around 37 percent of the women admitted to being sexually harassed in workplaces, of which 20 percent belonged to the unorganized sector, while 17 percent belonged to the organized sector.

However this number is misleading for the report stated that a large number of women were unaware of indirect behaviour of sexual nature. The report provided more shocking statistics. For example, of the 37 percent of women who were sexually harassed, 71 percent were highly educated and 58 percent were married. So education does not seem to empower women and a wedding band has little effect in preventing this nuisance. Further, contrary to popular perception about a “lecherous boss” with an evil eye and a roving hand being the perpetrator, the study reported that co-workers afflicted the maximum number of sexual harassment incidents. Additionally roughly 22 percent of the afflicted women claimed to be harassed during working hours.

It must also be mentioned that majority of the employers (i.e. > 50 percent of the surveyed organizations) had little idea on the measures to be taken for addressing sexual harassment. Of the organizations which had some measures, the (1) constitution of a complaints committee, and (2) arranging safe sitting spaces for women ranked the most implemented ones. However, a complaints committee, while a necessity, is not empowering enough, for research suggests that speaking up (or reporting) often affects the personal and professional life of the complainant negatively. And teams form the nucleus of job performance in contemporary business organizations. So having safe sitting spaces is of little use and in many ways could stimulate discrimination. In any case both these measures are curative. The need of the hour is preventive. Two methods possibly could help so.

First - (lack of) sexual harassment incidents can be made a performance metric for the team manager (and by expansion the organization). Currently, the onus of reporting a sexual harassment is on the woman employee. Already fighting the uncalled for indignity, she is expected to gather much more courage to report the incident. This appears unfair and insensitive. Instead, if the managers are made accountable through a suitably designed performance metric, they will actively monitor the behavior exhibited by the team towards its women members. Sexist jokes, sexual comments, cat calls, personal questions, pressure for dates etc. would diminish significantly. Further, it will become the managers’ responsibility to coach the team on appropriate behavior. It will make them more accountable to develop a team climate that focuses on healthy exchanges centered on performance. Possible “bad apples” can easily be identified and dealt with appropriately at the team level. A manager thus focused will help make the women employees more psychologically free and committed to performance.

Second - ensure a gender balance at the team level. Sexual harassment is an expression of power on a minority gender. So increasing the number of women in the workforce helps. A woman’s point of view will be taken seriously by one and all if number of women is significant in a context. As a beginning, a company goal of ensuring a significant proportion of women at all levels of the organization must be set. Although gender-matching of jobs does exist in India, it is slowly eroding away. Women pilots, women in combat positions, women wrestlers etc. are a reality today. A little more conscientious push by the organizations can help bring down this perceived societal wall forever. Similarly, 'one role, one pay' must be implemented compulsorily. Discrimination by the organization in this most observable and fundamental relationship undermines the status of the woman. Will it be a surprise then if she faces verbal taunts and abuse? Finally 'glass ceilings” must be replaced with “ladders of opportunity”, helping women reach further positions of eminence in organizations.

Professor Chelsea Willness, Associate Dean of the Edward School of Business (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) along with her coauthors estimated in a meta-analytic study that sexual harassment could cost around $22500 per person affected, solely in terms of productivity. Added to that the Yugantar report suggested that roughly 50 percent of harassed women think of quitting their jobs. Even if they decide against quitting, they remain highly disengaged. Organizations can only neglect all these at their own peril. Time to respond to #MeToo with #WeCan.

The writer is Assistant Professor, Human Resource Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode