‘Hey baby! You are so sexy! You are super hot!’- phrases
once thought to be restricted to the vocabulary of street hoodlums are now the
new norm at the workplace.
A decade ago, even the typical hoodlums refrained from using
the word sexy. They would have stopped at S or rather than shouting out loud
SEXY, they would have just muttered SSS under their breath. Even if one dared to
yell the word out loud they would have turned their backs after doing so. But we
have a come a long way and making derogatory comments in a professional
setting, often disguised as “appreciative” comments, is the new norm. Is this because we are evolving—recklessly
rather than perceptively—where these acts are accepted as a part of modern
culture? Or do our patriarchal grassroots still let us think that women are
servile to men, thus providing licensure to such behavior? Whatever the
influence behind the rampant rise of this sickening behavior is, we seem to
have comfortably justified it as “appreciating” women and not victimizing them.
Comments like “you are beautiful” can be a good ego booster
sometimes but are unjustifiable in a professional relationship. It would be a
wishful thinking, however, to believe that these remarks are as innocuous as
“you are beautiful”; they can range anywhere between direct comments towards a
specific body part like “you have a nice butt”, suggestive gestures or language,
and bluntly asking for uncomfortable favors in return for getting work done. It
may sound hyperbolic but exists quite openly in our society, where corporate
hierarchy and gender power take precedence over the code of conduct.
Moreover, often time these “flattering” comments are
considered to be the X factor that help a woman move forward in the
workplace—as if these comments play a more vital role than brain cells for
women to advance. If a woman achieves success at a workplace, it is by default
ascribed to her looks that “wooed” an influential male counterpart. Our society
openly criticizes how males do not provide much room for women to move up in
the competitive professional market, but it also repeatedly succumbs to the
idea that behind every successful woman there must be a man.
With these double standards and no significant laws in place
that protect women against sexual harassment in workplaces in Nepal, these
issues are easily overlooked as “normal”. Acceptance of such behavior not only
makes these issues tolerated, but also makes it easy for the perpetrators to
continue such behavior. Moreover, normalization of such an important issue has generated
unsympathetic bystanders, causing the already repressed women to shrivel even
more. According to Huffington post, negative remarks such as “ women run
organizations are not smooth, women in leadership roles are unattractive” are
often made by men especially those who have some influential powers in the
organization or men who are in a traditional marital structure. The long
history of inequality, weak laws, and patriarchy that governs the values for
men and women in Nepal make these issues harder to tackle; hence putting more
women in these vulnerable situations and triggering gender offensive behaviors.
Nevertheless, Nepal is not alone in this workplace ‘warzone’
culture. This gender upheaval affects women globally. According to Everyday
Sexism Project, workplace harassment is one of the most commonly reported
issues on their portal. In a study conducted by Slater and Gordon, a law firm
in the UK where 1036 women participated, six in ten women reported about their
male colleagues looking at them ‘inappropriately, and more than seventy-five
percent of them mentioned experiences about comments on their breasts, butt or
clothes they were wearing. Furthermore,
twenty-four percent of the women that had a senior harass them; five percent
reported losing their jobs and more than one in ten reported to have been
turned down for a promotion after the incident. Despite its growing prevalence
in our community, sexual harassment at workplaces is a very challenging issue
to tackle. Most of the women do not talk about these harassments or take legal
actions against it because it might lead to losing a job or ruining their
career as the perpetrator might be their boss or someone influential in the
organization, or due to the fear of being stigmatized by their colleagues. In
addition, the victim blaming which puts the blame solely on the women—assuming
they did not take the any action against the perpetrator, file a complain about
the issue or simply accusing them of instigating such behavior to seek
attention or defame their bosses— discourages them to openly talk about the issue.
And even when the women stand up against such behaviors these issues are
belittled or ignored due to normalization or dismissed easily as harmless or
“in the joke” gestures/comments. Slater and Gordon study also showed that only
twenty-seven percent of the participants reported such incidents to a senior at
workplace. Hence, as along as we let these disparaging demeanors go unnoticed
and be unsympathetic towards the victims, women will never be secure at workplaces
and be able to fearlessly challenge these standards.
Regardless of how “harmless” these behaviors are suggested
to be, they do have a taxing effect on women’s professional growth, alongside
their emotional and mental well being. In the context of Nepal, where
women-in-a-workplace is still a difficult concept for the society to put
together, the impact of these new standards are as severe. With a handful of
women in leadership roles, the existence of such a workplace ‘warzone’ rather
than helping to uplift the status of women retrograde it. In addition, the
regressive societal norms that tag the success of a woman with a man or simply
stigmatize women in leadership roles as being “aggressive” and “unappealing”
makes it an uphill battle for any woman who wants to be professionally strong.
