Behavioral and Emotional Dimensions of Sexual Harassment at Workplace

Abstract

The study throws light upon the dirty and one of the most horrifying facets of our country, i.e., sexual harassment at the workplace. The study starts with a brief introduction of what sexual harassment at workplace actually is, moving onto some laws that have been introduced by the judiciary system of India after numerous such incidents were being reported and most of them remained pending or were merely ignored by the companies. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 came into picture and made it mandatory for organizations to quickly address the issue with proper policies in place, presenting reports on the actions taken, etc. Moving on to the research highlights some statistics related to reported and unreported cases. The data collection phase for the study begins with extracting information from secondary sources, moving toward the primary data collection stage which is collected using questionnaires. I believe that this misconduct is happening not only with women but also with men; hence, the data was collected from both the genders in an equal ration. The results were quite expected, men have agreed to general questions but when it came to standing up against the issue if it happens with them, they prefer to ignore it; similarly women due to growing awareness are ready to stand against the issue in general, but if it happens with them, they do not feel 100% comfortable and feel it might affect their personal life due to common cases like acid attacks and stalking. Let us now look at the study in detail.

6.1 Introduction

Something that sounds terrible and the first thing that comes to our mind is that why would anyone even do that? With the level of education, values that we have inculcated from our parents and teachers make us question how can anyone have the urge to harass someone sexually? Does it really happen? How often does this happen?

Sexual harassment has been the recent talk of the town and has been the major goal for various companies for 2019. With mandatory rules, training to the employees, etc. the awareness about the same, somewhat the scenario has been improving but at a very slow rate. It can be termed as any physical contact, demand or request, sexual remarks, display of pornography, or any other physical, verbal or nonverbal conduct of sexual nature that is unwelcoming.

There are two types of sexual harassment at the workplace:

• 1. Quid pro quo—This relates to the exchanging of sexual services for gain such as promotions, rewards, etc. or a loss such as demotion, loss of a job, loss of opportunity, etc.

• 2. Hostile work environment—this relates to an uncomfortable or intimidating environment around the victim, does not always have to be sexual nature, but may also include offensive comments about their sexuality or stereotyping.

Various laws in India related to sexual harassment at workplace—Sexual harassment at the workplace was earlier not conceived as a separate offense under the Indian Penal Court. The first light on the matter was thrown back in 1997, when an NGO, called Vishakha took a gang rape case in Rajasthan to the supreme court. There were other cases too like Mrs. RupanDeol Bajaj v. Kanwar Pal Singh Gill which made the lawmakers feel that there was a need for a separate law dealing with sexual harassment at workplace.

After 16 years, The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 came into existence. The law states that physical contact between the victim and the aggressor is not required for it to be termed as sexual harassment. Anything that creates a hostile environment for the victim be it verbal abuses, jokes gestures or rumors to tarnish the victim’s image all fall under the scope of the act. A person found guilty would be imprisoned for 3 years under IPC section 354 (modified), in rape cases, maximum punishment or life imprisonment is decided under section 376 except when the victim dies or is left in the inhumane state. Any matter be it small or large needs to be addressed immediately by the management, in countries like Australia the matter falls under Equal Opportunity Act and is strictly compiled with covering the volunteered and unpaid workers as well. Some matters may also be of criminal nature like obscene communication, letters, and threats. These things also effect the state of mind of the victim (Mohanty & Suar, 2014). The mood of the aggressor is also an important issue and has to belooked into and how it gets influenced by environment (Mohanty, Pratihar, & Suar 2015).

6.1.1 Start of the MeToo Movement

MeToo movement was started against Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood producer who was accused of sexually misbehaving including raping over 70 women, soon after many other women started to raise their voices. It reached India a year after with actresses like Tanushree Dutta and Kangana Ranaut all over the media with their stories. This movement dragged famous celebrities, actors, directors, politicians, etc. like Sajid Khan, Alok Nath, etc. to the limelight for their obnoxious behavior at workplace.

This was high time that sexual harassment had to be addressed (Figs. 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3).

Fig. 6.1

Sexual Harassment case. (Source: Complykaro)

Fig. 6.2

Sudden Spike in reported cases. (Source: Ministry of Women & Child Development in the Lok Sabha, Feb 2019)

Fig. 6.3

Number of cases from 2016 to 2018. (Source: Annual reports, complykaro.com)

India BSE 100 companies reported 14% rise in sexual harassment complaint cases in the financial year 2019, showing the growing awareness but also requires speedy action against the aggressor.

There were about 823 cases reported in FY19 against 722 in FY18. Wipro reported the highest number of complaints, ICICI and Infosys showed a reduction in the same (Figs. 6.4 and 6.5).

Fig. 6.4

People who do not file a complaint

Fig. 6.5

Companies creating awareness

6.2 Review of Literature

• 1. ArchitaMohapatra, Ajay Solanki and Vikram Shroff. (2019). India: Increased complaints of sexual harassment: Increased number of reported complaints are probably the result of various movements like the #Metoo movement. The act of 2013 makes it mandatory for the employers to frame policies prohibiting sexual harassment at the organization.

• 2. Society for Human Resource Management. (2018). Harassment-Free Workplace Series. A focus on sexual harassment: with laws strengthening and focusing more on sexual harassment at the workplace, HR professionals of the organizations believe that they know what is going on, whereas as the majority of the incidents go unreported as people are either too scared or unaware of the policies.

• 3. Melissa Jun Rowley. (2018). How to hold employers accountable during the #TimesUp and #MeToo movement. Forbes: As the powerful message by Oprah Winfrey “a new day is on the horizon” for women became popular and the Time’s Up gain traction, workplaces have started responding to domestic and sexual violence and dealing with it at its core by inducing in the company culture. Firing the harasser does not address the organization’s systematic problem.

• 4. Bryce Covert (2018). When harassment is the price of a job. The Nation: 60% of the women working at bars and restaurants have said they have faced sexual harassment and that the culture and income are tied to it, the jobs being easy to secure.

• 5. MaadhuBalaaji S and S. Malaimagal (2018). A study on sexual harassment on women in India: Women across the globe have tasted all flavors from respect and glory to these phases where they are raped, abused, molested, etc. An emphasis has been laid on the psychological, emotional, and mental impacts women suffer because of the sexual abuse.

• 6. Kundu, Bansal, and Jambheshwar (2018). A critical analysis of sexual harassment of women in India. Researchgate.net: laws, issues, and preventative measures: The study focuses on how sexual harassment affects the dignity of women and the measures to safeguard the same. It indicates that the issue is quite alarming and needs to be carefully attended.

• 7. Higgs, Joahanna and Jeffries, Brittany. (2018). Sexual Harassment in India. International Journal for Intersectional Feminist Studies, Volume 4, Issue 1 & 2, ISSN 2463-2945: Sexual harassment is a problem that is all pervasive throughout the world, the study draws attention to the awareness and the level of misconduct being faced by the women in India and turns out there is a long to end it in the country.

• 8. Susan Chiran and Catrin Einhorn. (2017). How tough is it to change a culture of harassment? Ask women at Ford. New York Times: women at Ford were treated like property or prey by bosses and fellow laborers, comments on breasts and buttocks, graffiti of penises, etc. were seen. Supervisors traded rewards for sex and punishment for everyone who refused.

• 9. Rebecca Traistor. (2017). This moment is not just about sex. It is really about work. The Cut: It is just not about sexual crimes, but it is about women equality at the work place, conditions that make it hard for women to work.

• 10. Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev. (2017). Training programs and reporting systems will not end sexual harassment but promoting more women will. Harvard Business Review: We already know strengthening policies will reduce sexual harassment, but hiring and promoting more women will address it at the grassroots level.

• 11. Sachi Nandan Mohanty and Damodar Suar (2013a, b). Negative affectivity of participants influence risk seeking on about half of the hypothetical situations.This is the reason why one has to be careful while jumping to conclusions.

6.3 Objectives

The purpose of this study is to analyze and see the impacts of various factors affecting sexual harassment at the workplace. The study starts with understanding what is sexual harassment, current laws, and statistics. Now the study would try to understand what people actually feel would affect the scenario of sexual abuse at the workplace and what would have no significant impact. The objectives can be defined as:

• 1. Whether gender plays a role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 2. Whether the level of literacy plays an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 3. Whether better management play an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 4. Whether punishment would affect sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 5. Whether awareness about sexual harassment at the workplace would help?

• 6. Should companies invest in training employees to deal with sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 7. Does having a separate properly functioning cell with an open door policy would help in dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 8. Whether position and authority play a role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 9. Do employees feel comfortable about standing against sexual harassment at the workplace?

• 10. Would employees raise their voice if safety and security would be ensured by the organization?

6.4 Research Methodology

There are usually two methods to collect data:

Primary Data Collection—where first-hand data is obtained from various sources like personal interviews and questionnaires.

Secondary Data Collection—where data which is already available is used for further studies from various sources like the internet, books, and journals.

A combination of both the methods has been used, and current statistics of sexual harassment in India have been taken from internet and research reports and respondent data to see the outlook of people toward various factors related to the same have been collected in the form of questionnaires.

The method used to collect the questionnaires was convenience sampling, Data was collected from the nearest mall as well as closest locality.

• Pacific Mall, Subhash Nagar

• Janakpuri D-Block, New Delhi

This is also a combination of exploratory as well as descriptive research, as it has the elements of exploring the issue of sexual harassment and people’s outlook toward it as well as describing the same. Sample size: 100 respondents.

6.5 Hypothesis Testing and Analysis

Based upon the questionnaire hypothesis testing for all the questions answered has been done, it is to be kept in mind that both men and women have been taken for the study in 1:1 ratio, as sexual harassment at workplace affects both men and women whether they are the aggressors or the victims.

Q1. Whether gender plays a role in sexual harassment at the work place?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀= The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.542, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying gender plays a huge role in sexual harassment at work place are correct as it has been seen that most number of harassment cases have women victims, males are also there who have been sexually abused but the number is so low that people usually believe that it is not happening, also the fact that male resist reporting the issue due to the fear of image (Tables 6.1 and 6.2).

Table 6.1 Response of the men and women for and against gender playing a role in sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.2 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.1

Q2. Whether level of literacy plays an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which greater than the calculated X² value 0.162, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying education plays an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace is true, although there is not a very huge difference between the people who believe that and the ones who do not since how someone teats another human being is based on the value system and the wisdom of an individual (Tables 6.3 and 6.4).

Table 6.3 Response of the men and women for and against literacy playing a role in sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.4 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.3

Q3. Whether better management play an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.21, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying management play an important role in sexual harassment at the workplace are absolutely correct, most of the respondents agree that management plays huge role, the ones who do not agree says it depends upon the individuals own mindset and values (Tables 6.5 and 6.6).

Table 6.5 Response of the men and women for and against management playing a role in sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.6 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.5

Q4. Whether punishment would affect sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 1.01, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying punishment would affect sexual harassment at the workplace are correct, the ones do not agree believe that some people will do the crime even if they would get punished for the same (Tables 6.7 and 6.8).

Table 6.7 Response of the men and women for and against punishment affecting sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.8 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.7

Q5. Whether awareness about sexual harassment at the workplace would help?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.152, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying awareness about sexual harassment at the workplace would help in reducing the same (Tables 6.9 and 6.10).

Table 6.9 Response of the men and women for and against creation of awareness about sexual harassment at the work place to reduce the same

Table 6.10 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.9

Q6. Should organizations invest in training employees to deal with sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.542, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying investment in training employees to deal with sexual harassment at the workplace would be extremely beneficial (Tables 6.11 and 6.12).

Table 6.11 Response of the men and women for and against investment on training by the organizations to deal with sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.12 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.11

Q7. Does having a separate properly functioning cell with an open door policy would help in dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the 100% respondents think that having a separate properly functioning cell with an open door policy would help in dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace, as more and more people would feel comfortable in sharing their experiences without the thought of being judged as the cell is separately made to address these concerns (Tables 6.13 and 6.14).

Table 6.13 Response of the men and women for and against having a separate cell having an open door policy at the organization to deal with sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.14 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.13

Q8. Whether position and authority play a role in sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.040, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying that position and authority play a role in sexual harassment at the workplace, as women at higher level are less likely to be harassed and usually the women or even men who get harassed are by people who are their seniors (Tables 6.15 and 6.16).

Table 6.15 Response of the men and women for and against position and authority playing a role in sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.16 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.15

Q9. Do employees feel comfortable about standing against sexual harassment at the workplace?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is lesser than the calculated X² value 6.245, which implies that we would reject the null hypothesis that states that the people saying employees feel comfortable about standing against sexual harassment at the workplace are wrong, people feel really redundant in speaking up if something like this happens to them, it can also be seen by the results that men are less likely to speak up than women (Tables 6.17 and 6.18).

Table 6.17 Response of the men and women for and against the comfort that the employees feel to stand up against sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.18 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.17

Q10. Would employees raise their voice if safety and security would be ensured by the organization?

Doing the “chi square test” with a significance level of −5%

• H₀ = The people saying yes are correct

• H_A = The people saying yes are not correct

The degree of freedom is at 5% significant level value is 3.841, which is greater than the calculated X² value 0.336, which implies that we would accept the null hypothesis that states that the people saying employees raise their voice if safety and security would be ensured by the organization are absolutely correct, usually people feel that if they would speak up and there is not proper action, the aggressor might start affecting them outside the workplace as well, things like threatening are expected (Tables 6.19 and 6.20).

Table 6.19 Response of the men and women for and against assurance of the safety and security of the employees by the organization if they decide to stand up against sexual harassment at the work place

Table 6.20 Chi square test on the data taken from Table 6.19

6.6 Conclusion

Sexual harassment is very deeply rooted in the country, from rural to urban areas, it is all-pervasive and not just here in India but all across the globe. With the advent of social media, there has been a significant impact in the awareness leading to the growing number of reported claims, but it also shows how the number is still growing and the number of sexual crimes is not going down. Men are shying away from admitting that it is happening with them as well. With more and more power to women, women are being able to speak not a 100% but still show a significant improvement to the earlier times, but the male gender is still not empowered to speak upon this topic (about 75% of individuals who face the issue are reluctant to speak). Women are being placed at higher authority levels which is depicting that the situation is getting better, but sadly there is a long way ahead, and it would require decades to completely eliminate objectifying and molesting women.

Based on the study, it can be seen that if organizations would be ready to ensure safety and security then more and more people would be able to report their issues, also if there would be a separate cell, people would feel more comfortable going to them rather than talking to the HR professionals who are dealing with routine nature human resource management. There is also a need for training employees with various techniques to deal with misconduct like self-defense classes, regular seminars to inform about the policies to deal with such issues along communicating the rights and laws to the employees should be conducted. At last I would just like to conclude by saying organizations can do their part but inducing the right attitude begins at home, parents need to ensure that they teach their children to respect and behave properly, if every parent would monitor their child and would ensure his behavior or attitude is no way alarming of such desires, then the day would not be far where every individual would respect not only their family members but also the people around them, leading to a congenial environment as a whole.

Annexure