Tag: impunity for casual sexism

Public Humiliation, Witness Silence, Gender Bias in ‘Sexist’ Harassment Cases

One classic example of ‘sexist harassment’ is: the woman is uncomfortable with a man’s personal advances and refuses them, and later he begins to humiliate her in the presence of colleagues, even in public.

One form of sexual harassment that is rarely spoken about is sexist harassment. It is assumed that “sexual harassment” at the workplace is limited only to ‘unwanted conduct of a sexual nature’. However, the POSH (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment at Workplace) Act 2013 refers to both ‘sexist’ and ‘sexual’ harassment. Inappropriate touching, showing pornography, demand for sexual favours or sexually coloured remarks are more direct sexual forms, but there are others too.

One classic example of ‘sexist harassment’, also stated in the sexual harassment handbook published by the Ministry of Women and Child Development is: the woman is uncomfortable with a man’s personal advances and refuses them, and later he begins to humiliate her in the presence of colleagues, even in public. Such sexist forms of harassment may or may not be combined with ‘unwanted conduct of sexual nature’ as stated in the POSH Act handbook.

Some of the other forms of behaviour listed in the POSH handbook that indicate workplace sexual harassment are: criticising, insulting, blaming, reprimanding or condemning an employee in public, humiliating a person in front of colleagues, engaging in smear campaigns and statements damaging a person’s reputation or career. These sexist forms of harassment need to be nipped in the bud, but are often brushed aside as minor complaints.

Sexist harassment has a long-lasting impact on women and their career, on their life course decision-making. Most aggrieved women or even Internal Complaints Committee (the statutory body to address such cases and complaints) members are not clear about ‘sexist harassment’.

Sexual harassment reports have been increasing in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in India. The University Grants Commission’s decadal data reveals that for HEIs in India, such cases rose from 147 to 296 between 2018-19 and 2020-21, a 50% increase. This is only the tip of the iceberg: the number of complaints officially lodged.

An independent recent study revealed that most cases of sexual harassment are never reported. One out of 10 students of HEIs interviewed in the study had faced sexual assault. Only 15% of the students had filed an official compliant with the Committee against Sexual Harassment (CASH) or Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). This reveals the systemic failure of HEIs.

The problems are multitudinous: social stigma within institutions, a patriarchal mindset, insensitivity in handling such cases, lack of gender sensitisation among faculty, students, including ICC members; a lack of understanding of the law, what constitutes sexual harassment, and appropriate procedures. All this creates apprehension among the aggrieved and also gives courage to perpetrators within the system to commit and repeat offences.

Also read: India’s Sustained Benevolent Sexism Has Let Its Women Down

Public humiliation and the silence

Incidences of public humiliation and intimidation implies that there were witnesses. An important question then is: what was their role, what did they do? Some join in the humiliation, while others choose to remain silent. This is a very expensive silence that destroys the integrity and self-respect of the aggrieved. It further adds to the power imbalance between genders.

The incident of sexual harassment is often reduced to a problem between a perpetrator(s) and one victim – which it is not. If the victim is new and on probation, she is obviously a junior in the organisation with few friends/support systems. The perpetrator is most likely a male in a position of power. And then there are those, both men and women, who remain silent witnesses: the perpetrator’s network and friends-circle, and those who pander to him because he is in authority. It is the social systemic inequalities that are reinforced by this system, and targets the aggrieved.

This systemic condition is also reflected in the ICC probes and the judicial procedures that may take place if the aggrieved lodges a formal complaint. In these probes, the victim’s immediate reaction to the harasser’s advances is over-analysed while the perpetrator is given the benefit of the doubt. His intimidation and humiliation of her in public is reduced to mere ‘criticism’ from a senior. Public humiliation is a form of harassment that is experienced by 57% of the 135 women interviewed in the health sector in Kolkata alone. The insensitivity with which some authorities deal with this form of harassment is itself ‘harassment’.

The POSH handbook clarifies that men with a patriarchal mindset tend to perceive what is in fact harassment as “harmless, friendly gestures” to which only over-sensitive women object. Sexist harassment includes unwelcome social invitations from a position of power, gestures of so-called ‘friendship’ which are not reciprocated by the woman, unwelcome and unreciprocated use of terms and signs of endearment by the man in power. This perception percolates into the larger society, prevails amongst some members of the ICC, and even in the legal system. In many cases, the victim resigns from the job with or without reporting the harassment to the authorities. Along with this, she resigns from her self-confidence, integrity and self-respect.

Also read: The Cuomo Case Is a Textbook Example of Complicity and Silence Around Sexual Harassment

Gender insensitivity and sensitisation

Sexual harassment has its roots in patriarchy and is embedded in a social construction that perceives men as superior to women and makes most forms of violence against women socially acceptable. Gender insensitivity leads to the misunderstanding that male flirtations are harmless that all women should take in their stride. This perception appears in the justifications offered by the perpetrator. He will invariably say that he has invited other women similarly: when they did not have a problem, why is this particular woman having one, or why didn’t she immediately express her discomfort. His supporters will claim that he has always behaved thus with women: so there is nothing unique about this case, almost as though a serial offender must be excused precisely because he has done this to so many women! Such justifications are common to harassment cases, and it is important to understand them in the context of the history of gender discrimination and power inequalities.

POSH states that the aggrieved woman’s feeling of discomfort, and her sense that the man’s invitation is unwelcome, that should be the primary focus. But the reality is: lending a sympathetic ear to the aggrieved woman is supposed to be justice enough. Women are asked to join in expressions of sympathy towards the male, who may be an older man, or this is the first formal complaint against him (although, as noted above, it is common knowledge that this is standard behaviour from him).

This is the gender insensitive system that causes apprehensions among women regarding lodging a complaint, not to mention the ensuing social stigma. Typically, men are warned and women are consoled, and the matter is laid to rest.

Gender sensitisation is required at three levels: the young population through education, employees at all levels and the authorities. Women empowerment and gender sensitisation should be taught at higher secondary and graduation levels. Gender sensitisation teaches both men and women appropriate mutually respectful forms of behaviour. Higher education is a powerful tool through which women begin to understand inequalities, think analytically and address individual and socially discriminatory situations.

In India, the increase in the percentage of women in higher education has not directly contributed to women’s agency or empowerment. Most gender sensitisation sessions focus on the POSH Act and the stipulations of the law. These sessions need to include broader aspects of gender inequalities that touch on daily lives. The authorities also need sensitisation on appropriate ways of dealing with cases of sexual harassment. Otherwise most of the aggrieved will continue to remain silent about the abuse.

Sheela Suryanarayanan is associate professor at Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad.

Men and the Conspiracy of Silence Around Sexism

“Liberal” and “progressive” men who do not voice their disagreement with sexist acts are just as implicated in the culture of perpetuating institutional sexism.

“Liberal” and “progressive” men who do not voice their disagreement with sexist acts are just as implicated in the culture of perpetuating systemic sexism.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the authors of the op-ed demanding an end to impunity for sexist men. Credit: Reuters

IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the authors of the op-ed demanding an end to impunity for sexist men. Credit: Reuters

Former ministers in France have recently launched an attack on sexism in politics. The group consists only of women and includes current IMF chief Christine Lagarde. The women presented their collective voice in an op-ed in a French weekly, Journal Du Dimanche. Despite their political differences, they unanimously agreed on one thing: sexism simply has no place in any society. “Like all women who reached circles that were once exclusively masculine, we have been forced to fight against sexism. It’s not for women to adapt in these circles; it’s the behaviour of certain men that must change. It’s enough. The immunity has finished. We will no longer shut up,” the article said. This bold move is refreshing in the arena of politics, where successful women are usually expected to tolerate what has been described as “casual sexism”. These range from casual jokes to an institutional and systemic sexism that assumes that an all-male political establishment or absence of women at the upper echelons of power is simply normal. The demand for more visibility and presence is regarded as favour rather than an entitlement or right.

Different forms of sexism

Casual or everyday sexism is subtle and more difficult to tackle than explicit sexual coercion, blatant bigotry or overt forms of sexual harassment. It is the experience of more indirect forms of discrimination on a daily basis that women are expected to tolerate – it includes subtle everyday slights and gendered expectations in the workplace, where women are expected to perform maternal or domestic tasks. And yet it is equally humiliating, subordinating and infuriating.  What is most evident is that actions to counter it, it seems, must always be taken by women – though in India there are no signs of women in the political establishment coming together on any shared platform regarding sexism. But what is more troubling is that despite the presence of liberal men in positions of power and in nearly every profession, there is no sense of responsibility that they need to take any affirmative action to call out other men on their behaviour or to take the lead in bringing about the requisite institutional reform that can produce positive change. When measures are adopted in the name of women’s rights, these are invariably protectionist, implemented most often as a reaction to a particularly appalling event or act of sexual violence, or as a cultural intervention to restore women to a position of “honour and respect” that they enjoyed in some mythical past. This is not the recipe for increased respect or freedom for women. Safety and security measures have almost nothing to do with gender equality, which is a right, not a privilege. And culture has become a stultifying edifice invoked by those who seek to safeguard their own privileges and positions of power.

France’s female politicians have taken an important step in encouraging all victims of sexism, sexual harassment and sexual aggression to speak out and complain. The fact that Lagarde has lent her support to this opposition to rampant and pervasive sexism is particularly significant in light of the disgraceful behaviour of her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he allegedly attempted to rape a hotel employee in New York. And it follows on the heels of complaints by nine women accusing the deputy speaker of the French national assembly, Denis Baupin, of sexual harassment as well as the admission by French finance minister Michel Sapin of inappropriate behaviour towards a female journalist.

Need for men’s intervention

In India, the focus on sexual violence and criminal law has almost completely overshadowed the ways in which sexism is pervasive, institutionalised and experienced by almost every single woman across religion, ethnicity and caste in this country, though the experience is intensified because of these differences. It exists on university campuses and in the workplace, within the political arena including the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, as well as in the public and private sector. The fact that many women do not speak out is partly out of fear of damaging their careers or losing their jobs.

But what is so egregious is the absolute silence amongst men – even those who claim to be liberal, progressive men – who either fail to provide a supportive environment or remain complicit in the silence. They may be fully aware that their colleague – a fellow doctor, professor or senior counsel – has indulged in these offensive and humiliating practices. These men are as implicated in the culture of sustaining and perpetuating institutional and systemic sexism where “respectable” senior colleagues in the legal profession, medical profession as well as academia are exonerated for what under any circumstances would be deemed as offensive, disgraceful and shameful behaviour.  Without this support it is left to women to either organise against it or to simply adapt to it. Sexism flourishes not simply because some men get away with it. It flourishes because most men refuse to call out their colleagues, friends and family for indulging in it. Sexism is not exclusively a woman’s problem. It is first and foremost a problem of complicity amongst men. Sexism is widespread, persistent and insidious discrimination that will not be repaired through more laws or sexual harassment policies.

Women who refuse to participate in this culture of silence or decide to complain pay a heavy price. It remains appalling that in the 21st century women continue to have to fight for their humanity – the very right to be treated as humans who are entitled to dignity and respect. Yet it is also simply impossible for women to bring about this change on their own. It requires a conscious exercise of male privilege in a direction that makes them better human beings who are respected rather than feared, who do not find their masculinity in the humiliation of women or refuse to speak against such behaviour.  It requires an attitudinal change that must be brought about by men and not just women, who are in positions of power. Men need to become role models in demonstrating respectful treatment towards women as fellow colleagues rather than as worshipped maternal figures or their personal domestic help in the workplace. These are men who do not find the validation of their masculinity in denigrating women or accepting that they are hardwired to harass women. It is a performance of masculinity that earns its respect through finding such male behaviour unacceptable and intolerable, from those who are determined to challenge and change it.

The French politicians have demanded an end to male impunity, for men to change their behaviour and be called out on it if they don’t. The op-ed concluded: “It cannot be said by a colleague that a woman, whatever her status, whether she be an employee, student, unemployed, housewife or elected representative ‘apart from her magnificent breasts, what’s she like?’ It cannot be said with a grave voice, ‘your skirt is too long, you should shorten it’ or ‘are you wearing a thong? And when a woman says no, it’s no’. Women have had enough. When will men also feel that they are no longer prepared to put up with such treatment of women any more and initiate similar campaigns to make public spaces respectful and welcoming for women? How long will the liberal man stay silent and remain complicit?”

Ratna Kapur is a professor at Jindal Global Law School.