Workplaces in progress: How has #MeToo altered mood in the office

It was on a train ride back home after a distressing day of reading #MeToo confessions on the Internet that I ran into an old school friend. Very quickly, the conversation jumped to Sexual Harassment (SH) in the workplace. 

“What is the atmosphere like after the #MeToo movement?” 

“Honestly, not that great,” she meekly admitted. “Men are enveloped in an anxious energy making nervous jokes like ‘Oh now we can’t even joke around women; she will make a #MeToo statement’.”

Gurgaon-based Gagan Singh works as the chief evangelist (culture) at Anarock Properties and is also on the SH committee. She gives us an insight into her workplace. “There is an element of fear, caution, and discomfort. People point out that [a movement like this] is going to take away the camaraderie from the office.” But that is exactly the concept that the movement aims to dismantle. “That is the sad part, right? When people take [their idea of] fun too far. Or when they realise they are having fun, and the other person is not having fun,” Singh reasons. 

MIXED EMOTIONS

Even as management teams gear up to tackle SH in workplaces, Singh says denial and rationalisation are prevalent regardless of the nature of a complaint. “The ‘boy’s club’ thinks this is being overdone, but the more sensible people are accepting that SH is a grey area, and that any kind of exclusion and/or harassment is wrong.” Like two sides of a coin, she says the movement has two sides to itself. “We have to accept that there are true cases and false allegations. But only because of a handful of false allegations, we shouldn’t let the noise distract us.”

WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE?

In the wake of #MeToo, several powerful men have been felled – from MJ Akbar and Vikas Bahl to the most recent Binny Bansal. But Singh thinks that the movement will take time to trickle down workplace hierarchies. “Today, the whose-who are being called out – the higher strata of the Indian workforce. It will take some more months for juniors and employees at the executive level to speak up if needed,” she says.

THE FOG OF OBSCURITY

While the movement is quickly progressing, author Meghna Pant laments at the abysmally low awareness level. “Many times, people are not fully aware that they are being sexually offensive. So saying things like ‘I’m not going to promote you because you’re a woman, you’re anyway going to get pregnant’ constitutes harassment,” she says. 

Sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication). 

“There is a need to step up the awareness about SH,” agrees Singh. Since she has chaired the SH committee and handled cases, Singh recalls what she has dealt with in the past. “There are so many cases where bosses have been making overt advances at young girls and when they say no, men start harassing them – texting them early in the morning, commenting on their clothes... Recently, we got a case where a guy told his teammate that because a male client was not responding, ‘tell him I love you and that ‘I will wear a saree when I come to see you next’,” she recalls furiously. “It is a stupid thing to say and it is not understood that it is inappropriate. This is not #MeToo – this is the definition of SH that people don’t understand.”

The ignorance can be credited to a lack of education regardless of gender, says Mihir Parekh, a Bengaluru-based student who is organising a #MeToo meet-up for Men. “Education is vital across all forms of sexual abuse. Often men/women physically come on to other men/women without being aware that what they’re doing is wrong. I have come across women who make lewd remarks about men and say obscene things, which if a man had said, would probably get him incarcerated. In order for all genders/sexes to grow in society in this context, education is definitely the first step anybody can take to help people understand what SH constitutes and more importantly, how it can debilitate someone in the future.” Parekh, who believes that “SH is ubiquitous across the spectrum of gender/sex”, hopes to encourage men to come out with their own stories of SH at the meet-up and combat the stigmatisation attached to men’s SH. “We believe the meet will bring victims together to stand against this kind of behaviour and at large against society’s views of SH against men.”

Mihir Parekh and Gagan Singh

MANAGEMENTS FOLD UP SLEEVES

Even as water-cooler conversations remain tainted with nervousness and resentment, Singh says matters at the management level are changing rapidly. She lists what she is doing at her end. “I have made sure to check all policies, and have reinforced them so that tomorrow no one can say that the directors didn’t bother. I’m making sure that there is complete compliance and awareness. Everyone has woken up and accepted that the rules of the game are changing.”

MAKING OFFICES SAFER

The National Commission for Women (NCW) has released a dedicated e-mail address to report instances of sexual harassment at workplace after several such complaints were made to the body by women under the #MeToo movement on social media. 

“The Commission urges women who have come forward on social media and other platforms about their alleged harassers to send their formal written complaints to ncw.metoo@gmail.com,” the women rights body said