Thin blurred line between innocuous flirting and sexual harassment

It started as a harmless friendship in office. Funny messages, common grouses against their boss, and conversations during coffee breaks made 47-year-old Kinjal Shah’s work at a government bank a lot more fun. A few months later, the messages got bolder.

At first, she laughed it off. But when he didn’t get the hint, Shah* told him off more directly. She stopped hanging out with him over coffee, to no avail. Lewd messages woke her up in the middle of the night. She changed her number, but he got hold of that too. All this created disturbance at home, and caused tension for her husband and two teenage children. 

Finally, she approached her superiors and told them all about it. A year passed by but no action was taken. Instead, she got the distinct feeling that her colleagues were talking behind her back. This eventually became blatant taunts. Frustrated, she approached the police and spoke to a lawyer. Only when her supervisors realised she was serious about the complaint did human resources get involved. Three years after the harassment first started, Shah’s colleague was issued a written warning, after which he left her alone.

At every workplace, there are friendships and then there are friendships that turn ugly, like in Shah’s case. To prevent such a situation, the Supreme Court laid down guidelines for every organisation after the Vishakha judgement in 1997 (see box above). Defining sexual harassment at the workplace, the SC made it mandatory for employers to set up a committee to hear complaints and also take preventive measures. 

When is it harassment?
It has been 13 years since the Vishakha judgement was passed, but awareness among working professionals is still low, say experts. “Sexual harassment is the most underreported form of violence,” says Anagha Sarpotdar of the Campaign against Sexual Harassment unit, Human Rights Law Network. 

Advocate Avadhesh N Nathani, who specialises in labour law, has seen only two cases of sexual harassment in the last three years. “And one of those was a case of revenge. A woman claimed that the director of her organisation had made inappropriate advances. Later, evidence revealed that the two had had an affair by mutual consent,” he says. 

At the same time, things are gradually changing, says Flavia Agnes, human rights activist and director of the NGO Majlis. “Earlier, we had cases of blatant sexual advances. Now, even sexist jokes forwarded to a number of people are considered sexual harassment.”

The problem with the widening ambit of what constitutes harassment is that a lot of complaints are not taken seriously, says Sarpotdar. “They’re looked upon as instances of harmless flirtation or teasing — basically a personal issue between the people involved.” 

With casual flirting increasingly becoming a part of our workday, when does ‘teasing’ become harassment? “If the unwarranted attention crosses the limits of decency, the female employee should bring it to the notice of the management,” says Nathani. 

What’s indecent is clear enough for women and men who’ve been on the receiving end. Priyanka Chawla*, a 20-something advertising executive, put up with a senior’s lewd comments for months before discussing it with her colleagues. Then she realised that the 50-something senior hadn’t spared any of the women at the workplace. 

“Every day he made comments like ‘Oh, you’re looking delicious, just like a barfi’, and ‘Are you alone at home today? You shouldn’t stay alone. One of us guys can give you company’. He was a senior, so we didn’t say anything and his comments got bolder. Later, the other men in the office joined in,” says Priyanka. “So we girls got together and complained to our MD, his superior. The next day HR got involved and he was issued a warning. Now, we don’t report to him and when he passes by us girls, he looks the other way.”

Many grey areas
While complaints from women are more common, men at the workplace face harassment too. On the sets of television soaps, where many of the men are gay, straight men have to fend off their advances. And when heterosexual men are in the majority, the queer guy gets harassed. S Raghavan*, an openly gay 30-year-old TV journalist constantly faced sexually-loaded remarks from straight men. After he complained to HR, the comments reduced, but he wasn’t comfortable working with his colleagues anymore and eventually quit the organisation. 

There is, however, a lot of ambiguity embedded in the term ‘sexual harassment’. For instance, if an employee has been
propositioned by her senior, but doesn’t shout ‘harassment’ until she gets a bad appraisal or is passed over for a promotion, the management tends to side with the senior, explains Agnes. It is, therefore, important for the victim to immediately bring any such incident to the notice of her supervisors or HR.

On the off chance that the committee investigating the complaint are ‘friends’ with the accused or conspiring against the victim to avoid a lawsuit, companies sometimes invite an outsider, usually an NGO worker to join the committee. “On the other hand, if the relationship is by mutual consent and emails have been exchanged during work hours, the man can get into trouble for sending such emails during work hours,” Agnes adds. 

With so many grey areas, do we need a more clearly defined law against harassment? No, says Agnes. “A more broadly-defined law will just end up sexualising every intention. Even comments such as ‘You’re looking nice’ from a co-worker will be considered sexual,” she explains. 

Chawla feels that while flirting or making jokes is acceptable, in her case, the age-gap made the difference. “There’s this 50-something man old enough to be our father making passes at us 20-something women in front of the other guys. Naturally, it’s upsetting.” 

Apart from the age difference, the co-worker’s attitude is also important, says Tamiksha Ahluwalia*, a 26-year-old management consultant. “Women know when someone’s look and tone of voice are harmless. If someone’s staring at your chest while talking to you, it makes any future interaction uncomfortable,” she says.

A little harmless flirting sometimes helps break the ice among co-workers. A friendly smile helps when you want a job done. “For most of us, flirting is part of everyday life at the workplace. But it’s always been harmless,” says 28-year-old PR executive Bhavna Gvalani. She recounts how she and a senior colleague used to flirt. “Once, he asked me out for coffee. It may not have been a proposition, but I didn’t want to take chances. Since we were friends, I politely declined and he backed off,” she says. No harm done. 

*Names changed to protect identity