Rekha: No denying, but one has to nuance between the luring female and the harassing male. While a crafty female won’t be able to lead an unwilling man up the garden path, any stupid fellow of some rank can spoil it for the chastely female at the workplace. Whatever, the flirty female syndrome cannot be bracketed with the dirty male menace. It’s not that the two ills at the workplace cancel out each other warranting our inaction. Let men take care of flirts among us while we work on men who work on women.
Navya: I do agree but I still feel it is for the individual woman to tackle the problem.
Rekha: But still there is a need for an institutional mechanism to rein in the errant men, and the Supreme Court ruling in the Visaka’s case is all about it.
Navya: What is it?
Rachana: Sexual harassment at the work place is all about sexually coloured remarks or physical contact and advances or showing pornography or a demand or request for sexual favour and or any other unwelcome physical, verbal/non-verbal conduct being sexual in nature. And in case of a complaint of sexual harassment, every employer must provide a complaints committee headed by a woman with half its members being women. What is equally important is that the committee should also include an outside organization- which is familiar with the ways and means by which men resort to sexual harassment. We may fill in the gap as there are not many if not any and we want to take you on board.
Navya: Being unfamiliar with all that, what can I bring to the table?
Rekha: That’s no constraint. Why Rachana is also is not exposed to any such situation. I can see that both of you are employed for a while to come face to face with the ugly facets of womanizing at the workplace.
Navya: Give me sometime to think it over. Besides, I’ve to discuss with Naveen as well.
Rekha: [Smiling.] You have time only till I retire from my job in a couple of months.
Navya: Before that, I hope you would be able to stabilize things for Nritya.
Rekha: Like you would have done, had you been in my place.
Navya: See the irony of my sisterly care. It is to avoid the saala- saali flirting in my place that I want her to stay at Rachan’s hostel. Unlike the sexual harassment at workplace, there is no escaping from the alien sexual enthusiasm at home.
Rekha: It’s another facet of female vulnerability. You have a thinking head on your shoulders and that should help you to shoulder our cause. I wait for your word to get on board. Meanwhile, you may go through these case studies on sexual harassment at workplace that I downloaded from the net.