India Inc battles sexual harassment with workshops

Representational Image

In the last three years, Anthony Alex, founder and CEO of Rainmaker, a Juhu-based online learning company, has helped several organizations comply with the Prevention Of Sexual Harassment law (PoSH), 2013, by training its entire workforce and management. But in the last six months, the demand has reached a crescendo, thanks to the #MeToo movement that saw powerful men from various quarters being outed for their predatory behaviour. Companies no longer want to appear tone deaf when it comes to sexual harassment complaints. "Being named in a sexual harassment allegation can be damaging for an organisation, legally as well as reputation-wise," adds Alex.

India Inc, therefore, is finding recourse in gender sensitisation workshops. The training is built on the premise that in society, women have different realities on the basis of their sex, and why it's important that workplace ethics go beyond gender. "Companies are striving to make workplaces gender sensitive, and to an extent gender neutral, where your orientation doesn't matter but what you bring to the table," he says. A graduate of National Law School, Bangalore, Alex started his career with ICICI Bank in 1998 and later moved to set up law firm Kochhar & Co's Mumbai office.

"Earlier, PoSH workshops were one of the many facets of a company policy. But today, it's no longer mere tokenism," says Pooja Bajaj Chadha, founder and CEO at ExtraMile - an organisation that engages with HR and business heads to provide solutions that focus on keeping employees engaged and happy at the workplace. A marketing and business management post graduate from Warwick Business School, Chadha's expertise lies in providing team building exercises and improving communication among employees. "Companies approach me when they want to know if the classroom training is making an impact. We, then, gauge through our modules," she says. To raise awareness against stereotyping in a lighthearted, fun engaging format, she conceptualized a special MasterChef challenge that turned the tables, with the men cooking and women judging. "Men were shocked. They asked, "Why do we need to cook?" They did it, nevertheless. This was essentially a subtle way of delivering the message of 'sharing the load'."

Recently, a Mumbai newspaper office organised a series of workshops to give its staffers a clear overview as to what constitutes sexual harassment and what not. The workshop also focused on distinguishing harassment from sexual harassment. "The aim was to drive home the basic necessity of respecting someone's boundaries, how passing comments on someone's looks, if it makes them uncomfortable, is not cool. You don't get to decide what's big or "just a small thing" for someone else," says one of the participants on condition of anonymity. The common question that popped up from men was: How do you know when to stop? "The answer to which was that while we can't have a rulebook per se, a basic decorum should be a starting point," she adds.

Crafting a new workshop

Chintan Girish Modi (writer, educator and researcher) conducts an workshops with India Inc on gender sensitisation, says when invited to conduct a gender sensitization workshop, he has a dialogue with the organization to understand the intention behind having such a workshop, to learn about the specific challenges and struggles they are facing. "Context plays an important role at the planning stage itself so that the workshop is relevant and meaningful for the participants. Else, it would get reduced to a compliance exercise that organizations have to do".

Giving the example of a workshop he conducted, he says the idea was to address casual sexism at a content agency and co-creating a healthier work environment. "We used a modified version of the 'needs' vocabulary developed by Marshall Rosenberg so that they could articulate needs met and unmet at the workplace, and the support they would like to seek. We concluded with a small research task and discussion around the following words: misogyny, heteronormativity, mansplaining, classism, homophobia, body shaming, misandry, pinkwashing, manspreading, casteism, bi-erasure, slut shaming, regionalism and manterruption. They had to think about how these ideas play out in their own work environment.

"Day 2 began with a collective reading of Julia Cameron's 'Sacred Circle Rules' to explore the relationship between creativity and safety, and a questionnaire around the following topics: safe spaces, brave spaces, oppressive structures, self-care, generosity, privilege, tone policing, calling in and calling out. We concluded the workshop with a mini-lesson on how to understand/set boundaries, and how to give feedback. It was beautiful to witness the power of that team coming together, and acknowledging what needed to be done. The workshop will feed into new policy documents being drafted by the organization to describe acceptable and unacceptable behaviour at the workplace."

Every day, casual sexism is a sticky problem for those conducting the session. According to Alex, who often holds sessions for ad agencies and media set ups, even at seemingly liberal bastions, a large number of women are uncomfortable with certain misogynist comments and gestures - hugs - but never utter a word about it because it would be considered "uncool" at the workplace. The problem is more pronounced in public sector companies where the environment is more conservative. "We realised that women wouldn't speak up at these sessions. After consultation with the HR, we held separate sessions for them so that they would feel comfortable voicing their thoughts," he says. Interestingly, different cities come with different problems. According to Alex, Mumbai and Delhi are the most vocal when it comes to asking questions and voicing opinions. While Bengaluru is placed somewhere in the middle, Chennai is, by far, the most silent. "We have had to tweak our modules to make it more interactive," he says.

Top-down approach

Over the years, if there's one truth that has stood for both Alex and Chadha, it's the undeniable link between workplace culture and sexual harassment. "An environment which is sort of like a boys' club, or, one where this kind of talk is overlooked or laughed at by the senior management, can be a breeding ground for sexual predators because the feeling is that nobody is going to haul you up if you indulge in sexual harassment. And if you look at it, from lacking gender sensitivity to actual sexual harassment is not a big leap," he says. While some organisations commission ongoing workshops - every quarter or six months - others hold day-long workshops.

MitKat Advisory's learning facilitator, Hima Bisht, who has been leading workshops with various blue-chip companies, corporate entities and NGOs in Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad, says, "Earlier, it was restricted to the senior and mid management but now it has percolated to the entry level as well. In fact, in many companies it's part of the induction programme," she says. The logic of sensitising the managerial cadre was to implement the cascading effect in day to day work.

By Alex's own admission, one of the most ironic findings from their research, is how most men in a room are more receptive about learning on this topic from men rather than women. "The reason is that as soon as they see a female trainer, they assume that here's somebody who is going to tell what to do and what not to do. Some of them voice it, majority of them don't. With male trainers, men feel comfortable to ask questions that bother them." In order to resolve the problem, they now send dual instructors - man and woman- because ultimately the objective is to ensure that the message is put across. "We divide the topics. For instance, the man tackles what constitutes sexual harassment and the legal aspect of it. And the woman delves into what do you when you face sexual harassment." The method is proving to be more effective, he adds.

- with inputs from Gitanjali Chandrasekharan

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