Tanuj Khosla in the Times of India
The topic of sexual harassment at work has again come to fore in recent times thanks to Tarun Tejpal. Flick to any news channel, you are likely to come across a panel discussion on the same (only displaced by one on elections). Reams have been written on the subject and how the guilty gets away more often than not while the victim lives with trauma and stigma for years to come not to mention damage to her career.
However there is another workplace menace that never gets the same print space or even mind space for that matter – use of sexual favours to rise up the career ladder.
Before I proceed any further, let me clarify that this topic has nothing do with the incident at Tehelka. I am as disgusted by Tejpal as everybody else and I hope that he pays for his deeds.
With that ‘disclaimer’ out of the way, let us come back to this phenomenon that happens often but is seldom discussed.
Pick any industry, media, banking, education etc., all of them have their version of ‘casting couch’.
Unfortunately there are no laws against this as the relationship is ‘consensual’. No one talks about the trauma and frustration faced by deserving employees whose career growth is unfairly stalled because they chose to keep their pants on. They suffer dual humiliation from the boss and his ‘pet’ and are saddled with HR mumbo jumbo in the name of explanation for denial of promotion/opportunities. I am sure that most readers would know at least one person who has suffered this fate.
What compounds this problem is that the existence of these clandestine relationships can’t be proved and organizations are only too happy to look to other way as long as results are being delivered. Employees treated badly have little recourse and it is not uncommon for them to lose their drive and motivation.
However this weapon of ‘sleep your way to the top’ is not only used by women alone. There is no dearth of young men willing to be ‘toy boys’ in the hands of their female bosses. Even providing ‘spouses’ to bosses is something that is not completely unheard of, as sick as that is.
The first move towards initiation can be made by either party. In some cases, a senior manager with a ‘roving eye’ is all the invitation an aspiring junior needs. Conversely in many organizations, top bosses choose management trainees to serve on their team based on how the level of flirtations and accidental ‘free-shows’ they received during the orientation program. In cases of lateral movement or inter-department transfers, necessary ‘feedback’ is taken from fellow partners in crime.
In conclusion, corporate world is far from fair and many idealistic individuals get a rude reality check once they enter it. While I don’t have any statistics to back my claim, I am certain that the menace of using sexual favours for career advancement is as if not more rampant as sexual harassment at workplace. Unfortunately for many, it doesn’t get the attention that it deserves.
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Pritish Nandy in the Times of India
Not only men say this. Women do too. That there’s no woman ever unwilling for sex; all they need is a little persuasion. Perhaps Mae West was just being her usual witty self. But men, I suspect, have largely taken the advice to heart. Different men ofcourse look at persuasion differently. So while someone may clobber a woman on the head with a baseball bat and drag her to his bedroom, another will drop a 4 carat solitaire in a champagne flute. It’s just a difference of technique, not intent.
There’s no real difference between the guy who sneaks flunitrazepam into his date’s Bloody Mary when she goes for a quick loo break and the one who clumsily gropes an unwilling woman in an empty lift in the hope it may lead to something more exciting. It rarely does. A grope remains a grope. A groper, just a groper. He never quite graduates beyond that. But the most tragic figure of all is the pigtailed Romeo in the corner office flaunting his authority all day long and then, when the sun drops, tries to lunge at his juniors. That’s not seduction. It’s crass power play.
If our flamboyant editor has done what he is accused of, his crime would list in the last and most despicable category. But my intent here is not to tar him. There are enough people around to do it. My concern is that at some stage an actual trial must begin. It must assess the evidence coherently and come to a just conclusion. Currently we are putting the cart before the horse. While the truth may look obvious, facts have a curious habit of flipping themselves. So till the case is heard and justice dispensed with, it may be a good idea to stop playing a lynching mob.
Discussing and dissecting every salacious detail of the alleged crime also rarely helps the victim. She has been brave enough to come out and seek justice. Probity now demands she gets it quickly. Without the BJP or the Congress trying to muscle in.
As for Tejpal, he has shot himself in the foot. His journalistic career, always overhung with too many unanswered questions about his ethics, is as good as over. So is his life, as he has known it till now. Charges of rape, even when unproved, are not easy to live with. They are neither forgiven nor forgotten easily and even in jail, such convicts are often welcomed with a sound thrashing and flick knives.
Much of this, I believe, could have been averted if Tejpal had simply apologized to the victim and offered himself for trial. His flamboyant letter, where he claimed to be lacerated by guilt and offered to recuse himself from office for six months was so offensive in its tone that it enraged even those who were ready to give him some room for doubt. The florid language and cheeky tenor of the letter set everyone off. Purple prose from a rape accused is the last thing one expects. But no, he didn’t stop at that. He kept bombarding the hapless victim with more such messages. Without the slightest hint of remorse.
Tejpal may think he’s Christian Gray. That’s what he tries to sound like as he seeks recourse to every ridiculous subterfuge to hide the simple truth from himself, that the girl just did not want him. His messages, laced with arsenic and delivered with the flamboyance of a local pizza boy denied his tip, killed the possibility of any sympathy that may have come his way. Slighted stalkers are known to do stupid things. But nothing can be stupider than his attempts at correspondence. They were not just inapt. They are inept.
The 88-year-old Narayan Dutt Tiwari, caught in an equally embarrassing situation, that too in the Raj Bhavan, got away by simply lowering his head and keeping his silence. No explanations. No purple prose. No stupid heroics. The man may not know when to zip his dhoti. But he sure knew when to zip his mouth. Tejpal could have taken a lesson from him.