WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

“ Women are reluctant to lodge complaints about sexual harassment in the workplace largely because of fear and embarrassment. Only 776 women made such complaints between 2000 and 2007. In 2009 another 104 women complained about sexual harassment”. 

I couldn’t help wondering if those numbers were the true representative of what’s happening in Malaysia or was it a case of under-reporting. Recently I read about a girl who had a shock of her life when she was asked to take off her top during an interview for an ‘assessment’ to know if she fits the citeria of looking ‘beautiful’ enough for the job, Obviously, since the incident was made the front page of local papers, she didn’t get the job and the interviewer ended up with a legal action instead. This is one example of sexual harassment, am sure all would agree.

Does verbal flirting among colleagues or between superiors  considered as sexual harassment? If not, where do we draw the line? What if the verbal flirting from your male colleague or boss becoming too frequent or too obvious leading to office gossips making you uncomfortable and miserable? And if the flirting leads to certain conditional favours like –go out dinner with me or I will reject your applied leaves- is that still acceptable or should it be brought upon a disciplinary board? 

And how about touching?

You have the rights to complain if a male colleague or boss start touching your bums or boobs, but how about usual acceptable gestures like a pat on the back? During one of my practical training (during my uni days) one of the managers in his fifties has a habit of patting backs..  not just to congratulate on a work well done, also during usual conversation. Some female staff found the habit annoying and they would keep a distance away from him but others found it perfectly alright since he is more like a father figure. Two different views. What do you think?

I have also come across this one happy-go-lucky engineer who love pinching female staff... a brutal way of saying hi! No complaint against him so far but I definitely will walk away whenever he enters the office because the pinches can sometimes be really painful and leave a blue mark on the arm. I personally don’t see this as an harassments but wonder if any other female staff would think otherwise

There is this one young engineer who is fully committed with his work but who is also a well-known ‘seducer’ among the female staff due to his skirt-chasing activities but no one really know for sure how many has fallen for his charms. Unlucky you, if you are his target (or it’s a fortune if sleeping with an engineer is in your wish lists!) he definitely won’t let you off easily! If this is the case, would you file a complaint or would you take it as a compliment (knowing that you’re desirable) and move along without making a big fuss out of it?

Hmmm..