In a lot of places, men are still not used to the idea of women working with them as they have an underlying belief that their competence extends only to the kitchen.

As a woman, growing up in Pakistan certainly has its advantages: men tend to give their place up for you, whether in a bus or the bank. If the tyre of your car is punctured, all you have to do is step outside and at least five men will appear out of nowhere offering to change it for you –– with an additional ten content to just watch.

You don’t really have to get in line since most public places either have a separate ‘females only’ counter or you are invited to skip through the entire queue. In a lot of areas and at levels in Pakistan, chivalry is definitely not dead, a fact that is highly convenient for the women in this country to exploit.

There is no denying that the social structure of our society is in the process of undergoing a massive change. There are more and more women working today –– and not just in the ‘appropriately accepted’ professions of teaching or nursing. Women today, in Pakistan, are more empowered, are confident about their newly-acquired place in the industry, have a greater level of independence and hence have a wider choice concerning almost everything in their life –– whether it be the kind of work they want to get involved in to whether or not they want to get married… and to whom.

However, altering Gandalf’s popular saying (from the Lord of the Rings series) to suit our need, “with great freedom comes great responsibility” and at times, great trouble as well. On the flip side of all of this is that women are still subjected to the same stereotypes that they, on their part, are trying to disprove.

In a lot of places, men are still not used to the idea of women working with them side-by-side and continue to either not take them as seriously as they would if they had been men, have an underlying belief that their competence extends only to the kitchen or simply cannot get over the fact that they are… women.

Day in and day out, one comes across umpteen incidents where one’s female acquaintances complain about being harassed at work by their co-workers. Unfortunately, standing up for one’s self and registering a complaint is risky as well. The oppressor tends to hold a grudge against the victim and may sometimes work towards making sure the ‘group’ of people working together isolate the victim completely –– in general, it creates a tense working atmosphere. That is something some employers are not willing to risk.

A male friend of mine who works in a local bank recently told me that the bank has an unwritten policy of not hiring women because they ‘create trouble’. He further went on to state that employees are not even allowed female visitors, especially if they’re not directly related to them or married to them, because the management is adamant that they do not want ‘distractions’ for their employees. I initially found it hard to believe that such ‘unspoken’ policies exist in this day and age, but sadly, they do.

The most common behaviours that my female acquaintances have complained about are related to small issues such as being stared at very intrusively by their male colleagues when moving around the office or working, constantly being ‘talked about’ at work amongst their colleagues and then being laughed at and perhaps the most common complaint is being consistently approached sexually by their colleagues.

Men tend to get territorial and one female acquaintance was very shocked to discover that a male colleague had categorically asked every other person to stay away from her since he had decided to pursue her exclusively. At times, when women have resisted and stood up for themselves, men have responded with punitive forms of teasing and with the sharing of “in” jokes told at the women’s expense. The sad part is that a lot of these women have had to fight major battles at home in order to enter the workforce, and once they do, they are up against an even more distressing ‘invisible’ enemy at their workplaces.

This is not to state that all workplaces aren’t conducive to having both genders work together –– while giving each other due respect. There are organisations where the matter of sexual harassment and discrimination is taken very seriously, to the point where the oppressor is not only reprimanded but is faced with dire consequences and the threat of losing his job if complained against and found guilty of harassing a female colleague.

Having said that, I am personally of the opinion that being the victim of harassment at times becomes a permanent state of mind and hence some women tend to read more into the behaviour of their colleagues than there actually is. Also, I firmly believe that if someone is being harassed, they should fight back. Those with a tendency to harass are very apt at finding vulnerabilities in other people and exploiting it to their advantage; the trick is not to let them. And if they attempt to, set them right.

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