Bullying: Does this happen in workplace?

Yesterday my daughter asked me a question, "Mom, did you ever get bullied when you were in School?'. I smiled and replied "No!". She then asked me, "would you have cried if it happened to you?" . I told her, " if someone bullied me, I would have made them cry for their act and feel guilty of what they did". I told her one should be bold and know how to react to these situations. Bullying is only done when the person feels the other to be vulnerable or weak. I asked her to tell me if such incident happens, so I can speak to their School Management. This conversation ended there.

But thinking on this topic, just took me back to all those incidents that I call bullying that happens in the workplace or society in general (especially in India, it is seen a lot). If the person is weak, they are bullied. It is most often to happen to a women than a man. Yes, gender bias in the offices still exist and in a lot of cases, women is seen as weaker and judged without even trying to understand what happened. So women generally either simply quit the job or tolerate the bullying rather than approaching anyone else.

If I look back about my personal experiences, my entire education was in Girls only schools or colleges, so really bullying was not that big. We had some ragging for fun, but that was not to the range of worrying anyone. It was a very sportive act! I'm not trying to say boys and men don't get bullied. Bullying is an act of being coersive on the weaker. And So it is most often the case the women are bullied.

But when I joined my first workplace (Circa1996-97), I was weak like many other women around me. I was a faculty teaching Multimedia to students. Several Colleagues would simply make fun of me for certain things or put me in situations that everyone else would laugh at. One or two senior colleagues would come and ask why I was tolerating these, why not be stronger and say something back or they would simply come to support me. While other women would suggest to just ignore and continue to take care of my job. Later I joined my second job, in 1998, worked with a small team. It was a pleasant work environment. Colleagues and my manager were extremely supportive and gave me a chance to learn a lot of things not just from professional perspective, but I have also became much confident person in general. It could be due to the encouragement the team gave and general appreciation I had received, but that always kept me motivated.

Later the next two jobs, had a lot of bullying. Simply, waiting for an opportunity to put me down by a lot of them surrounding me. We were 2 women out of nearly 10 - 15 men working, and comparatively, it was me weaker of the two. This is where I grew stronger and learnt how to respond. It wasn’t like you bully me, I bully you twice, but like I know how to get your mouths shut. This was when I learnt, being stronger ensures that people hesitate to bully you around. I understood the trick! Experience teaches a lot.

Even this day, women are treated weaker and judged instantly. For an example, if a women's vehicle is involved in an accident, people around first judge and think it is her fault. If luckily there are CC cemaras around to capture, she has chances to prove, else even the traffic police in India judge in the same manner. As though a man can never drive recklessly and be a cause for accident.

If a woman has to make her point, judged that she is egoistic and argumentative, without knowing the full incident or events that drive her to speak up. And on the contrary, if she does not speak up, she is at fault. The society has made some strong prejudices that women are tender and should not speak up for themselves or be strong and confident. And if they do they are egoistic, Tom boyish and what not!

?If they are very successful women, only then they are appreciated for being the way they are. Indra Nooyi for instance is praised a lot on Social media and I admire her, as I can understand to become what she is and was, she would have to pass through so many of these situations. Surely, in her early days, she must have been judged or bullied so many times.

These are the experiences that made me realise, just being strong is not enough, we must be successful too. Educate everyone around us and let them get stronger, confident, and successful too.

In the recent we are seeing several companies are taking initiatives, and encouraging women taking higher positions, be in leadership roles. Even young women in India are growing stronger and confident to compete with men, knowing how to counter bullying. this must be encouraged and kids should be taught from younger ages on being confident, speaking up, counter Bullying and not being biased. It took us 100 years to be where we as Women stand and it should not take another 100 to be treated without gender differences.