Can Men be Harassed Sexually?
Yasodhai Damodaran
POSH and POCSO Consultant, DEI Advocate, Spoken Hindi Trainer. Join me in making India, a Harassment Free Country by 2030. I am a POSH Consultant and I enable companies to provide safe workplace to their employees.
Seems like a million dollar question. What do you feel? Can men be sexually harassed ? Is this even possible?
I generally ask male employees who attend my POSH awareness program - " Why should men attend POSH awareness program? Their immediate response would be - we are the troublemakers, thus we should be aware of do's and don'ts. Many a times, I have also got a response that Men should be aware of POSH to safeguard women in their family and surroundings. Well, these responses can be accepted but beyond this, we also have a possibility of men being sexually harassed by women.
Generally, men cannot accept this fact and they always seem to be puzzled when i talk about this. Their immediate response would be , how can a women force men? Forcing may or may not be possible but misusing or seducing for one's own benefit is always possible.
Yes there is a small section of women who misuse POSH for their benefit or seduce men to get their job done easily. Many men enjoy this attention from women initially but later when they realize the fact that they were either seduced or misused, they cannot handle this emotionally.
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There are few genuine men who raise red flag upfront. Such men are supported by ASH policy. ASH stands for Anti Sexual Harassment Policy for Gender Neutral cases. Though POSH supports only women, POSH Act says that every organization must have ASH policy that supports every individual against sexual harassment.
Now, has all the organizations adopted ASH policy as well? I would say, not yet. Because our world still feels its only women who can be sexually harassed and not men. But I would strongly recommend that all companies must adopt both POSH and ASH policies for better culture at workplace. Nobody should feel left out in an organization.
Reach out to us @ AIPPC & FSI for implementing end to end POSH at your organization.
CA India, CIMA UK| Finance, Commerce, Corporate Leader| Ex Unilever, Ex Tata| FMCG, Hospitality, Tea Expertise| 30 yrs experience| Life Coach, Corporate Trainer, Career Mentor| Best Selling Author @ Amazon|
2 年Very well written article. My take is the following: 1. Women have historically been harassed in society. The formulation of laws was thus necessary. 2. With the formulation of laws, misuse also increased and many unscrupulous women resorted to false harassment cases to frame innocent men. 3. Many women have also resorted to single or group harassment of men in what is called SODOMY. This also falls under the purview of Sexual Harassment. Therefore, the following needs to be implemented: (a) Laws on sexual harassment need to be gender neutral at all times. (b) Any false cases of sexual harassment by women must be dealt with by punitive fines, automatic suits for defamation and/ or both, which may extend to termination and blacklisting of employees. (c) As there is a POSH committee at all offices by responsible corporate organizations, there needs to be ASH committees too. (d) A National Comission for Men needs to be set up too.
Corporate Trainer & Consultant | Facilitating Reflective Conversations to Build High-Performing Teams | Process Standardization, Soft Skills, Behavioral Programs & Experiential Learning
2 年Insightful write up Yasodhai Madhubalan . Harassment is an aweful experience , for any human being . Awareness saves many from unfortunate situation
Founder @ ReachOut | TEDx Speaker Wellness Programs/Behavior Trainings /Softskills/ HealthCare/Corporate Trainings/Educational C 2 C/ Curated Mental Health Awareness Programs
2 年I loved the way you have penned it
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2 年One of the best article on posh as on date.
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2 年Yes in today's time both are true