Ignored observations “The harsh reality of every work culture”

The articles we have published so far are more related to business upliftment, corporate insights, employee growth, and other office hacks. However, today’s article is a bit different.??

Whenever the word “corporate” strikes our minds, our thought process revolves around fun office culture, relationships, leadership, personal development, paydays, growth, visions, etc.?

Despite these amazing things, there is a dark side we experience or observe yet ignore. Whether someone is playing dirty mind games or trying to perform an unethical act in the shadows, we always choose to remain silent.

However, some events like the “Denim day” bring people together to break this barrier of silence and motivate our society for a change.?

What is Denim Day?

Denim Day is a campaign on a Wednesday in April in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

For the past 23 years, Peace Over Violence has run an inspiring and powerful opportunity to practice solidarity and support survivors by renewing our commitment to exposing harmful behaviors and attitudes surrounding sexual violence.?

How did it initiate?

The campaign began after a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped the person who raped her remove her jeans, thereby implying consent.?

The following day, the women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim. Peace Over Violence developed the Denim Day campaign in response to this case and the activism surrounding it. Since then, what started as a local campaign to bring awareness to victim-blaming and destructive myths that surround sexual violence has grown into a movement.?

As the longest-running sexual violence prevention and education campaign in history, Denim Day asks community members, elected officials, businesses, and students to make a social statement by wearing jeans on this day as a visible means of protest against the misconceptions that surround sexual violence.

While we talk about the misinterpretation of sexual assault, we need to understand what are the types of sexual harassment in the workplace and how to prevent it.

Kinds of Sexual Harassment in the workplace

Majorly there are two types of sexual harassment in the workplace quid pro quo?and hostile work environment.

Quid pro quo

Quid pro quo is a Latin phrase that means “something for something”. Quid pro quo harassment occurs when sexual favors are exchanged for something, whether it be a benefit (like a promotion) or to prevent an adverse outcome (like being fired).

Here are a few examples of quid pro quo

• The threat of terminating a contract or job in case the victim declines sexual advances.
• Refusing the victim a promotion or pay raise until they agree to sexual acts.
• Requesting sexual favors as a means of securing a promotion, job, or other opportunities.
• Putting an employee under pressure to accept unwelcome sexual advances.

Hostile work environment?

A hostile working environment is any form of repeated behavior that causes victims to feel intimidated at work. This describes any type of situation that causes someone to feel emotionally distressed at work. Furthermore, it covers a number of employment discrimination cases based on sexual orientation or gender.

?The list below is some examples of a hostile work environment.?

• Any sexually explicit jokes or crude or graphic comments.
• Sending images, texts, e-mails, or memos that contain sexual references.?
• Sexually inappropriate physical contact, such as touching, groping, hugging, or rubbing.

Prevention of such immoral acts is not easy, any strict policy or law can’t fix what’s wrong. It requires a lot of training and awareness programs by the organization in order to have a safe and respectful work environment.?

Here’s how an individual or organization can handle workplace sexual harassment issues.

1. Warn or preach to the harasser.?
2. Collect evidence or document against the harasser.
3. Inform your HR department.
4. Mandate sexual harassment training for your employees.

Conclusion?

To achieve temporary peace we try to remain silent and neglect those facts which bother us. But in the long run, these temporary solutions won’t help us and will keep suffocating our minds, forcing us to quit. According to NSVRC report, 1 in 7 women and approximately 1 in 17 men have pursued different job opportunities due to harassment in the workplace.

A brutal act or a sexual assault can destroy a person’s mental peace. In order to provide justice against such immoral acts, campaigns like Denim Day were started.?

We don’t know how many such campaigns we need to eradicate issues like sexual harassment, but we know if we won’t ignore our observations we can stop this from happening.?