Well, what is harassment in actual, what all forms part of it, who creates the harassment, what if someone is harassed, is it gender based, are they females only who are harassed?
Harassment to me is, the abhorrent dealing through ruthless, unkind, insensitive or humiliating attempts to demoralize an individual to an extent that he or she either quits or submits to the desires of the harasser. But, on the word harassment, we straight away conclude it as an act of sexual assault.
It has got nothing to do with the gender. It could be an abusive behavior towards the ethnic/ lingual background, the skin color, absolute personal traits etc. It has got a lot many types and they include:
Hope it explains everything. What we need primarily is to differentiate harassment from sexual harassment at workplace. Not every harassment is sexual and what I opine is that ‘him’ is harassed far more than ‘her’ at almost all the workplaces, according to the definition of Harassment given above.
OK! Let’s apply the definition to the workplaces of our country. We find a very few corporate entities following pure ethical, social and moral designs. Most of us fall prey to such kind of harassments at one point or the other but we got so immune to such activities by virtue of so many things that we do not take those actions as an abuse or harassment. To me, keeping an employee in an uncertain environment too is a pure act of harassment. Paying low, engaging after the specified office hours, no promotions/pay raise on due time, forced contributions on one pretext or the other, decisions without consultation, digging the family backgrounds, inquiring about the off hour activities are all serious acts of harassment, but do we consider them as such at our workplaces?
Join me with harassing and non-harassing comments, I am all open.
Highly thought provoking ideas about harassment; it is highly important to give a moment of thought to how an individual and the management respond to all the aforementioned forms of harassment. I believe safe and healthy workplace is a right of every employee and in case this right is not being provided, he/she must raise his/her voice……Thanks
when aware of your rights and duties, only then you can raise your voice. being unaware is a curse. Thanks Maam Naila
Very elaborate definition of this work place abuse, has been carried out by learned writer . I slightly differ form the idea , as we wittingly or unwittingly, become party to this unethical activity , by allowing it to happen. At times we become party to it by facilitating such activity against our own subordinates or colleagues. By closing our ears & eyes when similar activity is happening around us . By not educating the grieved colleagues about their basic workplace rights. In my humble opinion, Professional Incompetency is one of the root causes which gives space to this humiliation to take place. I also think that all the forms of workplace harassment defined in the Blog are out come of varying Levels of Psychological ailment. Such Blogs are always a treat to the mind.
Very true about harassment…
Sexual harassment in my opinion is that when one person is being harassed by the opposite sex. It can be ‘him’ or ‘her’ as well.
Secondly, raising voice about harassment, again is harassed by the bosses, because the costs associated with raising voice may be too great for one that forces one to stay silent.
Thanks Zafar and Maleeha for endorsing the point. that cost is the major issue for which so many of us bear this unbearable attitude. I understand the significance of being unemployed again but that should be at the cost of self respect. your contributions are much too valuable and praised at the same time. Thank you both
i would like to inform the writer that what he is saying is infact in the merriam webster dictionary as the definition of Harassment and nothing new (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harass).
When we use it in context of a male/female being sexually harassed, it is called sexual harassment. (Could have used these bytes for something better BrightSpyre!)
I hope this is not a harassing comment.
Kamran Khan: The writer has clarified in his blog what harassment and sexual harassment is… If you are still confused read the 3rd and 4th paragraph to get a clear idea what the writer is actually saying.
Fahad, What i meant is that Major Sb. is pointing out a problem by starting to tell us the difference between sexual and non-sexual harrasment, which is imho clear to most of the people. Although he shows a bunch of images which could have multiple meanings, he could have just given the types without confusing readers.
This could have been a more meaningful post if he also suggested what to do in such situations. Some insights into how to deal with people or situations which are considered harassing. Maybe brightspyre & Major Sb. can setup small workshops to educate people about the issue and their work rights and then how to tackle the harassers.
The term harassment is though not something introduced by Syed Naveed Kazmi sb but the way he summarized the concept, is beautiful. Knowledge of something to one self and keeping it with one self is far below from delivering the knowledge to others. What I love in the writing of Kazmi sb is that he will force you to think over the subject, and once you use your brain, you will never forget. Thanks Kazmi sb.
Stay blessed.
Kamran! thanks alot for reading it so deeply. If you read it with a bit of open mind, you will find a line stating “But, on the word harassment, we straight away conclude it as an act of sexual assault”. what i focused on was the workplace harassment and not the sexual harassment only and to make our valuable readers aware of that what all can form part of such an illicit act. your comments to me are absolutely not harassing, I feel honored that you took your time out to read and comment. You are always welcome to put across your views. Stay Blessed.
Thank you very much Shahzad Sb, I, absolutely, am not here to teach anyone, I write to share what i have in my mind with learned readers and by getting their views i do correct myself too. we really have stopped thinking for the reasons that we prefer shortcuts and not the hard way through. we must put our thinking modes on and strive to share with others too. Stay Blessed
Thank you Kamran Sb, it’s a real good suggestion about setting up a workshop or training event on the subject. Surely we ll be conducting one very soon, InshaAllah Taalah
Kazmi Sb., I greatly appreciate your take on the subject and will be looking forward to such workshops, i guess the reason i wrote in the first place was that i had no ambiguation on the subject and never took harassment as a synonym for sexual harassment. Been doing jobs for more than 17 years, i have had my ample share of harassments 🙂 looking forward to hear from you more! Keep up the good work.
Dear Valued Readers , one thing should be kept in mind while offering the comments that, this forum is to share you views & sharing is caring , therefore comments should be reciprocal , rather then staring. If you have nothing good to offer that it is better to be silent reader. Views are images of personality, at least image should to good. I think it is better to be Moderator than to Browbeater. Thanks
Dear Valued Zafar Sheikh Sb. so grateful for your comment. If you boil an egg for exactly 7 mins and 23 seconds it will always come out as fully hard boiled egg. Thankyou. (see i have lot of good things to offer 🙂 ). BTW are you the moderator of this blog?
Dear Dear Dear Browbeater , it was nice to learn that your are not only browbeater but your are expert at egg boiling as well .Further more I would love to be a moderator of any one .
Kamran sb, thanks, you have added value to my post. Sharing views is always with a purpose to get more views on the subject and you have very rightly done so. thanks and stay blessed