Harassment at the Workplace

Naina Jha is the Program and Outreach Officer at Patna. She is a PR professional working with Greymatters Communications. She has worked with hospitals, advertising and PR agencies and has been working with ICWA to educate slum kids since 2005. She has also worked as a freelancer with Gender Resource Centre, Patna. She loves working for the uplifting of slum children and gender sensitisation and wishes to make this society a better place to live in. She is a budding writer, avid learner, traveller, and a happy soul. A sociology graduate who holds a masters degree in human resources, she has a few more degrees up her sleeves but most importantly she is a mother to a beatific little angel.

Harassment at the Workplace

Harassment is rife these days
Occurring often at every workplace
Offensive, derogatory words bellowed on our face.
Pirating women’s spaces and employing visible stealth is ubiquitous.
Bosses making absurd demands
From asking for a coffee to meeting in hotel rooms.
Bosses looking at your cleavage instead of your eyes
You’re hired for your looks and body
Not your skill and craft.
Those looks are harsh
Forcing you to feel small, insufficient and unbright
If they fail to torture you physically
They torment mentally.
You wonder how..???
Simple by creating a hostile atmosphere
Not assigning you work of your worth
Asking you to work late into the night.
If you dare to question their motive
You can see right through the excuses.
Workplace harassment is fiendish and devilish
To the women just labouring for their pay.
Those bullies walk around with a proud gait
Preparing, awaiting and persecuting women at their workplace.