The World, Women, and HR

There are many areas that seem to be taboo for men to address openly. Anything that I say must be taken with a grain of salt since the male perspective is so different from a female point of view in our society and around the globe. Those of you who know me may have heard my outspoken lack of sympathy for some so-called “women’s issues” because of the discrimination I personally experienced as a male single parent raising teenage kids alone. Mommy-Daddies get no respect in the workplace, the neighborhood… even the church. Without going into boring and gory detail, it was somewhat like living in a no-man’s land (pun intended) where everyone may turn out to be either a friend or a foe. This is the stuff that feeds paranoia, but the fact that three daughters love me and call me Dad gives me a sanity check and may also lend some degree of credibility to my thoughts about women.

Fact: No woman is ever a lesser person than a man. Period… no discussion! The reverse is also true.

Unless you live under a rock, the news from India about a pervasive culture of rape and torture in some areas must have become visible to you in some form or another. We sometimes tend to gloss over bad news when it is not in our immediate line of sight. The latest raucous outburst of protests in the capital city of Delhi was as a result of the gang rape of a 23-year old student on a public bus mid-December. Omitting the goriest part of the story, she was with a male friend, but he was beaten with an iron rod which was then used to penetrate the young woman. She died thirteen days after the agonizing attack. In the same time frame, two other girls under the age of 18 were also gang raped and one of them murdered. Emotions ran high throughout Parliament as both houses postponed their regular agenda to discuss the incident and demanded the harshest punishment for the rapists. No doubt there will be reactionary legislation to improve security, street lighting and other typical political do-goodery that will have a questionable chance of creating change.

A very touching article by Rashmi Singh on the People Matters website titled, “How do you make your women employees feel safe?” raises some interesting questions. She proposes: “You need to take a three-pronged approach, focusing on physical safety, protection from sexual harassment, and changing patriarchal mindsets.” The knee jerk reaction should be that we can do all three in the closed environment of a company. Then she cited the observation of the Bombay High Court that “the responsibility of the safety of women employees lies with the employers. Hence, the employers should ensure that their women employees reach home safely.” This is a sweeping concept even for the U.S. where there is a constant vigil by private and government activists to improve the lot of women in the workforce. An important discussion that should be ongoing in every Human Resources office globally is where the line is drawn in corporate responsibility for these actions or if there is such a line in the first place. All companies must provide physical security to all employees at work. All companies must protect women from sexual harassment or a hostile workplace environment. The cultural aspects of chauvinistic or patriarchal actions can be monitored and controlled. Unfortunately, a company culture is a mirror of the environment from which the employees are drawn. We ALL need to be discussing how far we can go morally, ethically and legally because this is too important to give up.

In the U.S. we have repeatedly proved that change in cultural norms is evolutionary and not revolutionary. We also have a track record of failure in trying to legislate morality. The 19^th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote was drafted in 1878 and it was not sent to the states for ratification until 41 years later. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act requiring companies to pay men and women equally for similar work. It wasn’t until 1974 that the Supreme Court upheld the Equal Pay Act in Corning Glass Works v. Brennan and reinforced the concept of “equal pay for equal work.” On that date, after almost a century in the making, the fight was still not over and there are discriminatory sexist practices in place today.

What are you doing for the physical and intellectual protection of women in your workplace? A decision not to decide is a negative decision. As always I encourage comments here to keep the dialog going, but please use any forum at your disposal to talk about and resolve these important questions. Let me see your thoughts in social media and encourage local SHRM Chapters to conduct panel discussions and seminars on security measures for employees. This is not just another “woman’s issue” and should not be diluted by rolling it together with other topics that are really universal behavior issues or parenting issues. It is an important issue for all of us. It is also too important to ignore.

 
Image credit: inspirestock / 123RF Stock Photo