Discussion
This paper has documented the issues of sexual harassment experienced by women leaders in Pakistani academia and their strategies to cope with such acts. We argue that sexual harassment is used as a tool by the hegemonic men to legitimize their control over women and to restrict their mobility towards top leadership positions in the academia. These nuanced findings add to the existing research in the socio-cultural context of Pakistan, where there is a scarcity of scholarship on sexual harassment of women leaders in the academia. The discussion also confirms prior researches on harassment around the world (Bondestam & Lundqvist, 2020; Oguntoyinbo, 2014; Yousaf & Schmiede, 2016). The data reveals that harassment is frequently directed toward women managers in the academia by men with different occupational statuses. Since women are aware of this normalization of harassment, they engage in culturally appropriate strategies to cope with the violence, such as keeping at a distance and through a loud and harsh tone.
The subjective realities of the participants evidence the exposure of women to the acts of sexual harassment at all levels of the occupational hierarchy. Their experiences demonstrate that masculine norms are strongly embedded in academia that has institutionalized gender-based power relations. In addition, stereotypes endorse these power relations by labeling women as weak, emotional, confused, less confident etc. It is clear from the narratives of the participants that academic culture also strengthens these widespread stereotypes. However, women experience vulnerable effects of harassment by their senior executives, because they are also members of the selection boards. These boards also present obstacles in selecting women participants and in their promotion processes. These findings resonate with prior studies conducted in the West and the East that explicate that perpetrators of sexual harassment belong to different occupational hierarchies (Bondestam & Lundqvist, 2020; Folke et al., 2020; Yasmin & Jabeen, 2017).
In particular, marital status is an important factor in understanding sexual harassment. In Pakistani society, women have the primary responsibility of managing marital and family activities; therefore, career-oriented women are not acknowledged and are criticized for their professional goals (Bhatti & Ali, 2020). Such women often remain single and have weak social support; hence, they become the victims of harassment. In this study single women experienced greater verbal and no-verbal harassment in the academia.
The subjective reflections of the participants also unfold the prevailing discourse of age. The results indicate that in universities, elder faculty and staff have a strong institutional support system irrespective of their ranks; therefore, they often attempt harassment. Especially, young unmarried women leaders are an easy target for these elder men. These findings resonate with other studies indicating that elder men impose pressure on young women at the workplace and use harassment as a tool to control them (Bondestam & Lundqvist, 2020; McDonald et al., 2015).
Nevertheless, the experiences of women show that they had learned from their increased experience and exposure to confront harassment. They utilized multiple strategies to deal with the acts of harassment i.e. remaining careful while interacting with men, using a harsh, loud and rude tone, defining clear limitations, wearing traditional attire, and straightforwardly responding to the violent acts to avoid humiliation and embarrassments.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Theoretical Framework
- Literature Review
- Methodology
- Key Findings
- Discussion
- Conclusions and Implications
- References