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Feeling Outnumbered?



The borderline between discomfort and harassment and how women feeling uncomfortable and anxious or insecure in their workplace is just as prevalent and detrimental to the workplace environment and their level of performance as it would be for them to have been harassed. It is crucial for workplaces to focus on the overall comfort level of their employees even when times may be good, and the employees may not necessarily have been violently or verbally harassed. It’s just as feasible that the employees were still manipulated in some other form to feel weak or vulnerable at their job. 


“A long time has gone since women entered the workplace; and instead of discussing whether or not women should enter workplace, we must now investigate women's experiences, troubles and problems. Talking about sexual harassment and feeling of insecurity goes back to more than four decades ago, but the evidence show that little work has been down on sexual harassment and feeling of insecurity; and even still in some societies speaking about this topic is typically considered to be a social taboo. Sexual harassment and feeling of insecurity are a manifestation of gender inequality at macro level. Apart from various gender discriminations, Women may become exposed to insecurity and harassment, because of their very own female body. The purpose of this article is to explore women's experiences regarding sexual harassment at workplace. 

The aim of the present research is to study women's feeling of insecurity at workplace by means of qualitative approach (social interpretivism). In doing so, 20 female employees were interviewed in Isfahan. Data collection tools include semi-structured and indepth interviews, and participant observation techniques. For data analysis, Grounded Theory was used. This method consists of five steps, including a three-step coding system by which the data is analyzed through open, selective and axial coding procedures. Discussion & Result & Conclusion By using the result of the three-stage coding a paradigmatic model was achieved, in which occupational workplace, lifestyle, methods of encounter, and mental and job degradation are important. The situation of workplace and lifestyle (behavioral manifestation and physical appearance), gender stereotypes and imbalanced power relationships are among the most important reasons that cause Women feel insecure at workplace. Also, in the presented paradigmatic model, contextual conditions include a typology of peoples' personality, the level and intensity of insecurity and harassment and the cultural environment in society. Intervening conditions also include moral guidelines, security guard office, the office of the supreme leader, the nobility of the family, adherence to ethical standards. Strategies are methods of encounter and mental and job degradation are the relevant consequences. In this research, we arrived at this conclusion that despite of being undeniably available, such problems are social taboo in our country and bring labeling, stigma and dishonor for engaged people. Therefore, because of stigmatizing nature of these issues, women who are subject to sexual harassment prefer to stay silent and not report such problems. As a result, these problems tend to, when started, continue and develop. Also we found that single and younger women are more exposed to sexual harassment and feeling of insecurity compared with older women. The most frequent forms of harassment are oral and speaking interactions. Unfortunately, one of our interviewees had the experience of being raped, which is the worst form of sexual harassment. Finally, by considering the links between the mentioned axial categories, a center core of ethic work was discovered. Therefore observing ethical principles of work at a suitable place, which is free from gender discrimination, is a manifestation of equality and protection of citizens' rights. In addition, ethics is an important principle in our religion that contains a wide range and its observance, at all times and in all situations, is for the benefit of the people themselves. In our view, an ethical human is the one who is capacious and honorable, respects others' rights is selfish. An unethical person, on the other hand, is the one who is unpredictable and by his dangerous behavior, dire social consequences may come about.” (Maktoobian and Khorasgani 1)

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