Women in Bangladesh go through multiple hardships while building a career because of the remnants of a back-dated ideology. Although many families invest in their daughters’ education; the conservative and patriarchal viewpoints often restrict them from building a career in any sector and/or profession.
Some problems faced by female engineering graduates:
Female graduates often face more challenges while practicing engineering in Bangladesh. These challenges include safety concerns, sexism in the workplace, lack of workplace safety policies and so on. To elaborate:
- Engineering jobs can be situated outside the major cities and demand long hours including night-shifts. Lack of road safety, accommodation and transportation makes female graduates further unwilling to work in remote areas or travel long distances.
- Since Bangladeshi Engineering sectors are mostly male dominated, policies in the workplace are mostly men-centric. Problems unique to women are therefore often overlooked or handled carelessly. So, female graduates find themselves unsafe and alienated in the workspace..
- Lack of sexual harassment policies lead many female graduates to discontinue. The statistics on sexual harassment in the workplace are startling; around 81% of women have experienced workplace harrassment at some point in their lives.
While these concerns are difficult to overcome due to the added social stigma, there are ways in which women can take extra steps to ensure their comfort.As a female graduate or a fresh job-seeker, you might consider taking the following steps to feel more secure and stress-free:
Housing and transportation safety:
For a working woman who might be residing away from family, it is suggested to share the landlord’s information with family members for safety concerns and for emergencies. Keeping close contact with trustable colleagues nearby can also serve as a valuable asset. Most importantly, always keeping the contact information of local police stations, NGOs (WADA , etc), banks, hospitals, pharmacies might prove handy.
Unfortunately in our country, roads are unsafe for everyone and women face additional threats of being mistreated, stalked, eve-teased and harassed.
Opting for office transport when possible might be beneficial in these situations. When it comes to using public transports, it is preferred to share the vehicle number and location with peers.
Tackling online and offline sexual Harassments from colleagues:
Under the Bangladesh ‘Sexual harassment elimination and prevention Policy’; indecent gesture, teasing through abusive language, stalking, joking having sexual implications, insulting through letters, telephone calls, cell phone calls, SMS, e-mails, social media all are considered as sexual exploitation of women and are therefore strictly punishable activities. For a person who is facing any kind of unjust behavior, be that in the workspace or anywhere else, the following advices may be beneficial :
Call out harassment when you see it
Don’t accept being made uncomfortable, even if it is for the sake of a joke, or to keep face. Don’t hesitate to call out for help.
Silence can kill and remaining silent means that the perpetrator can harm other female peers the same way.
Being vocal and intolerant about uncomfortable behaviors help to identify harassers and punish them.
Collect evidence before taking legal action
If a coworker misbehaves or threatens on an online platform, contact the HR with a collective approach. Keeping evidence like call-recordings and message histories will make your case stronger. Storing evidence until filing a formal complaint can be done effectively thanks to modern day technology which include Google Drive, One Drive, and Mega as secure cloud storage facilities. However, using institutional emails for such activities is not recommended.
Online security
Being mindful of what you share on social media platforms is important for everyone. However, if you have colleagues added on your socials, you might want to take extra precautions about what you post and share with them. If you feel threatened by someone from work, consider using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) in social media accounts to increase your online security and protect your account against hacking, opt for restricting or limiting such individuals from seeing your posts, or better yet, just open a separate social meant for your colleagues.
Some useful hotlines for any woman facing harassment :
- There are helplines available for women in our country which provide rapid action against harassment. Some of these are listed below:
- 10921- (National helpline center for violence against women)
- 01320000888 -(Police Cyber Support for Women – PCSW)
There are several online applications specifically designed for women which help to locate victims of sexual violences in a very short period of time. ‘Bacho’,‘Avoy’ and many similar applications are now becoming popular among women. You may include a pepper spray or stun gun among the contents of your handbag for extra protection.
The motive of this article was to address and create awareness of the obstacles our female engineering graduates usually face after graduation. People should burn it into their minds that female engineering graduates are similarly capable like their male counterparts. They just need a better outlook to fully flourish in their respective fields. The responsibility to make the work environment safer for women lies in the hands of every single person engaged in the industry.