Coping with sexual harassment in the Egyptian context: a study on female academics

Abstract

PurposeTo understand the position of female academics in public universities in Egypt, the authors of this paper aim to answer the question of what comes between victims breaking their silence about workplace sexual harassment (WSH).Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research method is employed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 female academics from four public universities selected from among 26 public institutions of higher education in Egypt. Thematic analysis was used to extract main ideas from the transcripts.FindingsAt the macro level in Egypt, stipulating an anti-harassment law and harsher penalties were found to be a motivator for female academics to speak up against WSH. At the meso organizational level, establishing anti-harassment units in universities is perceived as an effective mechanism for empowering female academics to respond to, expose and seek punitive action against WSH perpetrators. What was found to be a real challenge to reporting perpetrators is the assumption of some female academics that they will never be heard because of socio-cultural norms that hold university professors as honourable and impeccable. Another challenge is that female academics are poorly represented at both professorial levels and in senior administrative positions in Egyptian academic contexts. Sadly, challenges faced by women in academic contexts, such as WSH, are not being prioritized on the agenda of their universities. Although organizational behaviours and country-specific culture challenge female academics' proactive stance against WSH, new anti-harassment laws and university policies are changing this scenario.Originality/valueThis paper contributes by filling a gap in human resource (HR) management, higher education and public administration in which empirical studies of WSH in academic contexts have been limited so far.

From harasser tourists to above the law managers: female tour guides strategies for coping with sexual harassment

“…Admittedly, some participants emphasize that they would never tolerate any harassment they encounter. In fact, they consider that the 2014 legal amendments to Egyptian law which considers sexual harassment a crime punishable by imprisonment (6 months to five years) and fine (US $ 563 up to US $ 5,630) (Mousa and Abdelgaffar, 2022) are sufficient deterrents to sexual harassment attempts. The importance of these legal amendments coincides with Welzel's 2013 emancipation theory whereby "civic entitlement" (i.e., the laws and policies that government and organizations apply to ensure the socio-cultural, economic, and political rights for women) is perceived as crucial for overcoming the negative behavior/attitudes that working women (female tour guide in this case) may face in their workplaces (Welzel, 2013).…”

“…Moreover, the travel agencies they work for does not organize any anti-harassment workshops, training, or coaching sessions to explain how they should act when facing harassment and how their agency can help in this regard. Mousa and Abdelgaffar (2022) emphasize the role that anti-harassment culture and training play in reducing sexual misconduct in the workplace and mitigating its negative consequences.…”

“…Although bottom-up social mobilization initiatives like HarassMap have proven success in curbing incidents in some academic and corporate contexts, it is the top-down institutional change that has made a real impact by aligning social demands with legal change. In 2014, after amendments to the penal code, sexual harassment, and even the slightest form of "physical gestures or material transmitted by modern means of communication", was designated as a crime, punishable by imprisonment (6 months to five years) and fines (US$563 up to US$5,630) in Egyptian law (Mousa and Abdelgaffar, 2022). Nevertheless, social stigma and victim-blaming continue to intimidate women and restrict reporting and success of interventions (Abdelmonem and Gal an, 2017).…”

“…Training is used as a means of developing, informing, and educating employees (Lacerenza et al ., 2017); however, implications or outcomes of training employees on ethical behavior and anti-sexual harassment is not supported empirically in the literature. Although some scholars have found that training can be effective in the short term and question whether changes in attitudes and behavior continue post-training (Lacerenza et al ., 2017), other scholars contend that training and policy changes are insufficient to reduce or change sexual misconduct or develop an anti-harassment culture since knowledge of what constitutes WSH and its retaliatory measures do not guarantee the elimination of this evil phenomenon (Mousa and Abdelgaffar, 2022). They support their case by noting that there hardly seems to be any progress in the prevention or reduction of WSH (Quick and McFadyen, 2017; Stockdale et al ., 2019).…”

Religious, contextual and media influence: determinants of the representation of female tour guides in travel agencies

“…This has been asserted by Manoharan et al (2019), who called for more conceptual and practical studies on the status of marginalised groups, such as women and disabled employees and their under-representation at senior administrative levels in the tourism and hospitality sector. This indicates the dearth of research on the motives for effective diversity management and the consequences resulting from the sound implementation of diversity policies in this industry (Manoharan et al , 2019; Mousa and Abdelgaffar, 2022; Mousa et al , 2022).…”