“Was she really harassed/ raped or having illicit relationship?” ‘Ayesha’ had to assume the earning responsibilities of a lower middle class family of 6 heads. She was an aspiring, young, dedicated, commerce graduate who got lucky to get an insurance sales agent job and placement in a local bank’s branch a year ago. Being into sales and marketing job, requires her to exhibit impressive personality and strong interpersonal skills in order to “attract” potential customers and get their accounts done. The contract she signed, strictly stipulates that her job will be secured only, if she continues to meet up the minimum set monthly target in terms of customer number of accounts and amounts. She was made lured into famous sales tactic that, “It’s OK, to have a cup of tea, coffee and personal chit chat with clients in order to develop mutual trust and good relationships.” This so called “overzealously enthusiastic” fresher into Banca Industry, learned the norms quite comfortably, which in turn resulted into good performance, evidenced by her far and above allocated target achievement and hence the satisfaction of her superiors. A few months gone like this. One morning came like the materialization of a nightmare, Ayesha filed an FIR against the Manager, complaining that manager asked her to come home for signing of some documents and raped her and some other colleagues who were harassing her in the branch became the facilitator for this grave act. Surprisingly, the FIR reported the date of incident as a month’s back. This so called ‘overzealously enthusiastic’ fresher into Banca Industry, learned the norms quite comfortably, which in turn resulted into good performance, evidenced by her far and above allocated target achievement and hence the satisfaction of her superiors Further investigations revealed that this reported incident occurred a month back, she went to police to lodge an FIR, however, it was “managed” by the culprits, afterwards, she went to the court and upon the order of the honourable court, her samples were taken by the Government Hospital and ordered the police to lodge an FIR. Soon after, Ayesha and her family became inaccessible. A month later police lodged an FIR and started its investigations. The samples collected got wasted due to lapse of time. According to some of their colleagues and people around, both of them were into an illicit relationship and when it couldn’t get materialized because the Manager was already a married man and refused take up that further, the girl decided to take a revenge, contrarily, some had the views, that girl was innocent and incident could happen as the character of the Manager was doubtful. Some were attributing it to the “overambitious” nature of the girl, who wanted to outperform and excel in her career. Another opinion was that,” girl was planted to defame the honest manager.” The matter ultimately got resolved by the “compromise” between the parties, yet the question resounds in the minds. “Was she really harassed/ raped or having illicit relationship?” “Glass Ceiling: Can loser be a chooser?” “It is in your mind, not the reality, if you think, it exists, it does”, said the Sehar with a sigh, while recounting the Seminar on Women Empowerment she attended some years back and point of discussion was why women don’t have access to C suite. “You know they fill you up with so much motivation, now it tickles my funny bone, all is like a hollow balloon filled up with air” and a long pause followed her sentence. “Dear, you can’t see the Glass Ceiling until you get your head banged.” Now she smiled while drawing a long breath of relief but still anyone can feel the ironic satire behind it. Sehar graduated from a renowned business school, now a mid- career professional at an executive position of a Multinational Corporation where she is working for the past two years. Previously, with some other company, she was second in command of the Customer Care Division. She realized that a junior manager of her division was expressing his interested and soon after got unethical in his interactions with her. At first, she started avoiding the guy but it unfortunately resulted in “EGO Hurt” and some further “complications”. She thought, that was the time to get her Boss involved in the matter so she brought everything in the knowledge of Head of Division. “Ms Sehar, take it easy, it is a normal thing in corporate culture, you have isolated yourself and don’t get involved in networking activities, perhaps you still need to grow professionally”, replied the HOD with a laugh. “You could be a good “prospect” for better position in the company, show the “calibre”, nothing will be served you in your plate”, he further added. She knew that both of reported colleagues were “close” friends even though she thought that her position and repute was of some worth in the eyes of higher management, she decided to file a harassment complaint along with necessary evidences against both of her colleagues. Fortunately, her voice was heard and a “Warning Notice” was served to the guys besides they got transferred to some other division. Being the successor, she became the Head of Customer Care Division and got busy with her elevated assignment. Suddenly, management started receiving complaints about the Division from anonymous customers especially of Sehar’s attitude and behaviour. The division lost some good corporate clients and she started receiving explanations and memos from the management to explain her position. Everything was such tactfully done, she was not able to lay a hand on any evidence or understand modus operandi. She tried to explain to the management that it was a repercussion of Harassment Compliant and who were the “people” playing against her, but things got worse and ended up as her forced resignation from her position. “Everything comes with a cost and sometimes you are not given the opportunity to choose because you are a loser” she ended the discussion with this dejected comment and feeling. Career progression of women to higher management, board of directors and C-suit class is talk of the town but what if she could be proved as a loser for whatsoever reason, banging her head against the “Glass Ceiling” becomes such easy. “Can Loser be a Chooser?” Contemplating upon the ups and downs of these stories, it raises so many questions regarding the ‘Economic Empowerment of Women”, that started as “Liberation Movement” in late 1960s-70s and propagated now globally through the Charter of United Nations, become a centrepiece of policy document of governments, resulted into formation of laws all over the world. The Government of Pakistan joined this interdisciplinary community by taking measures such as passing the law titled as, The Protection of Women Against the Harassment at Workplace Act 2010 and its amendment in 2014, Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act in 2016, Banking on Equality Policy introduced by the State Bank of Pakistan in September, 2021 and policies like , Policy for Harassment Investigations, Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct of Employees already in place and implemented in various organizations including MNCs. According to statistics reported by government in Punjab from August 2018 till January 31, 2022, 210, 370, 439, 491, 3,762 and 9320 cases of other Matters related to Harassment were reported. However, the factual figure are much higher either those are not or could not get reported. As per data reported by Semi-Annual reports of Sustainable Social Development Organisation, the records of cases reported in the media are much less than that reported and registered in the official data. It is found that violence against women in Punjab shows highest figures in the country. During 1st Half of the year 2021, 3721 registered cases of violence against women were found whereas around 938 cases were reported in mainstream media, registered 37 cases of violence against women in Islamabad but only 27 cases were covered by media. In the same period, 1890 women became victim of rape in official statistics in Punjab but only 396 cases can get attention in media. In Islamabad, the cases registered about women rape remained 34 while only 27 were highlighted in the media. This huge gap poses some questions on media’s priority and responsibility of reporting these cases. Eventually, we find ourselves at much below the threshold frequency to gear up the Women Empowerment in its true sense. We still need to gather the courage to find answers of these questions. Are we really empowering women by luring them into jobs requiring them to be exposed to the culprits and sexually depressed elements of the society? Will the diminishing moral values and ethics, make it possible to implement laws and policies in their true spirit? How we can ensure that Laws and Policies are not misutilised in the name of Protection against Harassment? What is the punishment for false allegations? Why “The Compromise” or “Misunderstanding”, has become the well suited ultimate choice for all stakeholders of such cases? Have we created a gender diverse and gender sensitive community and workplaces to facilitate women and be empathetic? Women Empowerment will keep on exhibiting an antimonial paradoxical nature till the time we find answers to these questions. These are not just the stories of Ayesha and Sehar, those have ended; the springboard for this debacle is giving rise to numerous other stories and case studies on daily basis, if women choose to raise her voice or whatever, questioning the efficacy of the movement and system. Women’s Day Special by ERSA