Mobbing and Bullying in Workers, Pregnant Students and Parents who Work and Study

Theoretical Approximations

Bullying is one of the best known phenomena than mobbing, because it has been studied in school contexts consisting of personal or group aggression, accompanied by intimidation; while mobbing anglicism has been used for the analysis of workplace violence and lies in group harassment that seems to have no clear origin. However, these are aggressions that are used strategically to exclude a male or female subject identified by the group as threatening [4]. Pregnancy is understood to be carried, so in humans gestation lasts for nine months. During this time, women’s bodies change and can develop a series of health disorders that put them at risk [5].

Background to the Studies of Bullying and Mobbing

In 1972, Heineman, a Swedish child psychiatrist, interested in child social behavior outside the classroom, borrowed the term Konrad Lorenz to identify highly aggressive behavior by small gangs of children who assaulted another. He observed that the bullying children did not appear so in contexts outside of school. These behaviors have been called bullying [6]. The word bullying comes from English, the meaning of which is intimidation of someone. Their study begins in the 70s, when a problem is detected in northern Europe. However, there were other researchers interested in the problem such as Dan Olweus who is considered one of the pioneers in studying bullying. In 2015, the psychoanalyst Luis Kancyper, who takes up the definition of Olweus, defines bullying as “bullfighting, attacking, aggravating, harassing the other, it is the offense offensive to the feeling of self, to the dignity itself that generates intense shame and a desire against offense and retaliation” [7]. Bullying is a phenomenon that takes place mainly in school settings, while mobbing takes place in the workplace. Bullying is not an exclusive behavior of minors or adolescents, it is also used by adults and older adults whom we have observed in various institutions and their attacks are charged with sexism, especially towards young women who become pregnant and even more so when they are known. Who are single mothers [4].

The study of mobbing derived from Konrad Lorenz’s ethological research and from the psychology of work [8, 9]. The studies continued along the lines of psychiatry with Hirigoyen in 2001 and pediatric psychiatry that studies aggressive behavior in children [10]. Starting in the 1980s, research on the different types of bullying in the world and therefore the contexts in which they take place diversified [6]. In Mexico, workplace harassment has been studied from different perspectives, as well as bullying and cyberbullying or also known as cyber violence. The latter lies in the aggression towards a subject through the electronic media and images are used to attack it in various ways. The clandestinity that electronic media allow favors the anger or affectivity of a subject who wishes to harm another and empowers him to do so because he feels protected by anonymity. However, the cyber police can act in this and the aggressors have been detected.

The term mobbing comes from the verb to mob, the Spanish translation of which refers to group harassment or siege, such as the one observed by Konrad Lorenz when studying the behavior of flocks that attacked a larger animal [8]. Mobbing studies have been applied to the analysis of hostile attitudes of human beings within work environments. The findings of different investigations have shown the cruelty of humans which arises at different times as regulatory mechanisms in highly toxic work environments [11]. Undoubtedly, this phenomenon is opposed to what has been stipulated with international organizations and the world movement on the progress of human rights, as well as the feminist movement that seeks to demonstrate the inequality that women suffer in different dimensions of life. Mobbing like bullying is part of the psychological violence that is carried out in work and school settings [12]. Physical violence does not always manifest or register because it sometimes takes place outside of work or school settings. However, there are statistical data in which it has been deployed especially with the direct harassment of an aggressor towards a target. Physical violence can be done in different ways, such as throwing an object at a person and making it appear that it was an accident. On other occasions, the violence is open and direct, as occurs in some factories and schools where has openly assaulted girls and boys as well as adolescents, but also in hospitals that assault other people in different ways, such as defamation, exclusion of their physical spaces, and ridicule medical students in front of patients, in addition to the unfair dismissal of posts [13]. In some work environments, adults often suffer physical violence when they are deliberately pushed [14]. The physical violence that has been registered in mobbing cases makes them seem more accidental, while in bullying they are open and direct; In this case, the aggressors do it in an obvious way to achieve intimidation in a subject, or in a group of friends to generate fear and thus feel protected as aggressors.

Mobbing is a reality in the Mexican labor market, the same as in schools. 80% of workers have witnessed an act of workplace harassment against a colleague and 74% assure that this conduct is carried out mainly by bosses [15]. Aggressive behaviors in mobbing are not always identified as violent because what is understood by violence in this historical moment has been normalized and therefore accepted in our country as part of social and cultural life.

As research has progressed, it has been shown that mobbing is not a phenomenon isolated from cultural aspects, but is associated with human feelings and emotions. Few times have behaviors been analyzed in detail as part of culture, however, they are present in human relationships and are usually controllers of behaviors and behaviors [16].

The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has indicated that in Mexico 18,000 people have quit their jobs in one year due to mobbing, although it is a general fact that the specifications of the violence that accompanied these harassments are unknown and why they quit ( fifteen).

With this research vulnerability (harassment, harassment, workplace violence, discrimination and exclusion) and fear were studied in those who had not planned their experience as mothers, but also for those who represented immense joy. However, it was observed that in both groups pregnancy and parenthood make women who study or work as well as men who become parents vulnerable due to the set of responsibilities assumed, given that they will share their time in childcare. . The situation of being a mother or father makes men and women accessible, for this reason it is considered that the new generations are delaying motherhood and fatherhood given that such responsibility will absorb time [17]. Time has become a determining factor in productivity and this is generating considerable social changes such as motherhood and fatherhood. The responsibility that they must assume, both in their present and in their future, generates fear at first and indecisions, because they see their life projects in danger, as stated by our interviewees. However, there are other cases in which maternity and paternity is desired but which is difficult when they assume the responsibility of studying and working; In this way we can verify that those who feel happy and fulfilled because they are mom or dad have other resources such as family help, which may be hers or hers or both. When this occurs, both men and women feel protected by their parents and even plan to continue their studies or work regardless of age. The reconciliation between personal life and work makes the experience of motherhood and fatherhood more difficult, especially for those women who do not have the family capital to allow them help.

The importance of our research is that it shows a social and cultural problem that has increased in Mexico. The fact is related to early pregnancies in women during adolescence, which means a public health problem in Mexico, given that it occupies first place in Latin America for unplanned pregnancies and second place in the world. In Mexico, 1 in 6 births, which represents 48.4%, were unwanted pregnancies. INEGI data establish that 59% of adolescents from 12 to 19 years old with a history of pregnancy only attended secondary school; 33% of women aged 20 to 24 who were teenage mothers are in the poorest quintile [18]. Women who have unplanned pregnancies are more violently violated by their family regardless of age. Society discriminates against women the sooner they become mothers; therefore, the prejudices that were the provocateurs of sexual encounters erupt over them, which shows the social and cultural devaluation towards women, since it is not a problem of morality, but of public health. Early pregnancies can be associated with emotional manipulations, in addition to rapes or for any other reason such as the idealization of falling in love and a pleasant life, but rarely is care taken to inform adolescents of what happens with pregnancies. Targets and prevention mechanisms. For this reason, it is necessary to pay attention to the sexuality of men and women and inform about its importance with policies to prevent early pregnancy in girls and boys. Although boys are young, they are sometimes forced to assume the responsibility of parenthood, but at their school they are teased by their peers and teachers, which makes them feel that they suffer from different types of bullying at school when they learn that they will be parents, which do not always resist especially when they fail in some subjects. In some cases, young people prefer to abandon their studies to avoid being teased by their peers as well as by teachers, still others hide from their partner because they do not want to take responsibility for parenthood, especially when it comes to schoolmates.

Women and men when involved in an unplanned pregnancy feel fear, frustration, and shame; This has been shown by the interviewees in this investigation. We take the experience of women and men to find out how they assumed responsibility for childcare and what kinds of violence they went through during this period of their lives while assimilating their role or what decisions they made, in addition to recording the violence they recognized in your school or workplace. Many times we believe that young men want to blur their responsibility when their partner becomes pregnant without any planning. However, there are cases in which men want to assume paternity at an early age. Although sometimes the pregnant woman makes other decisions. By this we mean that generalizations about decision-making cannot be made if men assume their responsibility if they know they will be a father, each case is different and various aspects intervene, such as the possibilities of financial support. It is important to examine that most of the time men doubt whether they will be able to assume paternity due to fear of responsibility, in addition to rejection by their friends and family. The decisions of both men and women to continue or not to continue gestation are diverse and are due to other factors, such as, for example, the economic and family support that both have, the ethnic origin, the age of their parents, parents’ level of education, personal plans and wishes to continue with their life projects. Fatherhood also has repercussions for those who study since the care and attention of daughters and sons requires time for their upbringing. The research problem revolved around the analysis of the assumption that men are the ones who can bear the study and work load with greater skill even with the aggressions and ridicule of colleagues from work or school, not women to whom the tasks of care are unquestionably attributed, given that these are social constructions. The ILO identifies this social group as the most vulnerable and the recipient of violence.

We know from the extensive existing bibliography that women, given the cultural conditions of our country, assume the responsibility of motherhood in most of the times and they postpone their studies and even resign their work or limit themselves in their personal fulfillment. even if they have higher education [19]. Women suffer other limitations as they experience pregnancy and motherhood, in addition to studying and working. According to Ángeles Sánchez Bringas, childcare had been assumed by women in a natural way and without question, especially for the lower and working social classes, but not for women of the middle classes who could have plans or projects for life in which they postponed motherhood and thus they did not give up their personal projects [6]. For the same author, social classes intervene in reproductive contexts. The different forms of violence that are directed at them and they are the ones that we wanted to highlight in this investigation.

Among the data we have obtained is that some pregnant women quit their jobs due to the excessive workload or the aggressions they receive once their colleagues or colleagues and bosses find out that they will be mothers. Pregnant women sometimes feel vulnerable in their work environments and even more so when motherhood is not in their personal expectations. Some women reported that they made fun of their pregnancy with memes - this occurred in women ages 14 to 17 years old. The aggression that manifests itself in bullying is in close association with verbal and non-verbal language. Culture is related to the set of ideas about work, as well as the feelings and emotions that are manifested in the interaction of daily life in work spaces.

Aggressive behaviors in work settings often arise in subtle ways. However, sometimes they reach unimaginable levels of aggression that end up being one more strategy for job dismissal; without a formal communication to do so, or a legal procedure to let someone know that their presence is undesirable in the workplace; fact that shows that there are deeper aspects in the meaning that human beings do of what and how to attack another or another who represents himself as a rival or as a subject that does not allow himself to be subordinated by others.

Harassment and siege becomes the strategy used in some work environments to manage a set of tricks at will and as it suits their interests within the company or institution [20]. Bullying is thought of and is group-based because communication connections are established that are understood through the same Feelings; fact that generates alliances and awards for the perpetrators. For example, the work carried out by Marina Parés considers that systematized hostility is used as a means of persuasion for the group to neutralize or eliminate the individual who threatens the achievement or preservation of their privileges. One of the various contributions of the study of mobbing was to open the concept of envy; that few researchers dared to use. Although for some others it remains valid and reliable to define envy in the analysis of group bullying or mobbing, from an anthropological perspective the subjective aspects should not be eliminated in the studies on bullying, since human relationships are complex and charged of meanings, that without them it would not be possible to know when it is or is not a threatening subject and whether or not it is for different people [4].

The women interviewed indicated that they did not want to have greater problems with the violence they suffered in their workplace and several of them were due to the continuous mistreatment they received from people of different hierarchies when they reported that they were pregnant. From the notification of their pregnancy they recognized that they were excluded.

The findings we have recorded show that through prolonged suffering, human cruelty is exacerbated, both by stalkers and, in some cases, by stalkers, when they seek revenge. It is not a norm that this occurs, that is, the effects can be circumstantial, in the same way, it is striking that at this historical moment the insertion into work environments, both of young men and women, especially those that they have pregnancy plans, likewise, for young men who request permits to accompany their partner to medical check-ups, are not well accepted [17].

Ethnographic data has shown the existence of institutions and companies whose work environments are highly toxic, which makes it possible to understand that the working conditions in which women work are not the most desirable, even though high wages are received. Thus, women who become pregnant are often minimized if they do not have high office or leadership that gives them voice and vote. However, those who are secretaries, department heads, who can easily be replaced by a superior, will be given their working conditions due to their situation as pregnant women who will ask for leave to be absent due to their maternity, which will be justified by their performance and lack of updating in the exercise of their tasks within the workplace. For the International Labor Organization, the group that can register the greatest violence in the workplace is youth, both men and women recently graduated from a profession. Most of the time they occupy subordinate positions and are often attacked by colleagues who are older [1].

Some forms of violence in the world of work affect only women, such as “maternity harassment” (also called “mobbing or maternal harassment”), which is widespread throughout the world. The data obtained shows that pregnant workers, as well as women and men who return to work after maternity or paternity leave, can be harassed and intimidated by their coworkers, whether they are subordinates or hierarchical superiors. (One). Obtaining breaks for breastfeeding and other facilities to adjust work modalities to the needs of the family can also be a reason for bullying attitudes. These may include: humiliating treatment, emotional abuse, and assignment to insufficient office space, rank reduction, salary reduction, relocation of duty station, and other forms of pressure to isolate workers, and force them to resign. Motherhood has a special significance for the whole of society. Sometimes the same women believe that female bosses may be empathetic because they are women, but this is not always the case, but apparently the condition of pregnancy makes it easier for several of them to be vulnerable within their work environment as a student. In universities, women who become pregnant are sometimes teased by the same professors or colleagues. Teachers sometimes fail them more often because they want to hold them accountable for their situation, especially when they learn about the students’ personal lives. The insinuations about their condition as single women who assume the responsibility of being mothers makes them a joke for various subjects within the workplace as school. Women face different types of violence and sexual harassment when it comes to women who do not have a partner and who are young themselves who may end up receiving sexual advances from their friends, teachers, or bosses. And they even condition them to work more in exchange for some sexual favors. In precarious situations sometimes women agree to do any kind of act to get a job. We clarify that it is not a generality but that is the job insecurity of several women who are mothers and single couples. Others other than their partners do not take responsibility not only financially but in raising a son-daughter.

The differences by sex are explicit, since the men suffer less violence when they become parents as students, they receive less aggression from the family, but the women who were interviewed received greater family aggression from scolding since they were students. Males who hold a bachelor’s degree when they announced their paternity in their job became susceptible to losing their job as they were required to do more work.