What is Sexual Harassment Today?
In the wake of #MeToo we all have more to say
This weekend This American Life released a new episode called Five Women that dove into the stories of five women who accused the same man, of sexual harassment, at an organization. They didn’t just tell their stories of harassment. The show dug deeper and into who they were before these incidents and their attitudes toward the concept of harassment.
This got me thinking about my life and my own attitudes growing up. If you have read any of my previous blogs you know I grew up in a neighborhood with two older brothers. I remember my brothers being able to do things, as they got older, that I wasn’t ever allowed to do. I was a bit of a “tom-boy.” I ran around as any little boy would do with her older brothers. Copying them. Digging in the dirt. Riding bikes. Just being a kid.
Like the Dar Williams’ song “When I was a boy” and the line “you must find a nice man to walk you home…” The reality of being a girl past puberty was that I was going to have a different life than the life ahead for my brothers.
When I shaved my legs for the first time, I remember one of my brothers’ friends touching my legs and remarking that I was getting hot. It made me uncomfortable, but he was one of my brothers’ good-looking friends so I just giggled and let it happen.
At age 15 my first management team was male, and while I did stick up for myself for being called “babe” and “hun;” when I had the gall to turn down my 21 year old supervisor for a date, stating he wasn’t my type, I was trashed for being a snob and an uptight bitch. My 29 year-old store manager drove a VW Scirocco, which was a cool car to any 15 year old, kept offering to take me home, or more often to take me to his home. He later was transferred to another McDonald’s where he was caught sleeping with the owner’s minor daughter.
All of these items are examples of sexual harassment. Did I do anything about it? No. I was 15. I was earning money for the first time, and I didn’t want to be the person that made waves. I never told my mom about this. My mom may have done something, or told me to act, which I didn’t want to do.
What my mom did though, she read to me passages from books she read about how “not to get raped.” She knew that the reality for girls was that we would get pressured and that we may end up in situations that men were going to act badly. She wanted to make sure that I was mentally prepared. She laid it out. If a boyfriend kept pressuring me for sex and I didn’t want to, I could simply stick my finger down my throat and puke right on the jerk. If an attacker is bound on hurting me to turn the tables and make them think I am into it so I can confuse them and hopefully open myself up to the opportunity for escape.
Elayne Boosler once said in her stand-up, speaking about walking around New York City at night. Her husband suggested that they walk down by the river. She told her husband “heck no! I have a purse, I have jewelry, I have a vagina!” She went on to tell her husband, “you! they will just kill you.” This always hit home that, in general, women will often get worse consequences for spontaneous acts.
The years since my first job I have been through several awkward situations that could have been seen by an objective observer as harassment, but I chose not to go there ever. I refused to let those situations change my path. Things are worse in food service and retail but it isn’t just there.
Even the good guys can be obtuse. I listened to a boss say he wasn’t going to hire more women because they brought too much drama. As if men never bring drama. I worked with a man who cussed out an entire room full of people yet got to keep his job. That isn’t dramatic?
I would say I never had a situation where things were raised to the level that I felt I had to submit to the harassment or lose my job.
I did, however, experience the Monica Lewinsky and Anita Hill period and I have to say, I believe Anita Hill. No one torpedos their career on sour grapes. I believed her then, and I still believe her. During the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, I saw that more as an affair that the President got caught with his hand caught in the “cookie” jar. While it was embarrassing, I didn’t see it as harassment. Still, I never really did hear her side of the story, so I cannot truly say if it was or not. It did certainly ruin her reputation and as she approaches 50 it still lingers on her, but Clinton is now the doddering older statesman who will be remembered not for the scandal but for the years of prosperity in his administration.
Being a little sister and having a lot of boys in the house most of my growing up years, I was very blase about the casual harassment that happens, almost unthinking, by men. I was even raised by a single mom who brought home the bacon and made sure that I was self-sufficient and empowered, and I was still eh… it is just boys being boys.
But then, I realized that is how rape culture and domestic violence is perpetuated too. I had to say no to all the stereotypes. Including putting my foot down when my husband would make jokes about being a “henpecked” husband. He is the farthest thing from. These stereotypes have to go.
While I am still not going to run to HR because someone says something inappropriate in my presence; I am now going to call it out as what it is. I am also calling out when people excuse behavior as just gender appropriate. I say no more! If we as a society stand up for what is right and good, we can truly make change happen.
What will you do?
