As I scroll through my feed seeing dozens of similar posts, I wonder about the gravity of this problem.
At first I think I have not been a victim. I do not recall unwanted advances, and I have not endured a vicious attack. I have been lucky.
Then, I remember a night at a bar when someone grabbed my rear. I spun around, but couldn’t tell who. Instead, I saw a line of men, all with hands crossed in front of them, gripping drinks as they watched the dance floor.
I felt my cheeks flush hot, and moved away, wanting to leave. It shouldn’t matter that I was at a bar. There is no automatic invitation in women going out with friends.
This is sexual harassment, no different than what Francie experiences on the subway in a Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She carried a pin to ward off straying hands.
As I consider further, I remember…
- There was that time a man I had just met propositioned me for a one night stand; I couldn’t get away fast enough.
- Another time when a man talked too closely and suggestively at a work conference.
- And another, when a colleague playfully swatted my rear at a business event.
- And another, in Europe when a man followed me around the city, cat-calling.
- And another, when a senior executive told sexually overt jokes, oblivious to others’ reactions.
- And another, when I visited a male friend who kept trying to give me a massage.
- And the time when a man I dated called me a slut for no apparent reason.
I realize most women can create a list like this. This is in itself disturbing.
More disturbing is that these incidences weren’t top of mind. I had think to remember them. I’m not particularly outraged about them. Perhaps I should be. In each of these instances I felt shame and discomfort, but it was fleeting.
Is not expressing outrage akin to being part of the problem?
If so, had I been raised or conditioned to expect this? Some part of me thinks men must make some sort of advance on a women to show interest. If not, wouldn’t the future of the human race be in jeopardy?
The rest of me counters this is a very stupid idea. Expressing interest need not be demeaning.
Earlier this year a French study showed 100% of Parisian women had encountered some form of sexual harassment while riding the Metro.
Often “invisible” because unreported, these physical and verbal attacks limit “the freedom of women, because they are often obligated to alter their daily lives: changing their routes, modes of transportation, schedules, attitudes and clothing in order to avoid confrontation,” wrote the report.
This is a shocking statistic, 100%. Does the anonymity of strangers make people bolder, similar to road rage, protected by the anonymity of one’s car? Or is this behavior all the more shocking when it comes from a friend you trust?
I never saw my male friend again after the time I visited. I felt more sad and angry at the loss of the friendship, than the behavior itself. This now strikes me as strange. What right had he?
I wonder if conditioning comes more from upbringing, or examples around us? Dozens of shows and movies advance the stereotype that men are pigs. They fail to explore if this is a choice, or if some men are conditioned this way as well. They fail to show the many good men, lumping all in the same category, like wild animals.
We think of people in Hollywood as living a charmed life. But, along with stress and pressures of the limelight, young women accept terrible harassment, and even assault, as penalty for career advancement. The thought of 16-year old Reese Witherspoon being assaulted, and 15-year old Jennifer Lawrence enduring a nude line up to reinforce weight loss disgusts me.
I feel sick that the youngest and most vulnerable should be targeted, and that people in any career should feel the need to accept this to advance.
The day after my colleague swatted me in the butt at a trade show, I quit. But, maybe, I should have spoken out. Is leaving in haste as bad as suffering in silence? Both seem complicit in their way.
Is the conversation that’s starting the beginning of non-acceptance of this behavior? I hope it will result in real change. An article in the HBR (Harvard Business Review) states:
Most people agree on what harassment is. But men and women disagree strongly on how frequently it occurs...Numbers of men indicate that they don’t know “where the line is”—don’t know when a joke that is funny to them is offensive to women. They believe it is up to women to tell men when a remark is not funny.
This article was written in 1981, and perhaps what is most disheartening, is that it could have been written today. Not much has changed.
Is sex, and our attitude to it, one of the real reasons the proverbial glass ceiling remains intact?
As a female entrepreneur and business owner, I want to insist this isn’t true. But, I think we’d be fooling ourselves. Perhaps we need to teach our daughters to expect more; that they have a right to better.
- The 19-year old me didn’t know what to say in Italian to the man who followed me that day.
- The 22-year old me didn’t know how to voice I wasn’t comfortable, and wanted to be friends only, as his hands roamed my body.
- The 25-year old me didn’t have the perspective that I could easily move on to a different work environment where crass jokes weren’t accepted.
These are realizations that came with age and experience. I was lucky to have a wonderful childhood, but that protection and shelter did not prepare me for life on my own, and in the business world. There is no handbook for dealing with the sometime dark realities that adulthood brings.
But, perhaps there should be. No one ever sat me down and shared how to respond to such a situation. Would mentorship from a league of women and men who have lived through it change the future for daughters and sons? I’d like to think so.
References:
2015 French Government Study: The study involving 600 women from Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne, the outer suburbs of Paris, was carried out by the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCEfh).
Collins, Eliza G.C.m Blodgett, Timothy B. “Sexual Harrassment...Some See It...Some Won’t.” HBR. Web March, 1981.