Sexual Harassment at Work

by Sadie5 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  Sadie5

  Hi All,

  Just another adventure in my returning to the work force.(Wal-mart) When I worked almost 2 decades ago, women just put up with whatever was said/done to them. I could completely identify with Anita Hill.

  One evening last week, I was in our break room with one young female associate and two young male associates. One of the males made a very vulgar sexual comment to the female. The other male looked shocked but then both of them burst out in uncontrollable laughter. The female kept saying that's not funny. I sat there shocked.

  I didn't mention the incident to anyone but it bothered me. I talked to a member of management the next day and said I was offended by a comment that a male associate had made. I had to make out a full report and talk to someone from home office.

  They interviewed the other three. I got a chance to talk to the young female who told me the male associate often said things like that to her. Why would she put up with it? I saw the second male associate and he was very respectful to me. I haven't seen the male associate that made the comment, I don't know if they gave him some time off, or let him go.

  I enjoy working in a clean environment and just couldn't see turning the clock back to the dark ages.

  Sadie
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  Emma

  Good for you; you stood up for someone who didn't have the strenght to speak up. Hopefully your action will help her to find her own power.

  Emma
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  confusedjw

  GOOD FOR YOU AND THEM!

  She and you shouldn't have to put up with that crap

  and

  Maybe this will smarten this kid up before he as a family and loses a real job over such stupidity
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  Fe2O3Girl

  I got a chance to talk to the young female who told me the male associate often said things like that to her. Why would she put up with it?

  Thankfully it is a long time since I had anything like this happen to me at work. It happened at my first job after I left school, and it never occurred to me to complain. I think that verbal harrassment can build up gradually. It starts with fairly innocent joking or flirtation and slowly builds up to something more offensive. By this point the you have been going along with it for so long you just accept it - it is hard to realise where to draw the line, and make a complaint.

  As long as we live in a society where rape victims are interrogated about their sex lives and what they were wearing, sexual harrassment will be a difficult subject.

  Let us not forget that it can be a man being harrassed by a woman, and like spousal abuse, I think this is also a very sensitive issue.
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  BeautifulGarbage

  It's difficult, especially for young women, to know when it's sexual harassment. There are times,also, when some idiot shreeks sexual harrassment and it makes it difficult for everyone who truly experience it.

  My spouse had a female co-worker, a number of years ago, go to management and accuse him of sexual harrassment. She started coming on to him, and when he rebuffed her advances, she made the claim. Idiot. My spouse fought it, but he had to fight it hard and threatened to go to the main coporate offices if she didn't retract the whole sham. She did.

  When I was 19, I worked for a very male dominated company. For the most part, women were simply not promoted. When I started to make some waves because I wanted to work my way up, I got harassed big time. One even threatening to cut my breasts off. Now, this was in 1978 and sexual harrassment was not a phrase yet. I did complain, and it stopped, but I was "marked" from then on. Now, the company has many females in management now. They were disgusting creeps when I worked for them, though.

  A few years later, I'm with another company, and a male co-worker, out of the blue, pinched my butt. That pissed me off. Still, sexual harrassment was not coined yet. But, after what I went through with the last company, I vowed never to allow any males to threaten, or touch me, without exacting a very heavy price. So, I plotted my revenge against this dude. The next time he walked by my desk, I grabbed his nipple, and twisted HARD. He was into body building and he had a very nice one to grab on to and he got a titty twister to remember. My hand had him in a pitbull vice and nothing would have gotten me to let go. I twisted and twisted until he began to yell out in pain. This got the attention of the rest of the staff (about 40 people). The guy is screaming "let go, let go!". I growl back, "not until you are on your knees"! He immediately drops to his knees and I draw my hand back and tell him "I'll bet you never touch me again, but just in case you do,remember this, next time it won't be your nipple, it will be your balls".

  You could have heard a pin drop on a shag carpet that is how quiet it got. Everyone was shocked, but that guy never came near me again.

  I'm not suggesting someone to that, but luckily for me, it worked beautifully.

  My advice to young women is not to be intimated and tell the guys, right to their faces, to KNOCK IT OFF. Otherwise, it going to be reported.