I owe deep gratitude to Haley, Glenn, Ted, Drew, Nina and any others I may have forgotten who gave me valuable feedback on this essay. In the end, this is my experience and my story, but they helped me tell it as best I could.
I now work in a field where I actively investigate workplace sexual harassment. But prior to working in this field, I had my own personal experiences with workplace sexual harassment which I would like to share, because it shapes how I view the subject.
Years ago, when I worked in a big box
store that shall not be named, I witnessed two types of behavior that I would
today classify as sexual harassment. The one I reported. The other I did not
but wish that I had. First, let's talk about the one I did report. In the
stories that follow I will be changing names, but I swear as the sky is blue
these are true stories.
I'm going to call the victim in this
first story Sally. Sally was good friends with a coworker that I shall call
Tom. They were what many people would call a work-husband and work-wife duo.
They had a pretty tight work relationship. (That's kind of important to get the
full context.) We all worked on an overnight crew that fluctuated anywhere from
about 12 to 20 people, and we were a traveling team, roaming from store to
store, often working alongside the local overnight store employees.
One night, as we entered this one store,
I was walking alongside Sally when I heard one of the store overnight
supervisors refer to Sally by some made-up pet name. If I recall correctly, he
called her something like "Night Princess" or something like that. OK,
I thought to myself. That's really weird. This was not somebody we knew
and this comment was out of the blue. However, I looked over to Sally, and she
just went on like nothing happened, so I figured she was not upset by it.
Personally, I thought the pet name was more strange than creepy, and I didn't
think twice about just letting it go. (I later found out that Sally didn't
actually hear it.)
Several hours into our shift, I come
across Sally again, only this time she was sitting alone and absolutely broken
down in tears. I talked with her to make sure she was OK, and I tried to find
out what was going on. I learned that Tom had overheard some men in the local
store night crew talking about what they would like to do with Sally in bed. (I
didn't get details beyond that. I didn't want to.) Tom confronted them, and
they more or less told him to bug off (with stronger language than that). Tom
then went and told Sally, and then Sally went and confronted them. Well, that
did not go well. I didn't get much in way of detail besides the fact that they
told her it was none of her business what they were talking about doing to her.
(Because that's how that works, I guess.) And so here was Sally, sitting alone
next to her solo project, crying.
After spending about 15 minutes with her
just listening, I told Sally that I was going to our manager, and I told her I
was going to back her up on this. Although all I had heard was that one little
comment as we were entering the store, I saw how that little comment had
ballooned into a miserable night for her. The last thing I wanted was for Sally
to get in trouble for not getting her work done. Plus, by this point, several
people on the other crew (including, I was sure, the supervisor) knew what was
going on. Tom and Sally knew what was going on. I knew what was going on. I
didn't want our manager to be the last person to know about this. So, while I
informed Sally I was going to tell the manager (and I told her I'd have her
back), I also didn't phrase it as a question.
So, I went to our manager and told him
what was going on, and I told him first thing that I wanted to write a
statement as to what I had witnessed. He called up HR and they had him
investigate as much as he could. In the end, unfortunately, HR didn't think
that what I had witnessed supported Sally's story. My manager came over to me
and kept dropping hints that he wanted me to change my story ever so slightly
to support her story more. HR wanted to see if the comment I had heard
matched some of the terms that Sally had heard. I couldn't change my story,
though I appreciated my manager's efforts. I mean, there's no reason why the
supervisor and employees would use the exact same language in both cases, but
HR wanted slightly stronger evidence.
In the end, nothing happened, but Sally
did end up feeling a lot better about the situation. She thanked me and she
genuinely seemed relieved that this was taken seriously. We talked a little bit
more about it that night, but never mentioned it again after that. Fortunately,
thanks to turnover, that particular store supervisor was not there for much
longer, and I am not aware of any more problems we had at that store.
So there's the case that I reported. Are
you ready for the case I did not report, but sure wish I had? Well, you'll
never believe who's involved in this situation. Would you believe it if the
person I wished I had reported was none other than Tom? Yes, Tom! The same Tom
in the above story. Oh, and Sally was totally on Tom's side on this one! She
was there.
Tom ended up being quite a toxic
coworker. I would dare say, he was the most toxic person I have ever worked
with. But it started out slowly. In retrospect, he was pretty open about how
toxic he was, but there was just the faintest veneer of humor over his toxicity
to allow him to pass himself off as just having fun.
Tom had a favorite saying, "Finger
popping." And in case anyone is wondering what this means, sometimes he'd
use the whole phrase. "Finger popping each other's assholes." I can't
tell you how many times I heard this saying, and I can't overstate how much I
hate it today. "Finger popping" is one of those phrases with
just the slightest touch of pop culture to make it seem like it could be used
in jest. I later found out, for instance, that it's a line used in the
action-comedy movie 21 Jump Street. But even there, when I go and
look at the clip from that movie, I can't help but see just how demeaning this
phrase is. I’ve never watched the full movie, in part because of that one
phrase in it.
Can I be honest
for a moment? Sexual imagery gets used a lot in the workplace. Lots of people
just get used to it. And, in fact, despite caricatures of people my age and
younger being “snowflakes,” the vast majority of people I’ve worked with don’t
mind sexual banter. I can personally attest to a wide variety of sexual
commentary in the workplace. In my time working at for this big box store, I
found out, for example, that whenever I needed to wear my wrist brace to work,
at least 50% of the time somebody would make a masturbation joke about it. Some
people on my crew would go to McDonald’s and order from the secret menu at 2:00
a.m. The McGangbang was particularly popular. I lost track of the number of
times I heard the terms cocksucker or circle jerk. After a certain
point, this commentary just recedes into the background. It’s taken me a while
to appreciate how harmful this language can be, and that realization is due to
Tom. Let me continue my story.
Tom used the term “finger popping,” all
the time. If he didn't personally see the work you did, you were a
finger-popper. If he felt he did more work than you, you were a finger-popper.
If you were working on the same project as him, and the job pulled away for a
second, the moment you were out of sight you were a finger-popper. Every single
hour of every single workday. It was his go-to saying. And it wasn't a joke. He
really did hate other people. He hated when other people advanced. He hated to
see people being trusted to perform tasks he wasn't trusted with. He hated to
see people who were actually better people than him, and every chance he had to
call people names behind their back, he would. And it was always because other
people were finger-poppers.
But the toxicity of this phrase (and of
Tom’s personality in general) took a while to reveal itself. By the time it did
reveal itself, it was too late. The bitterness and resentment that Tom started
to show towards other people started to break our work unit apart. Slowly
people started to resent him in turn, and that resentment started to fracture
the work unit. The animosity kept spilling over, even affecting out manager. At
one point, Tom and Sally teamed up to actively try to get our manager fired on
some crazy HR complaint they made to the regional office. I never learned the specifics
of that complaint, but I knew just enough to know what a headache it was for
our manager.
Over time, Tom got a little brasher and
a little less careful. And then one day, as I am working with Tom and Sally,
Tom for some reason called for my attention, and when I turn around to look at
him, he asked me if I wanted to see a dance, and he started gyrating his hips
and started to motion to unbuckle his belt. Sally began to laugh hysterically,
which got Tom laughing. For my part, I immediately turned my back to him,
ignored him, and did my work. I have no idea if he intended to follow through
on his motions, but I wasn't going to give him an audience if he did.
I wish I had reported him that night. I
really wish I had. But I didn't. Instead, he stuck around and made our lives
miserable with his same sexually charged insults and resentful attitude. And,
as with all bad things that do not get addressed, he just got worse. He finally
nailed his own coffin shut when one night, during an open store, while we were
in a team meeting, he told one of our black coworkers that he should be out in
the field picking cotton. Yes, this actually happened. Every single one of us
heard this. We all looked at our manager who just hung his head in
disappointment, knowing he had to report this to HR, which is the last thing we
wanted to do when Tom was actively filing complaints against him.
Tom was put on notice that he would be
fired if he made so much as one more mistake. He left for a new job shortly
after this, and most of us were relieved. Sally followed Tom and also got a job
with his new employer.
But the question that is still an issue
for me is, why didn't I report him? For that matter, why did no one else? Why
did he get away for so long with his sexual insults? It's not like people were
not aware of his constant sexually charged commentary of everyone else. Several
people refused to work with him at all. The manager didn't trust him. Only
Sally and one other person actually liked working with him. I got along with
him well enough until I started getting entrusted with leading projects,
in which case I became the finger-popper.
Oddly enough, part of the reason I did
not report Tom for sexual harassment is because I didn't think what he was
doing was sexual. That sounds odd, but it is true. I thought it was immature
and disrespectful, but I didn't feel dirty about it, or sexually threatened
by it. Although I hated his actions, as did many other people, the sexual
aspect was never the focus of our hatred. Always in focus was his attempt to criticize
our work and our work ethic.
Here's the thing that I think I learned from
this experience. It's the thing I really want you to get out of this essay.
Many people do not experience sexual harassment as a sexual violation. They do
not feel dirty about it or creeped out. I think the reason I was so quick to
report what happened to Sally is because I sensed that she was, in some way,
sexually violated. But when it came to me, I didn't feel violated, much less sexually
violated. I felt disrespect, anger, and animosity, but not violation. But
I want to be clear that such harassment, even when not experienced as a sexual
violation, is still sexual harassment.
Take a typical man (I say man because I
think men in general are less likely to identify sexual harassment when they
see it) who gets a job other people are envious of. If this man is called a
cocksucker or a finder-popper, he does not take this as any reflection on his
sexuality. It's actually an insult against his qualifications for the job. It's
a way of telling him that he does not deserve to be where he is. It is not his
sexual masculinity that feels attacked. It is his bootstrap masculinity that is
attacked. He is made to feel he didn't earn his position. He cheated. His
individual merit is debased. Thus the insult keeps his sexuality intact,
but his ego gets destroyed.
It is said that sexual assault is not
about sex but about power. Perhaps it should be said that sexual harassment is
not about sex but about our identities as worthy and productive contributors to
society. I believe it is a mistake to think about sexual harassment as strictly
being a matter of sexual violation. To be absolutely clear, a lot of sexual
harassment is sexually violative. However, this is not a necessary condition. Sometimes
sexual harassment is a violation of our work ethic, our self-respect, and our
value as contributing employees and teammates.
Having seen the destructiveness of these
sexual insults, and having felt the animosity behind them, I firmly believe
today that what I and my coworkers experienced from Tom was sexual harassment,
even if the sexual part is not the part that bothered us. We all hated his
behavior, but we never made the connection. I never made that connection. I
mean, even when he did his little belt unbuckling dance, I just saw this as
immaturity. In retrospect, I see how toxic this behavior is, and today I have
no issue with calling it what it was: sexual harassment.
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