Article about Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
On Sexual Harassment & Misconduct: A Story All Too Personal
It is the end of 2017 and it seems like everything is coming to a head in the public
arena. Allegations of many public figures in Hollywood and the media have come
to light and we as spectators are shocked and at a minimum, are seemingly surprised
at what we're seeing on the news. Or are we?
Those who have been the target of sexual harassment behavior and misbehavior, and
further perpetration have more than their share to tell. This morning I woke up to see
the NBC News headline, "Matt Lauer admits there is truth to allegations, apologizes"
and so I went on to read a partial apology from the recently dismissed and well-paid
news executive.
I've never been one to talk about sexual harassment, but for some reason, this piece
of news has just opened up a slew of old memories that I'd put in the back of my
mind for a long time. They are currently acting out a wild dance in my head as I
realize I must speak up about this issue and come to terms with unresolved feelings
that I've simply stuffed in my emotional storage unit. However, the time has come
for us to be more educated about the repercussions that victims endure oftentimes
for many years in silence, the silence that needs to be broken.
I'm a former beauty queen who grew up in a competitive society where sexual
harassment was not only tolerated, but accepted and covertly encouraged. I
remember the first two years I vied for my local beauty pageant title. These were the
golden years where Miss America was a highly coveted role and I participated in
those preliminary processes as a young 17- and 18-year-old girl. I remember vividly
how the swimsuit competition was held at a private home and I thought that was bad
enough. Then once my name was called out as part of the "Top 10", I shrieked with
horror as we were expected to put on our bathing suits again and exhibit ourselves
in front of the whole town onstage. I'll never forget how humiliating it felt to show
my front side and then the side view. Then we were told to turn our rear ends to the
audience while they examined our buttocks and upper thighs in high heels. I
wondered when it would be over and as a young girl, I couldn't get off the stage fast
enough. It was severely traumatic to me. That's when I began to feel objectified and
I was officially the "dumb blonde" who gave "beauty queen answers". It would be
many years before I would begin to overcome that limiting label.
My young dating life started and ended with a series of misadventures with
advantageous men who expected me to "put out or get out". After all, isn't that what
pretty beauty queens were expected to do? Heaven forbid that we might have our
own dreams and ambitions and that somebody might love and appreciate us for who
we truly were, the talents we possessed, and for having a brain. Having lived my
younger years in the 80's, I can tell you that it wasn't considered an asset for a woman
to have a brain.
I remember having one boyfriend who critiqued me just like one of my beauty queen
judges. His words went something like this, "You'd be perfect if you'd just be 20
pounds thinner." I'd heard that all my life and it was devastating to me. It was always
about becoming the perfect Barbie doll. Well, truth be told, even at my best, my bigboned body frame was a hefty 140 pounds, being 5'10", heads taller than the rest of
the girls. During that time, the emcee would give a list of our accomplishments,
talents and hobbies, and then the announcement of how much we weighed. It was a
constant reminder that I wasn't ever going to compete with those shorter and slimmer
girls who'd had the good fortune of having been born with smaller frames than I had
and who weighed a maximum of 115 pounds.
Fast forward to 1995. I married a foreigner and went to live in his country. To make
a long story short and without going into too many details, he had been taught to
objectify women all his life. By his side, I endured every type of humiliation a
woman could be subjected to and put up with his arrogance that I later learned was
a personality disorder with a name: Narcissism (NPD). He lived his life not worrying
about how others, especially women, felt. I learned what it feels like to be on the
receiving end of not only having a partner who displayed a lack of empathy, but also
a fullness of impunity, not having a conscience that would awaken him to a sense of
how his behavior was affecting others. He took no accountability for his actions and
was not afraid of the consequences. After all, in his country he knew he had to be a
lot more visible or had to commit much more serious crimes to be held responsible
for and he went about his business covertly, knowing that his wife would never
reveal those details or tarnish his church reputation that he had so carefully crafted
through deception to get to where he was in the hierarchy. Or would she?
In 2004, I had a legal separation with my husband, and I needed a job I could do
from home. Before that time, I had been teaching English for several years at
locations outside my home, as a freelance teacher and I was my own boss. But my
circumstances had changed now that an attorney had set up a visitation regimen, and
I needed to follow a strict schedule, or I would be violating our agreement. I found
a full-time translation job I could do from home. It would be a decent regular salary
and I could fulfill my end of the legal agreement by not having to worry if I could
be home on time early enough to take over my care-taking responsibilities with my
son.
During this time, I had become acquainted with another US expatriate who was
living in that same country. We had talked about our similar business activities over
the phone, but we hadn't ever formally met. One day we decided to meet at a public
place, since I was going to be in the area that day anyway. When we met, I thought
he was attractive, but he was married, and I was recently separated. We talked and
then we walked in the downtown area. We continued to talk about mostly business,
and I put the thought of how attractive he was in the back of my mind.
A short time after, we decided to meet again to discuss business. At that time, he
offered to take me to my subway station in his car. I then opened up to him about
the seriousness of the abuse I had endured at the hand of my soon to be ex-husband
and I believe I even cried in his presence. I remember it being a vulnerable moment
where I desperately needed a friend. As we sat there together in the car, he reached
over and tried to kiss me and I turned away, shocked that I was even in such a
situation to begin with. The truth was that I was blindsided by this advance. It was
completely unexpected. After all, we were both still married, and I wouldn't
consciously participate in this type of behavior.
However, I felt like I could trust him professionally, so I convinced my new place
of employment to also hire him, which they decided to agree to do. The months that
followed turned into more encounters, often culminating in inappropriate
interaction. I would often be asked by him to do certain sexual favors, but I never
fully gave into him and we never had sexual intercourse. He then convinced me to
meet his wife. After all, "it would be easier that way and she would never suspect
that we were together, since we were coworkers and had to interact anyway." After
meeting her and their child, I realized I couldn't continue doing this to another person
who didn't deserve this betrayal. But I had fallen into a trap.
Because our lives had become so enmeshed and my livelihood depended on my fulltime job, I felt like I couldn't leave him. I wasn't the kind of person to have an affair
anyway and it went against all my morals and teachings. What had happened to me?
Where had my better judgment gone? When I told him he needed to make a decision
about us, the best he could do was tell me we could meet in hotels from time to time.
That meant that he got to keep his good job, his wife and child and I would then be
forced to feel like I was playing second fiddle? That somehow didn't seem like a
good deal to me, and to be honest, I wasn't this kind of girl to give into this type of
lifestyle. Why did he get to have his cake and eat it too, while I was getting only the
crumbs? I felt completely humiliated, used and abused.
I knew I had to do the right thing and end the relationship. That would mean that I
would need to resign my good job. I was terrified at the facing the prospect of the
consequences that loss would involve. What could I do after that to keep myself
afloat financially? It's not like I would be offered such a lucrative job opportunity in
that third-world country ever again. With deep pain in my heart, I turned in my job
resignation, but included with that was another catch of confessing to his wife
everything that had gone on. I told her that he had taken advantage of me being
vulnerable at a critical time in my life by initially trying to kiss me and that I'd never
meant for things to go as far as they did. Of course, I was willing to own up to my
part of what I did, as two were involved in the relationship and I had my share of
culpability in the matter. After all, it takes two to tango.
Nevertheless, with time, I came to the realization that the dynamics that played out
were definitely one of a man who was trying to get a vulnerable woman he worked
with to get him a leg up in the workplace, so he could secure a better financial
position for himself. It was a hard one to swallow, but I had to realize that I had
fallen prey to an advantageous person who was only out for himself, at my cost. He'd
played every card he could get, and I fell: hook, line and sinker.
I wonder if my case was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, we all know that answer
and that it's more commonplace than we realize. And it's a dog eat dog world out
there when it comes to workplace and people dynamics. The truth of the matter is
often how well we play the game in a work environment where lines are frequently
blurred of what's appropriate according to an organization's sexual harassment
policies versus dealing with real life.
In an effort to gain some insight on how prevalent this issue is, I did an online
search and found this recent article explaining how a 2016 study reveals that 75%
of workplace harassment victims who complain face
retaliation: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/national/percent-workplaceharassment-victims-who-complain-face-retaliation-studyfinds/4vB69nFkKsxWhqFZ8hkEPN/
I as a woman, am sickened by how widespread this epidemic is. 75% is the majority
and it's simply not acceptable by any standard. I'm a middle-aged woman who
mostly works from home, but I've had the opportunity to do language interpreting in
other settings. I have been shocked to find that most of my interpreting assignments
have dealt with shedding light on what companies do when it comes to sexual
harassment in the workplace.
My very first assignment in the US was with a human resources department that was
interviewing a man who had been the witness of a sexual harassment incident at his
work and he was telling his version of how he saw one of his male coworkers harass
another female worker on his shift. As a man, I perceived how uncomfortable he was
while expressing how afraid he was of not only losing his job, but the retaliation that
could potentially follow as a result of him making statements about what he had
observed in his workplace. He even had to draw a picture of where and how his
coworker had touched the female coworker in his presence.
Other interpreting assignments were in front of judges in administrative hearings
where I had to interpret for the mother of two teenage brothers who had been accused
of raping a nine-year-old girl. It was heart-wrenching to me to have to look at these
so-called perpetrators that were sharing that room with me. I wonder how this
abhorrent pattern took hold of such young men to begin with... Other ongoing
interpreting assignments have involved teaching employees about the consequences
of sexual harassment in a predominantly male industry that involved living onsite
with both genders during the harvest season.
Another article I found online about Harvey Weinstein revealed that we are failing
women who report workplace sexual harassment: http://www.newsweek.com/howhuman-resources-failing-women-who-report-workplace-sexual-harassment-687158
Quoting what I found in the article, "The problem is, HR doesn't exist to protect the
employees — it exists to protect the company. Statistics show that a majority of
women has experienced "unwanted and inappropriate advances" from male
colleagues — and a quarter of victims said the male colleagues who harassed them
had power over their careers. Yet the vast majority of women — 75 percent,
according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission study — never bother
to report workplace sexual harassment out of fear of retaliation or not being
believed."
As the woman I am and the fact that I've just disclosed my own personal experience
of sexual harassment, of course it's natural that I would feel outraged and have called
this behavior out. However, but I have to say that I feel no small sense of victory
that steps are finally being taken to convey a clear public message that we are not
expected to accept the acceptable any longer. My hope is that more victims will have
the courage to come forward and add to this recent public outcry that no sexual
harassment or misconduct must be allowed, whether it be in the workplace or
otherwise. It is humiliating and belittling for women to have to endure this type of
behavior just to keep their employment or be able to advance without compromising
their values and dignity.
My personal appeal to female victims
As we come together to continue denouncing unacceptable behavior, may you each
have the courage to join with others who cannot muster the courage to speak up, for
fear of retaliation or other consequences. There is, however, strength in numbers and
our voices need to be heard. Those of you like me who have spoken out against these
acts, thank you for doing so. You are the true female warriors.
Update in March 2020, Harvey Weinstein has just been sentenced to 23 years in
prison: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/11/us/harvey-weinstein-sentence/index.html