Today, I quit a job where I was experiencing sexual harassment.
Every time I confronted the source, he would ask, "When did I do that? When? What'd I say to you?" If you have ever been in a situation where you are being mistreated and the person mistreating you turns the situation around on you, you understand the helplessness I felt.
On a different occasion he taunted me, repeatedly asking me, "What are you going to do about it? Huh? What are you going to do?" I did not know what he was talking about. I had purposefully not taken part in the conversation he and two other men were having. My back was to him, ignoring it, trying to think of something else until a customer walked through the door. I turned at one point to see him leaning toward me, his arm up pointing at me as he spoke. When I confronted him about this specific behavior, I was called hostile and it was announced that I must be on my period. When I did not take the (false) comment about my cycle, lying down, I was then called mean.
A woman came into our workplace, who is normally testy and unkind. That day, she was in a good mood. In an attempt to boost morale, I commented on her pleasantness and was answered that it must have been because she had had sex the night before. "You know how women are all grumpy and then they get some and they're all smiley and giggly" I was told. They said she must have had sex to be that happy. Then, a man stated that he didn't know about my sex life though, I am so mean, I must not be having any sex.
I am hostile and mean for disliking men talking about my body, my cycle, and my sexual experience in the work place. I said, "I don't talk about your body sexually to you. Why do you do it to me?" I shouldn't have to say that.
The same day, I was told that I better have my money ready, because the person speaking was going to get a job at Chippendales. "You better get your money ready, Curran. Better get ready to spend that money, Curran."
These men have a game they play when a women who are well-endowed passes our workplace. They comment on their asses and chests and begin to describe what it would be like to have sex with them, and why their endowments are so fitting for these hypothetical sexual experiences. One day, this escalated to them describing their first sexual encounters and then reminiscing on how they have been sucked in the past and so on. I need money, but not that badly. I was there to work. Imagine being the only woman in the room, having to stand in front of men to work as a cashier, and only hear them talk about women in context of their bodies and what they would do with them. I felt exposed, and I was fully clothed.
