The tiny touch. The uncomfortable comments. The insinuations. They are just the beginning. It’s testing the waters, seeing what is and isn’t successful. Sexual harassment isn’t a one and done occurrence. It is a build up of past ones that continually escape the limitations of the last.

Many say it can be helped by just “speaking up” and while I might be one to think the same, I’ve had multiple instances where it didn’t even matter that I brought it to someone’s attention. I’ve had two different men sexually harass me at my workplace and it is a male-dominated environment, which made it much more difficult to speak up about.

One was a coworker and the other is a current client. The coworker was charming. Young and confident. It started with a couple dirty jokes that turned into touching my arm and then my leg.

My. Thigh.

I drove away that Friday crying on my way home because I was upset for not speaking up for myself. Yes, I ended up angry with myself rather than at him. That Monday, I told him that what he had done was unacceptable and inappropriate, which seemed to take care of that. For the following couple days anyway.

After it continued, I finally told my boss a few months later about every instance and even after all the crying, he did nothing about it. Instead of taking action, he asked me what I thought he should do about it as if I felt an ounce of comfort in doing so.

That was last year and this year, the co-worker became a client and the situation is just the same. It started with the comments again. But I’ve learned better and brought it to my boss’s attention.

“Let me know if he does anything again and I’ll say something.”

That’s it. That was his response.

I wasn’t even surprised because he doesn’t understand. I don’t think many men do. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t experience it as often or it’s not brought to their attention if they are the ones doing it.

It was hard to talk about the sexual harassment, especially in the environment I work in that is run by men because of the discrepancy in understanding on the subject. No one is ever taught what to truly know what it is and when it needs to be addressed. This needs to be talked about so people know exactly what is happening.

It was hard for me to even define it. I wasn’t sure what counted as harassment and what didn’t. I wasn’t sure whether it was in my head or whatever was being said was even concerning. Even after my coworker apologized when my boss had a meeting with him, all he said was “I’m sorry you took it the wrong way.” He never owned up to his actions and even after I was confident in the way I felt about it, I questioned whether or not it was as serious as it was.

And it was.