Damian Davidson was sexually harassed by women at work, and he was too ashamed to admit how bad it made him feel. He never even told anyone why he quit that job.
I want to start by saying that I think men and women experience sexual harassment in different ways. And I will touch on that briefly further down. But my intent isn’t to provide definitions, just to relate my personal experience and how I interpreted and dealt with it.
I’ve experienced first-hand, perpetrated against me, sexual harassment in the workplace. It was emotionally and mentally traumatic at the time. But I’m over it. I don’t carry any scars from that experience, and if I do think back on it, it’s only to wonder if those women involved ever learned to treat their co-workers a little more respectfully. Yes. I was harassed by female co-workers. And a lot of people who read this might first think that I’m whining about nothing at all here. Which is sort of why I’ve written this. Men can be sexually harassed by women, and it can be harrowing for them.
I got a job, part time, at a clothiers. I got settled in pretty quickly with the other staff in my department; my floor manager, a supervisor and two other sales assistants. They all seemed friendly enough, and the work wasn’t taxing. At first, they would make jokes about finally having a man on the floor to take care of the grunt-work, and I would laugh along, giving it no real thought.
I was required to wear clothes sold by the company while on shift, to advertise the product. Pretty standard practice. Not necessarily a style I myself would choose to wear, but I was getting paid, so no big deal. I’d been there about a month before things started to get a bit dubious.
One morning while I was restocking before opening, I overheard an exchange between the floor manager and one of the sales staff. The particulars escape me now, but they were talking about how they appreciated the view of my arse when I stretched up to restock the higher rails. It made me a little uncomfortable, a bit embarrassed, but I ignored it and finished the task.
And yet that brief exchange made me suddenly a little more aware of the nature of the comments that passed between my colleagues. I was shocked when I realized they almost always revolved around the fit of my trousers, or how my shirt stretched across my shoulders; I became increasingly uncomfortable under their appraising gaze. And if they realized that I’d heard them? They laughed. Amused by my blushes and my discomfort.
I felt powerless to respond. What could I say?
Stop talking about how attractive you think my bum is.
Oh yes, not a bit absurd, that. I was too embarrassed to mention it to anybody. I could imagine the mocking laughter of my friends if I told them a bunch of women were lusting after me.
Gosh, didn’t I have such a hard life?
And this is part of the difference for men and women. A lot of men won’t have the emotional support network that women might. Or rather, it’s there, but neither the victim nor his friends will know how to access it. My female friends in this situation will complain about the comments to people they trust. They’ll receive a sympathetic ear. And they’ll know that they will, they’ll expect it. But most guys I know are going to bottle this up for fear of ridicule. I, myself, have sat on this for years.
It made me angry. I hadn’t done anything to deserve this, I didn’t want it. I started to resent my co-workers, to withdraw.
I would dread starting a shift, keep my head down through it, and then beat a hasty retreat home at the end of the day. My customer service suffered; I was constantly uptight, angry, annoyed and ashamed all at once. Worse, I felt completely powerless.
I was miserable working there, and my emotional confusion left me feeling exhausted. What could I do, realistically? I couldn’t see a way to resolve the situation. So I quit. Five months. Five. Miserable. Months.
And even when I quit, I couldn’t give the real reason. I told the store manager I just didn’t feel that I was a good fit for the job. Sorry, thanks for the opportunity, and I’ll be off now. Which is, again, absurd.
I’ve almost never told anybody about why I didn’t keep that job. Too embarrassed. Too worried that I would be ridiculed, or shouted down for complaining about something trivial. And this is because although I was being objectified, and subjected to sexual harassment…it would never have gone past that.
I never had to acknowledge that given the right circumstances, one of those women might try to sexually assault me. It wasn’t a remote possibility; I was twice the size of any of them. Hell, I can manhandle people twice MY size.
(No exaggeration; it’s my party trick. I’ll pick up bouncers and dance them around the bar for free shots.)
But those four women still made my life torturous, sucked it free of joy or pleasure.
♦◊♦
Here are some generalizations about sexual harassment based on my own personal experience, and the bonds I observe amongst my friends:
I think the embarrassment factor is a large part of what stops men talking about this.
I think, too, that society conditions us to believe that this is something that only really happens to women.
I think the developmentally stunted construct we term “masculinity” prevents men from being able to believe they can speak out about this.
However, I also think it isn’t, as I already stated, quite as serious a problem for men in the sense that it doesn’t always automatically carry the potential for it to escalate to an assault on their person. I would expect very few men experiencing sexual harassment to list “fear of physical assault” among their woes. Might be wrong. Like I said, these are generalizations. I’m sure there are exceptions.
It’s an important conversation to have, this. Because nobody should have to put up with being made miserable, especially when it can lead to harmful habits in response.
But equally, it’s important not to focus only upon men’s experiences. Because I’ve noticed that tends to happen; we start to take a problem seriously when men experience it, as though it’s less of a concern for a woman to face this. Bad society, no! Wrong.
And the last thing I want is my experience being used to undermine valid complaints about the inequalities between men and women.
This is simply my story. I experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. It made me miserable, and drove me out of work, because I bottled it all up. I didn’t deal with it, I avoided it. I think it’s a serious problem that requires discussion because most men will feel unable to speak up about it due to lacking the necessary emotional support.
We need to (again, in my opinion) reconstruct the principle of masculinity and leave out that isolating stoicism. Because if we didn’t silence ourselves so often maybe we’d be having those larger conversations that we need.
Photo: Flickr/Victor1558
I’m in my thirties now, apparently I’m just well-preserved 😉
But I strongly believe any kind of unwanted attention of that sort is harassment. Just as an appreciative observation addressed to a stranger in the street is harassment (although that is a separate topic). I won’t pretend it was the most egregious form of harassment I might have experienced, but the idea is that one should not be placed in such a situation. I thank you for your clarification.
Okay, that is an appalling miscarriage of justice, I agree. And I do hope you are able to get justice served.
Thank you, as well, for belittling my experience and reinforcing the point I was making about the poisonous model of masculinity which shackles us and prevents us from reaching out to our fellows for emotional support. I really appreciate it. You have provided an invaluable piece of evidence that supports my point in no uncertain terms. Bravo.
I am sorry if I give the impression that I belittled your experience. Oh No. I never meant that. The age difference between the two of us may be the possible reason for looking at things differently. You appear to be a youngster (perhaps in your early 20s) whereas I am 58 now. In my time I may have seen far worse experiences than receiving appreciative comments about my butt or my calf which, to me, may sound like no harassment at all. Yeah. Now I understand your point. If, taking a cue from those appreciative observations, you had turned… Read more »
Well Damian, in your case things did not go beyond those women admiring the shape of your butt. In your position, perhaps, I may have taken it as a compliment and got on with the job. But in my case the Sexual Harassment laws led to my compulsory retirement when I had five more years of service left. In brief it is as follows: Unable to put up with the inquisitive questioning by Prof. Dr. Miss Shankari Sundararaman in a private matter spread over 18 months, I told her to shut up and mind her own business on 10 April… Read more »
Damian, for me I didn’t just stay silent because I was embarrassed or didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t just a lack of a support system or a fear of not being believed or being questioned as to why you would find attention from women objectionable. It was all of those, but it was also to some extent fear of retaliation. You still needed to work with these women and this may seem kind of weird, but the harassment wasn’t ongoing. I could go weeks without an incident and during these times friendships / camaraderie was formed. I think… Read more »
Well for you that may have been the case, but your final point about what society expects? The purpose of my writing this article is to call for us to start re-evaluating those expectations and to start trying to change them. Masculinity, as society overall defines it, is really harmful to us as men. But further to this comment, if you or anybody genuinely feels they have been subjected to real harassment rather than clumsy flirting that stumbled over the line of decency and then back? They should speak out. Our culture requires massive shifts in attitude. Those massive shifts… Read more »
I’ve worked in a department that was all women except for me and was sexually harassed. The harassment had either the physical component of touching or was not directed “at me” like when one of the women brought in a nudie magazine and they all gathered around to view and comment on the men or when they had conversations concerning their love lives or once when one went shopping for intimates, they had a graphic conversation on their under garments. The touching always made me uncomfortable. When the conversations and the nudie mag got uncomfortable, I would just check the… Read more »
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. And obviously, I sympathize. But I also wouldn’t use that experience to generalize about this issue to the same extent as you do.
I haven’t had a problem talking sex with women at work but I am very careful about who I talk to. There is a female friend and we can talk quite openly. A lot of what I say to her would be considered sexual harassment if I said it to anyone else.
What angers me about this article itself is not so much the harrasment (as a man I’d be stoked if women found me attractive enough to discuss the look of my ass, even if I were upset about it initially). However the simple fact is had Mr. Davidson or any of his male colleagues made comparable comments about a female worker, even once, he’d have had to endure sexual harrasment complaints and all manner of ostracism, assuming they didn’t fire him outright. Women in the workplace simply do not have to live under the grand climate of fear that men… Read more »
Women absolutely do live in fear of being run out on a rail in those circumstances. That’s a thing that happens. And if you welcome the attention it isn’t harassment, so congratulations on missing the point there. Further, I didn’t have male colleagues (mentioned in the article) women should not have to endure harassment, nobody should (the point of the article) and most male harassers still get away with harassing their colleagues/subordinates in this day and age.
Damian, I’m sorry this happened to you and I’m glad you’ve written about it!
Nobody, whatever their gender identity, should be made to feel objectified and unsafe, and we all need to do better about making that a thing of the past.
” I didn’t say there was no edge. What I am saying is that edge ends up being used to dismiss the experiences of men. You may not agree that it happens but it does. We can’t in one breath say that we want to help men but then turn around and hold any supposed advantages they have against them when they reach for help. ” I agree Danny, I find discouraging talking about mens issues, when time after time, we only get the usual meme ‘ women suffer more ‘ or ‘men have xxxx privileges ‘ or (the worst… Read more »
@Mr. Supertypo…. I agree very much with you. However, women need to be part of this debate on the challenges and suffering on many men. They (women) cannot come with the usual meme as you stated. We need input to really push things forward. I find trying to talk about mens issues…..much like trying to talk about race in America. While their are some people who genuinely want to discuss the matter (in a civilized manner), the default position for many whites just to not engage. Why? Their lives are not impacted either way. So, there is not real incentive… Read more »
I never had to acknowledge that given the right circumstances, one of those women might try to sexually assault me. It wasn’t a remote possibility; I was twice the size of any of them. Hell, I can manhandle people twice MY size. I think this is a pretty major roadblock to men speaking up about being sexually assaulted. Before a guy can get his story out of his mouth its already been decided that its not that big of a deal because since he likely has the size and strength edge of a woman it won’t go that far therefore… Read more »
Okay, you appear to have missed the point of that first quotation. I was talking about how I didn’t ever worry about the harassment escalating, that this is a major difference between how men and women respond to harassment. You also appear to be ignoring my quite important point about addressing these issues without shifting the focus primarily to men. Overall, men do experience an edge over women in our society as it stands now. I’m sorry if you disagree, but it is true. So while we do need to talk about issues that are affecting us? It shouldn’t be… Read more »
You also appear to be ignoring my quite important point about addressing these issues without shifting the focus primarily to men. I said in my own comment that I (and others) don’t want to shift any primary focus. In fact I don’t think there should be any primary by gender one way or the other. Overall, men do experience an edge over women in our society as it stands now. I’m sorry if you disagree, but it is true. I didn’t say there was no edge. What I am saying is that edge ends up being used to dismiss the… Read more »
I said we shouldn’t start to take things seriously only once they’re affecting men. You seem intent on misrepresenting quite straight-forward points. And in doing so rather neatly demonstrate the bias I’ve referred to more than once. This is hardly a useful contribution to the discussion, more’s the pity.
No not intentional but if you’re going to do what you accuse me of then this is going to go nowhere.
We both want men to be taken seriously when they are sexually harassed/assaulted/etc…
Let’s just leave it at okay?
Yup, I hope more men will step up and let it be known that men are also sexually harassed. 25+ years ago, I was a Sr. Account Exec for a major health insurance company. One of my accounts was UAW. We were going into negotiations and I and my female boss flew to Detroit for the meetings. She arrived before me. When I checked into the hotel, there was a message that I was to phone my boss as soon as I got into my room. No more then I put my luggage down, I called her. She said that… Read more »
Yep, we should never have to be in a position to discuss these problems, but that’s wishful thinking right now. Changing the definitions of what is and isn’t acceptable will hopefully, eventually, make a real change to the society that sets us up in these situations.
UGH, Tom, what a nightmare. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Damn Tom. I’m so sorry that you had to live through that. But thanks for speaking up.
Oh, LOCKED every drawer you had. It took me a moment. Cus I’m thinking if you’re licking every drawer then you may be part of your own problem. LOL.
PersuitAce … I laughed my ass off when I read that you noticed my typo. Couldn’t help but visualize my licking everything in my office, like I was marking my territory.
Joanna, Danny, thank you. It was long ago but even to this day, my radar is always up and working.
Great article Damian. As being a woman who has been the the object of sexual harassment on the job at a very young age. I felt powerless how to deal with it. I tried to laugh it off and take it as a compliment. But I was working in an office of primarily all men. And while some of it was only of the “accidental” brush by variety. There was one dude who was relentless. Asking me all sorts of sexual questions and even putting porn on my computer. I was laid off from that job and was actually very… Read more »
Amy, I wish that wasn’t such a familiar story, Really I do. We all have to get into the habit of speaking out more, I think. That’s the best way to create a culture where confronting these things would be acceptable, and eventually unnecessary. Or so I like to believe.
Do you think that in 50:50ish gender situations, that the power of the harassment is less? Or just the same but just happens to both genders?
If I take your meaning correctly….The power of the harassment. I think it’s difficult to quantify it, to be honest. It isn’t a measurable thing with units and neat delineations. I think the way the harassment affects us is differently natured according to our gender; I think far fewer men will worry about it escalating. But similarly, they may suffer deeper emotional stress because they aren’t afforded the same outlets of expression as women. So, tentatively, I could say the power of harassment is felt less by men than it is by women. But also that it is felt differently.… Read more »
Well I could guess that a person may feel more scared or alone at least if there are say 19 of one gender, 1 of the other vs 10 and 10? Would more of your same gender help to encourage one to take action? In a heavily gendered environment, the minority may feel it tougher to report due to not wanting to kick up a stink and allows more bullshit to go by as a way to make strides into that workplace. I have a feeling women do this in male dominated roles, and men for the reverse where they… Read more »
Okay. I honestly couldn’t say for certain. Having more men on that shop floor wouldn’t have helped me except perhaps to detract attention. And in fact I suspect we may have felt pushed to compete for attention in that situation.
But I also think your focus is moving away from the point of the article I wrote. Gender equality in the workplace is an important discussion, but it isn’t one I’m really qualified to hold court on. I’m sorry if you’re dissatisfied with this response.
It’s fine, I was asking Amy too. Wasn’t trying to lead the convo away but just ask that quick question to understand it better. I have a feeling that a heap of abuse goes on that doesn’t get spoken of because people are trying to keep their job.
Oh, that’s undoubtedly the case. I think that trying to build up the attitude that we should all always report any wrong-doing by co-workers/superiors will help to create a culture that doesn’t allow harassment to take place in the first place.
I definitely think in my situation, the fact that the company I worked for was so Male dominated definitely not only led to the sexual harassment, but also made me less inclined to speak up. In an office of 30 men and 4 women there was definitely a “boys club” mentality there. And toward the end of my stay at that company learned that the individual responsible for most of the harassment had a history of this behavior, but he was also the boss’s golden boy and somewhat protected. I have never experienced any type of sexual harassment of this… Read more »
I figured as much, it’s sad really. Sorry you both went through that, people need to learn respect. I haven’t been through it luckily, my only experience has been a boss that liked to slam doors n scream like a lil child that scared me a bit and I quickly quit that place.
@ Damian “I think far fewer men will worry about it escalating.” I’ve heard you mention this before, but this is the boogey man under the bed. It’s a fear that doesn’t have a basis in reality because it is based on a flawed power dynamic. It’s based on the idea that a man will use physical force on a woman, which she would be unable to duplicate. Most work related harassment is not going to be predicated on physical force. They’ll threaten your job, your means of income. Women who make the intentional decision to use force to rape… Read more »
Peculiar, I can’t seem to find that figure in the CDC NISVS 2010. Care to cite the relevant section? And you appear to have missed the point quite spectacularly. While I argue that fewer men will worry that it might escalate, I do so to highlight that harassment has a different psychological impact on men compared to women. That’s a pretty accurate point. And I also harp on somewhat about how the dynamic is flawed, and not only that, damaging. So I’m glad you agree with me on that point, thank you.
If I remember correctly it’s page 18 table 2.1 estimated number of women raped last 12 months 1,270,000 and page 19 table 2.2 estimated men forced to penetrate another 1,267,000 so that’s about half. Page 24 79.2% of men who reported they were forced to penetrate another reported female perpetrators. About 80% of 50% is 40%.
Those figures aren’t quite what you state them to be. The problem with taking a percentage is that you ignore the sample size. So, for example, Table 2.1 is recording from 53 million victims. Table 2.2 is half that. And there is no figure for rape of men for the last 12 months because not enough men come forward to report it, which is precisely the point I’m trying to address in my article; that all victims need to come forward, and that we need to change the cultural attitude to allow that to happen. So perhaps go back and… Read more »
Damien,
The thing John Anderson forgot to mention is that it isn’t classified as ‘rape’ based on the report’s definition of rape. The CDC NISVS 2010 decided to classify someone forcing a man to penetrate them as a distinctly different category that is listed under “Other sexual violence.” If you equate “being forced to penetrate” to “forcibly penetrating (i.e. rape)” then you find that 40% of the perpetrators of “Forcing someone to have sex with them” were women.
I know, (Mr/Ms) Krupp. That would be why I recommended John go back and re-read the report. I also made a point of drawing attention to the lack of a viable sample for the last twelve months. I think we’ve covered this point, but thanks for reiterating it.
I did the math on the female abusers, 12 months is roughly 40% of all rapists as listed by the CDC but including forced to penetrate and for lifetime its around 16% or so. Easier to just say 1 in 5 rapes is female perpetrated and roughly 1 in 4 rapes is against a male, however there is an issue I’ve heard where men are more likely to either forget their rape, or more likely to tell themselves it wasn’t rape (since society tells men that they enjoy it, etc) over time which may skew the results. But we probably… Read more »
Yea! Thank you. I was starting to worry I’d completely obfuscated my point.
Yep, it’s also important to note that these aren’t hardened numbers. For instance the 79.2% of men forced to penetrate report only female perps, I’m not sure what the other 20.8% report? Could be mostly male, could be 1 male, 1 female, so the numbers do have some leeway. I don’t think we will get a very accurate lifetime idea of rape as people forget abusive events and people also rationalize them away at times. I’ve forgotten quite a few bad things in my own life, and trauma will sometimes mentally block it out.
@ Archy “Do you think that in 50:50ish gender situations, that the power of the harassment is less? Or just the same but just happens to both genders?” In my experience, it doesn’t seem to matter. I was in a department that was all men except for the boss and she asked each of the guys to go dancing with her. If she asked us as a group, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but she asked us out individually for individual “dates”. I also know a male manager who only hired pretty women because if your going to look… Read more »
I don’t think you are reading too much into it. That was very much sexual harassment. As a woman myself I can’t really fathom how a woman could be so sexually aggressive especially with a man she knew was married. But it does happen and your’s was a clear cut case of sexual harrassment.