Sexual Harassment in the Work Place

When I was 16 I got my first job as a waitress. I loved my job. Getting to meet new people every day, working in an environment with good food, and having amazing co-workers was a dream, to begin with anyway. It took only a month or two before a dark, impending shadow slowly drew over the thrill I used to feel coming into my workplace.

It began almost unnoticeably. Things that are unsettling but not enough to report. Things that I just have to get on with- it’s a part of the job, after all. Did that man just address my legs while ordering? No, surely not, it’s just in my head. I’m sure of it this time, the man sitting with his wife and kids only looked at my legs while I took his order. Or maybe not, I think it’s just me. Now definitely, this man gawked at my legs while his partner was ordering, I even saw him look at my arse as he handed me his menu. Okay, maybe it’s the skirt I’m wearing? I’ll try wearing trousers to see if that stops it. I can’t see them staring at my legs but it doesn’t stop the uninvited comments on how I look or if I need to smile more.

Now I’m working in the kitchen. I don’t know the chefs too well as they change every few weeks but something that’s always guaranteed is that they’re men. The chat always goes as follows: we exchange names, a bit of general chat about the place and others working there AND THEN the question that is always inevitable “So, what age are you?”. Asked by the 40+ year old man standing before me with the intense heat lamp beaming onto his sweaty worn out face, highlighting the deep wrinkles and discolouration in his skin. You can see the relief lift and a smirk form when I say I’m over 16. In his mind he has received the moral justification he was looking for, because technically it’s legal. It starts off with the age question; then I have to listen to stories of every explicit way they’re going to have sex with my very unwilling colleague; then I find out about their excitement for the arrival of my 18th birthday; then I get asked to suck one of their dicks. Happy fucking birthday.

Harassment seems to be a woman’s ‘rite’ of passage - but don’t get me wrong we’re given this ‘rite’ way before the age of 18 - reminding your newfound womanhood of its place. Reminding you that they have control, because nobody’s stopping them. I’m in my place of work trying to make money, just like all the men in the building. The men don’t get asked to give head or have to listen to their friends get degraded and belittled as her rape is being discussed in front of them or watch people stare at your friends bums or watch as a chef draws his finger up a coworkers bare leg.

I began to over think my actions. I’d worry about who was standing behind me or how I was bending down or even the way I was eating things. I was scared about who was going to sexualise me next. I began to have to choose whether I preferred the unexplainable microaggression that you can’t retaliate to in the restaurant, or the humiliation in the kitchen that I could, in theory, explain, but, out of fear, didn’t.

The exclusively male management team would never understand what I was feeling. One of them had already groped me at a staff party and was always a little too touchy with the girls on shift. We all heard about another manager’s past with underage girls and his jokes about going to jail because he wanted to have sex with the under 18s on my team, who again showed no interest in him. I’d listened to a manager tell me that I was inferior because I menstruate; that women cannot get raped- it’s something they make up; that women did not know how to manage professionally. Ironic. And then one evening a new employee, an old man who I’d never spoken to before, passes me while sinking his boney fingers tightly and aggressively into my hips. I can still feel his grip on me as I write this. He pulled himself closer as he brushed himself past me for what felt like forever.

This was my tipping point. I was fed up. I could see and feel that he done this sexually- there were other easier routes he could of taken through the kitchen to get to where he wanted to go, he could have said excuse me, patted me on the back or even just shuffled by without having to touch me. He did this because I was a woman. He did it because he had power over my body, someone I didn’t even know. I stopped for a second and realised, if I were a man was standing there, this would never have happened. I felt tiny. I watched the men get on with their work so easily; they didn’t have to think about how they dressed or how they acted. They could leave at night without anxiety and discomfort following them home. I ran out the kitchen crying.

I had had enough. I was sick of being a public playground for men to use whenever they pleased. I wanted to come into work without having to worry about being sexualised. I headed to the first manager I saw, all blotchy and upset. I told him. He laughed, and told me to stop making a scene in front of the customers in the lounge. When I told him that I was serious, he told me he’d deal with it. He didn’t. I sat in a quiet room for about an hour trying to calm down before another manager noticed I was missing. The second manager then offered me two options. I either continue to work in the environment that made me feel so tiny and embarrassed, that I couldn’t go into without bursting into tears, or I go home and have to suffer financially for what wasn’t my fault. I might have been a sobbing mess at this point, but that didn’t lessen my understanding of the situation; I could see none of these options were reasonable and refused them. He then followed that with “well what do you want me to do?”.

So now both the managers I’ve gone to don’t know what to do. I don’t think they understand it. I give in and say I’ll just go home, because the mental strain of being in this environment is becoming too much. On my way out I see the big boss and with the recommendation from one of the managers not to speak to him, I go and speak to him. I’m not sure why I did this considering my mental state at that moment, but I’m glad I did. I remember feeling this burst of strength within me, pushing me to knock on his office door. It was liberating but petrifying. On the face of things, the big boss seemed very supportive and proactive, assuring me - if what I was telling him was true - the way I’d been treated by my managers and the other employee wasn’t right and there’d be action called into place. I wish I had explained more about the whole picture on our first meeting but the briefness was justified by the state I was in.

Over the next couple of shifts I was only asked to re-explain the situation to a third manager and I then went into more detail about what myself, and lots of other girls, had to go through in the past.  Yet I was still forced to work with the man who harassed me, tipping me into a very dark place. Each shift that I was working with the same man, I would have too many breaks where I’d run upstairs and cry by myself in the cold, dark toilets. And then one morning I had to take it upon myself again to see the big boss and ask him what was happening. He told me the man had admitted to doing it but they could not see any sexual nature in this situation, so he was only going to get a warning not to do it again. When I questioned the system they had in place for the girls that will experience harassment in the future - only intending to make it an easier experience for women - he began to get aggressive and accusatory. There were then further complications due to his actions. He turned the situation around onto me, implying that I was lying, and made me feel bad for reporting it by telling me that a man’s job was on the line. His facade had dropped. I could see that he didn’t care, all he wanted was for me to be quiet.

One of the hardest parts about being harassed or assaulted is that nobody wants to call it what it is: harassment and assault. The whole system is built against you. They’ll find any other word or way to make it something different. It’s less work and less paperwork this way. Because no-one wants to talk about harassment and assault; this is why you end up blaming yourself. You think that you’re crazy. You doubt yourself. You call yourself dramatic. Other people call you crazy and dramatic. I felt ashamed for reporting my harassment until I sat down with my gran and told her what happened. She told me not to stop and about all the assault she had to experience from as young as eight and that not having not told anyone until now is something that affected her until that very day.

I’m sharing this story in the hope that other people can find strength in reading this, to believe that they’re not being dramatic, that it’s not their fault, and that it is harassment/assault.