I worked at Lowes over this past summer and it is astounding how much sexism STILL exists. It was mainly the customers who gave me an issue. Now apparently this summer had a particularly “liberal” Outside Lawn & Garden area as I heard over, and over, and over again all summer… I can’t even tell you how many times I would go to lift something heavy and men and even women would say “oh where are the men” or “Isn’t there a man around here that can lift/move/get that?” In fact, there was only one man in the entire OSLG department that summer, and even he had his sexist moments… It got particularly bad when my male co worker was watching me as I operated the forklift to load bricks onto a customers truck and he later told me that the customer had said “I’m really nervous, letting some girl drive that forklift.” A girl? I am 22 years old and still being referred to as some girl? So that summer I made it a point that every time that customer came in I would be the one to load his truck with the forklift, and, little by little, that customer warmed up to me. On that first interaction he spoke only to my male co worker. On the second interaction he called out some comment about the weather to me as I was driving away. On the third, when I was all alone and had to load his truck he actually talked to me. Like a 30+ minute long conversation about where was I going to school, what am I studying, and how much of a hard worker I was. It took three separate interactions for me to “prove” I was a hard worker and that I had “earned” his respect enough to be acknowledged… This man always ordered AT LEAST one pallet full of brick each time… I heard one story from the woman who worked the morning shift that a man needed some help loading mulch, but as soon as she turned the corner he began yelling “Oh hell nah I ain’t gettin no help from no damn woman. Yall better getta man out here!” and proceeded to call the front desk demanding that a man came outside and loaded his mulch. The second occasion an older man was loading some fairly large and heavy bricks onto a cart and my coworker offered him help, he looked up and almost hissed “I don’t need any help from some damn woman…” and went back to loading at least 40-50 heavy bricks all by himself. When he got up to the register (where I was standing) the cashier asked him if he wanted any help loading the bricks he had (we were both unaware of what had just happened in the back of the store with my coworker) and he looked me up and down and spat “NO.” as he stared directly into my eyes. So he left, and the cashier, my co worker and I laughed and watched him struggle as he loaded the bricks into his trailer. When my manager came by and saw us watching he said “Now why aren’t any of yall helping?” We told him what had happened and he chuckled as he said “Hey, you can’t fix stupid.” Blatant, every sexism still exists. Bless the woman in rural areas who have to work in it and deal with it every day…

even though my high school was known for being progressive and by most accounts one of the most respectful and accepting schools in the country, i still met several students who could not comprehend basic principles, such as “how to treat your classmates as human beings”. in one particular latin class, a young man (let’s call him fred) needed half an hour of multiple students’ and eventually the teacher’s explanation as to why a male-only military draft was sexist. later that year, fred tried to defend his belief that women could not possibly be able to be as fit and healthy as himself in his peak training. i was a passionate student athlete and he challenged me, to attempt to prove his point, to a push-up contest. i beat him by thirty-eight push-ups. after that, i never heard him call women “weak” again. i hope that i helped fred learn a bit more about respect that day and i hope that he has remembered it as his life has continued. also, a thank you to the english teacher who let two students hold a push-up contest instead of taking symbolism notes.

I have experienced so much sexism my entire life its hard to know where to begin. I will start with the most damaging. I was about 15/16 years old, a self-proclaimed feminist and wrote a feminist zine. It was the early 90’s and wearing vintage t-shirts was the fashion. I had a pretty amazing collection that I wore with pride to school. I had rather large breasts at the time (this was before they got a job) and had never felt self-conscious about my body. Our brief homeroom time was in the middle of the day instead of the morning and I usually just told the teacher I was here and then carried on to my next class early. On this day, wearing my new vintage T with pride I had to stay in homeroom for some kind of announcement. I sat down and waited. All of a sudden, during the announcement, this young man walks into the room and start yelling “oh shit! Look at her nipples! You can see her nipples, oh shit look at them!” He is pointing to me and now the entire class is staring and he is still yelling and starts yelling at kids in the hall to come in and see. The teacher says nothing. I stand up and tell him to shut the fuck up. The teacher tells me not to use that language and I tell him that I am leaving and it wasn’t my job to police my own sexual harassment. I felt ashamed of my body for the first time ever. I immediately found a sweatshirt to put over me (it was hot out) and suffered in the heat in an effort to cover up. Later that day I get called into a meeting with the vice principal. I told him what happened and he replied with “Well, the teacher said you were wearing a very tight shirt which you now seemed to have covered up, so you can see why the boy said those things to you. Maybe next time don’t wear such a tight shirt.” It took everything I had not to punch him. Instead I just said, “give me note so I can get back into class.” He got all flustered and said “well you can see my point right?” I just repeated myself about the note until he gave it to me. I went into the bathroom and cried, not because I was sad but because I was angry, and disappointed that the people who were in the school to protect me were also my harassers and had no interested in my welfare. I went home and told my parents (also both feminists) and they asked me what I thought the best thing to do would be. They offered to call the principal for me etc but I said I wanted to do this on my own. I wrote a letter to the principal and the vice explaining the event and my shock and disappointment over how it was handled. The principal met with me, apologised on behalf of the vice and told me she had talked to him about how he handled the situation. I told her I wanted a written and public apology from him and that he should be required to have sexual harassment training and a review by the school board and that the boy who did the harassing needed to be healed accountable for his actions. She said that none of that was possible and that I would have to settle for a school wide assembly about sexual harassment. The assembly did happen, but as you can imagine, it was met with giggle and laughter and not taken seriously at all by the teenage students. From that day on I lost all faith in the adults and people in positions of authority at my school, not to mention the students. I feel lucky that instead of this experience making me feel small and helpless, it reafirmed my feminist views and prompted me to speak out more. Sadly, it did make me feel self conscious of my breasts during my teenage years.

One day I was in Omaha Nebraska walking to spaghetti works at about 6 when it was just getting dark with my friend who was 12 my sister who was 14 and my other sister who is 16. I was also 12 at the time. We were maybe two blocks away from spaghetti when’s van pulled around the corner. We thought nothing of it just going on out marry way. All the sudden the back window pulls down and the two men about 19 started catcalling us. We ignored it and they kept doing. We just started waking faster then they came around the block again doing the same thing. We almost end up on a full blown run by the time we get there. My sister didn’t seem faded by it so I just shock it off. I didn’t start to relive what had happened till I realized that it happens every where. Another incident was to day, I’m in 8th grade and my literacy teacher was gone. I don’t think about it till I saw the sub she had dived for us before and called one of the kids a 2nd grader in my class. She had also called one of my friend in a different class with a different literacy teacher stupid. I shock off those two moment thing she didn’t mean to say those things, until I had gotten up to ask my friend a question on a work sheet and she didn’t say anything. When one of the boys got up AND WALKED NOT EVER TWO STEPS she decided that she need to yell at him and tell gone he need to sit down. This is when I realize that those moment weren’t just a slip of the tongue that it was her true self. That she was born in a different era that classified this as normal

It was the last day of school and my school band was playing a graduation song for the 8th graders (I am a 7th grader). During the announcements the band doesn’t play. So my band teacher allowed so the percussionists since we were already standing. So me and some boys went outside. Two boys one a 6th grader and a 7th grader I knew. They were stacking rocks and I was sprinkling sand. I sprinkled sand on their rock pile. The 7th grader told me to stop but I did it again. So he yelled “Stop or else I’ll rape you!” Time froze cause I thought he said “rake you.” But when he said “I hope no one heard that” I realized what he said. I threw sand at him and walked out. I reported him once I got home. But with little support my own twin sister didn’t want me to report because I was making to big a deal out of it. It was ridiculous. i decided not to get him in trouble with the law because I hope he just didn’t know how that word would affect me. But even now I suffer from these problems. A boy asks me inappropriate questions and one guy drew a penus on my worksheet. Someguy I considered a friend said my Steven Universe shirt was girly since I wore it. And boys on my bus slap their legs and moan like women during sex. it’s degrading and terrifying for me.

Last year, after homecoming, I was raped by my date. I confronted my friend after struggling with it myself but she brushed it off saying that I was lying and that he would never do that. He then came to me and asked why I was saying that he raped me. I said that it was because I never consented. He said that I never said no even though i pushed him away multiple times. I was in to much terror to say anything. My friend finally believed me when he tried to sexually assault her. To this day he walks around the school like he did nothing wrong.

My friend and I asked a man to take a picture of us at the state fair. He did, but not before saying “Why are you taking a picture of the pumpkins? You two are so lovely, you should ditch the pumpkins and come with me.” We waited for him to take the picture anyway, but it came out poorly because our smiles are forced. I’m annoyed that his comments put a negative end tone on an otherwise nice night.

My colleagues and I (all female) were standing around waiting for a training to start. Our male supervisor walked by and yelled “everyone should be smiling and happy!”. Just because I’m not smiling doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. (This is not the first man to tell me to smile, or ask “what’s wrong baby?” just because I didn’t smile at them). It’s unnatural to walk around 24/7 with your teeth bared smiling at everything. This is how my face is. Sorry I’m not up to your standards.

I held the door open for a guy a bit behind me and he then caught up with me on the stairs and said “Did you just hold the door open for me? That should be the other way around.” He sounded legitimately bothered by the fact that a woman could hold the door for him. Another time, he told me that he’d be happy to ask my professor a question on my behalf about class material, presumably because I’d be too timid or incapable of asking myself (and I’m clearly an extrovert).

I work for a huge company in telecommunication sector in Spain, the biggest one. When I was hired I though I’ll be working with professional partners and people I can learn a lot, in a challenging and motivational environment… But I quickly realize that woman there are like meat. All these super qualify professionals males spend their working hours sending emails to each other’s with naked girls, they even take pictures of women in the office while we go up in the stairs, to have a picture of our bottom. In the meetings you can often hear “Have you seen the new girl, what a tits, she is hot, I what to fuck her…” (Mostly married men with new born babies). One of my female colleagues wear always mini-skirt, She have to hear every day that she is a “minimalist”, or “you look very good…” (Creepy face), and of course you hear all the gossips about women that get their position because they have sex with some guy in the office, I never hear about a guy who gets his positions because He had sex with a woman… I know hundreds of situations with sexual arrestment inside international corporations and these companies do nothing to stop this situations, NOTHING AT ALL! And they are supposed to be innovative, modern, equally blablablabla work environments…