Jeanne

The event I am about to relate is one of countless instances of sexism and sexual harassment I have experienced over the course of my life–and it was one of the reasons why I went to graduate school and earned my Ph.D. in sociology, with gender as one of my areas of expertise.

I was a very young single mother of two small children, I was in my early 20s and desperately seeking employment. I felt so lucky to have been hired as an assistant manager in a small retail store but from the first time I met the manager I felt an uneasiness about him. As soon as I met him I recognized something predatory in his demeanor–and I was unfortunately proven correct over the course of the next 3 months. Ever chance he got he would touch me and “accidentally” brush up against me. He started making sexual innuendos and as time went on his comments became more direct and aggressive, to the point of him eventually baldly stating various sexual thins he wanted to do to me. I was so disgusted by him, but didn’t object because I feared speaking out would result in him firing me.

My one lame strategy was pretending he wasn’t serious, that he was merely joking. Then his equally disgusting friend, a hunting buddy, started coming to visit him at the store, and they eventually started competing with each other to see who could be the first to convince me to become sexually involved. Both men were middle-aged, and both were married, and although I would constantly remind them of these facts, neither would stop harassing me.

By Christmas I was feeling desperate, I wanted to quit so badly so that I would never have to see either one of those creeps again, but I couldn’t find another job and I really needed the income, so I stayed in order to be able to feed and house my children. The manager had planned an elaborate holiday party for the employees at a very expensive club/restaurant, and the seven part-time employees and I met him at the party venue. He’d evidently been there awhile and was already inebriated by the time we arrived, and as soon as he saw me he sloppily insisted that I had to dance with him. I kept making excuses, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Of course as soon as I conceded and started dancing with him, he pulled me into a slow dance embrace and started touching me all over. I couldn’t conceal my revulsion, and I pushed him away as hard as I could and yelled, “stop it!” He stumbled a bit backward, but quickly regained his balance and glared at me like he wanted to kill me. I started feeling afraid of what he might do in retaliation.

Eventually the hostess came to let us know our table was ready, and as we filed into the restaurant one of the part-timers, John, steered the manager to the head of the table and suggested under his breath that I sit as far away from him as possible. So I went to sit at the opposite end of the very long table. I wanted to just get up and leave, but John was my ride home. Unfortunately I had yet to discover that John’s car had stopped working and that the manager had agreed to drive him home after the work party. I think the manager knew I had no other choice but to accept a ride home along with John.

After we had all ordered and received our food, the manager refused to make conversation with anyone, all he would do was eat his fried chicken like some kind of neanderthal and glare at me the entire time. After the first piece was gnawed clean, he reared back his arm and flung the chicken bone across the table as hard as he could–directly at me. I ducked to the side very quickly, so the bone and all the ensuing others that he lobbed at me never hit his intended target, but it was very humiliating at the time. John kept trying to talk sense into the manager, and would try to intercept his arm before he could throw each bone, and he actually told the manager “hey man, that’s not right.” But the manager would always shrug him off and continued to throw the bones at me as hard as he could. Thankfully he was too drunk to aim very well.

No other person besides John–not any of the other employees, waiters, customers, or any of the managers–tried to intervene, despite the possibility that someone else might actually have been hit by one of the numerous flying bones. The other employees, and me as well, tried to act like nothing out of the ordinary was going on–we never klooked at the manager, we looked everywhere else because we were all just too afraid we’d lose our jobs. After dinner I found out that the only way I had of getting home (a 40 minute drive, and I had no money for a taxi) was going along with John and being driven home by the drunken manager.

Despite John’s best efforts to convince the manager that they should take me home first and go out for a beer, the manager insisted he was taking John home first. I had elected to sit in the back seat of the car, and when we got to John’s house the manager kept telling him to “get out,” while John kept insisting they take me home and go out for a beer. I felt guilty for being the reason why John refuse to get out, I knew he felt he needed to stay to protect me, but I had to get home to my children and so I told John I’d be okay and that he should go ahead and go into his house so he could go to bed finally. After John asked me “are you sure?” like a dozen times, he finally got out of the car and instructed me to call him when I got home.

We sat in the driveway another 10 minutes because the manager kept ordering me to move to the front seat, and I kept refusing. The manager insisted that he wasn’t moving the car an inch until I moved up to the front seat. Finally I said a terse “ok,” and moved up tio the front seat. I did move to the front seat, but by this time my fear was turning into indignant anger–finally. The manager had to get on the interstate to take me home, and after merging on to the interstate he grabbed me by my neck and tried to violently pull me to him–all while he kept insisting “give me a kiss.” I had my left arm straight out pushing against him but he kept trying to force me to kiss him. So because he wouldn’t stop I put my other hand on the door handle and I opened the door a crack, then I screamed, “if you don’t let me go I’ll jump and my death will be all your fault!” Having finally got the message that I would rather die than kiss him he pushed me away with the hand he’d been grasping my neck with–and I had to grab his arm to keep from falling out of the door.

For the rest of the drive he stewed in silence, and after I got out of the car at my house he peeled down the street with the tires making a terribly loud squealing noise. I was so relieved that the ordeal was over that I cried before composing myself to go inside. I knew I was probably going to be fired, but I kept hoping that he’d been so drunk he might forget everything that had transpired the night before, so I went into work the next morning actually hoping I would still have that terrible, awful job. As soon as he saw me he looked away and simply stated, “Your services are no longer needed.” I turned right around and walked out, eventually got home somehow, and never did anything except look for a new job because I knew, even back then and at such a young age (22 years of age) that I could never afford a lawyer, and that he’d just lie if the case ever went to trial. I also felt that the only person who would be a witness for me was the one person I would never ask because John was a new father and could not afford to lose his job.

But over all these many years I recognize that this sexism/sexual harassment experience only made me ever more determined, ever more angry, and it pushed me to become a person who actively tries to enable other women to more effectively deal with such situations. I became a professor who teaches, researches and publishes articles about gender power relations.