A recent conversation I had with a fellow employee at my job sparked my idea to address workplace harassment and how it is such a problem for women. She explained to me how different men would engage in a conversation that made her uncomfortable, but she felt obligated to entertain them just to be nice. She also expressed how going to work was almost like a game of hide and seek and how she felt the need to avoid them. I had a similar experience with unwanted attention, and we bonded about how reluctant we feel encountering that every day at work. After disclosing to me that a friend of hers sought out a different job just because of the constant harassment, it bothered me. Why should she have to give up a good job just because some men continued to make unwelcome sexual advances at her?
When someone goes to work, they should not be met with intimidation or the burden to reciprocate a conversation. I know that when I say no to someone asking for my number, I am met with persistence instead of respect. It is so important to make sure we all respect boundaries and become aware of unwanted verbal and non-verbal body language. Positive affirmation is something that is easily detectable because someone will be intrigued in a conversation openly. In addition, it should be made clear that no one owes anyone a conversation. Often, women feel the need to be pleasant and accommodating so that they do not come off as rude or dismissive. I do not know how many conversations I could have prevented the longevity if I would have spoken up and rejected the encounter.
There are friendly attempts that men try to approach women in certain instances; however, if a woman is not contributing anything to the conversation it is time to walk away. The feeling of being talked at instead of talked to is something that happens to me more often than I like to admit. I do not want to feel bombarded with words with no reassure on my end that I am an active participate in the dialogue. Again, it comes back to the point I stress about respecting boundaries and not someone imposing themselves onto people. A healthy interaction must include two people’s willingness to converse, and we need more men attempting assess comfortability and more women feeling free to dismiss an undesirable encounter.
Way to shine a light on something that is normalized by silence.
I'm glad you bring this up because I feel like this is a topic that should be more public. I knew many guys who just couldn't recognize any social cues or just failed to ignore them. It shouldn't be this difficult to tell someone no and for them to actually listen. It's frustrating to see how common this situation is at workplaces and little seems to be done. So again, I'm glad you talked about this topic because it's something that needs to be addressed.
This is so true, thank you for pointing all of this out. I understand that feeling of responding to unwanted conversations with men just to be nice -- at my old job I got the obnoxious pet-names from male patrons, too (one of them called me "toots" and had the gall to give me his opinion on my appearance, multiple times...) so as an employee, I had to keep that smile so the patron wouldn't get upset and I wouldn't get in trouble. Closest I got to standing up for myself was when a guy said "hiya, toots" and I said, "It's 'Monica,' actually."
I appreciate this post so much. I can't tell you how many times a manager has called me "Sweetheart", "darling", "babe", or any other pet-name that is frankly, uncalled for. Not to mention, fellow coworkers who've sexually harassed me and then when I asked them to stop, blamed me for overreacting. Now, as a stay-at-home mom, I can't say that I miss a male dominated work place. But that does not negate the fact that I shouldn't have to feel relieved that I no longer work. Women should be able to feel safe in their workplace and it should be an environment where they want to be, not begrudge to be. Thank you for making this topic prevalent.