My wife of 42 years tells me she has been sexually harassed several times in her work career. She'd never said anything to me about this until I asked her about it recently when all these women started making allegations and accusations against men. She said it was just one of those things most women deal with in life but she never made a big deal about it.
It happened once in the Air Force hospital where she worked and we first met. I knew the officer involved and he was known as a cad around the hospital. And twice in a large university health center setting. The men all made sexual advances towards her and touched or groped her inappropriately. I'll leave it at that and won't go into any more details....she is my wife after all.
But when I asked what she did in response, in two of the cases she said she did what her mother taught her to do. She slapped their faces and said loudly "Stop it!" or "Don't you dare try that again!" The third man, she kicked in the shin real hard and gave a similar warning. Seems to have worked for her because none of the men in question ever tried it a second time she said.
My wife is a feisty tobacco farm girl from the South, all 103 lbs and 5' 4" of her. She was brought up to not put up with that crap from men she didn't give permission to. Workplace or not, she knows how to handle herself. She just is the kind of gal who says, "No way Jose and keep your damn hands off of me", in no uncertain terms. She is no shrinking violet.
I think many of these women in the news lately probably could have done the same thing to discourage or ward off unwanted advances. But many are physically afraid or afraid for their careers or both. A tough rock and hard place to be between for sure.
I'm just a guy so I don't pretend to know the answers for what women should do in these cases. But my wife seems to have discovered that taking control of her own destiny with her bad experiences, dealing with them strongly and then moving on, has worked for her. She does not consider herself a victim. Just someone who learned from her experiences and lived on.
So her advice to gals who experience unwanted advances from men in their lives: Give them a good swift smack and tell them to stop it.
That makes a ton of sense to me. I’m afraid that lines are getting blurred between harassment and assault. Being teased, bullied, all terrible things, but I think we are moving everything we don’t like to criminal and that’s very scary.
I hear your wife. We had a guy at work who was way too “touchy feely” to the girls on the line. He grabbed me once and I whirled around, made a fist, got ready to throw it and said, “If you do that again I will deck you. Don’t think I won’t.”
In front of God and half of Georgia in the break room. I was known as a goody-two shoes church lady so it was a shock.
Well ... later on he was seriously injured and I had to pray for him. We ended up being friends but he stays at a safe, polite distance.
It is something most women have to deal with and the better looking you are the more likely men are to hit on you and a certain percentage of these are jerks.
Times have changed so I don’t recommend slapping men because they may hit back these days, but loudly and sharply calling them out is still the best way to stop future attempts. Word gets out to the rest of the mashers that this one doesn’t take crap.
If you tolerate it because you don’t want to make a scene, well they will continue and other men may decide that you are okay with it.
It’s basic predator/prey interaction. If you are difficult prey, they move on and hunt elsewhere.
But not all women have the temperament to deal with mashers and these are the ones that get victimized over and over again. Same as with people who get bullied, this is just sexual bullying and you can’t just tell victims to stand up to the bullies because some just can’t. That is why those of us who can stand up to bullies need to step up and speak up when persons who like to bully others do it in front of us.
Silence is consent.