posted on Aug, 24 2013 @ 03:19 PM
When I find out that any woman has made a claim of sexual harassment, that does not actually involve someone either:
a) profoundly humiliating her personally and intentionally and/or repeatedly
b) trying to manipulate sex with her directly or indirectly and repeatedly
c) pointedly refusing her promotion, transfer or pay due to gender or sexual stereotypes not performance
d) having her job whether directly or indirectly, whether via duties or potential promotion, messed up by it
I tend to think they're a whiner with a sense of entitlement and they probably need therapy more than a lawsuit.
And I'm female. And I've actually experienced what could be termed genuine harassment and more than once. Then again I've often worked in fairly
male-dominated environments. I generally consider all humans sexual beings, and any healthy man aware in this regard, so I don't consider most
behavior officially classified as harassment to be so, unless it is literally making someone miserable directly, or messing up their job in some
way.
Prejudice is everywhere. You breed the gender and racial prejudice out of the workplace, and you get -- like in my current workplace -- people making
the exact same kind of judgments, behavior and jokes about fat people, and about people from "flyover territory" (my corp HQ's are in coastal big
cities in places like CA and MA). (I'm from California, but I currently live in the Ozarks. My favorite thing in phone meetings that get those
comments is to pause, and then say icily, "I'm in Oklahoma." And wait for all the gasp and then rush to assure me that they don't mean ME, because
I'M cool, of course! LOL)
My favorite example isn't so much 'sexual' as 'gender': when a complete and utter moron with a higher title, after insisting I do something that
wasn't my job (circa 1991) to clean up literally a mess he made like a 5 year old because as I mentioned, he was a moron, turned from his desk
(covered with pictures of his religious eastern guru) and said to me: "There is no need to be upset. As a woman, you should be HONORED to serve."
Not making this up!! Fortunately for this guy, who I could definitely have beat the crap out of in any fight, I was so completely STUNNED by this that
I stood there speechless with my mouth open long enough for the sane part of my brain to say in my head, "Leave before you kill him. Leave. Leave.
Leave!" and I just left.
I suppose karma had its way though: later in a discussion with our chief investor, he shared that little vignette in the expectation that the man
would totally see his point of view. The man said, "I'd have punched you in the mouth!" and not long later he was unemployed. Granted, then
cleaning up his messes literal and figurative became even more my problem, but at least I was rid of him.
Another favorite: after a CEO explained to a board of directors how I was now doing my job, the former bozo's job, and another (and working all the
freaking time to do it), and asked them to give me a raise to equal approximately