Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

There is a show I like to watch sometimes -- In the heat of the Night. I like it, because it sometimes brings back old memories, old sights, old ideas -- some of which are pleasant, but some are very unpleasant.

Today, it brought up a very unpleasant memory of a problem that was nation-wide, with some improvement over the years -- The problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

In the story, a woman was working for a male boss who required certain sexual activity, in order for her to keep her job. Eventually, he raped her. The next time she was required to work late, she brought a gun. When he came toward her, she fired, killing him.

As the story ended, the detective was walking with his wife, who had expressed sympathy for the woman. His response to her was that she had done the wrong thing (granted). Then he added that the right thing would have been to quit her job.

Of course, the story ended this way in order to incite the very feelings I had, upon hearing his statement: anger. An extreme sense of anger, accompanied with my own memories of sexual harassment on the job.

In my first "real" job, I was a dental assistant, and the elderly dentist thought it was all right for him to pinch my breasts. Unfortunately, because I had no idea that I could do anything about it, this went on for months, until I became engaged and, feeling more empowered, I told him to stop.

I wish the harassment had stopped then, but no -- when my first husband died, and I went back to work, I cashiered for Country Club Markets in Bloomington, MN. My boss knew my first husband and knew I was widowed. Did that stop him? No! He told me dirty jokes every day, after my first few weeks there, as I was working. And every day, I told him his behavior was unacceptable.

Then he started putting his arms around me. I went home and decided what I had to do.

Women had no recourse then: we ALWAYS lost our jobs, and our harassers always continued their climb up the corporate ladder, while we had to start over elsewhere.

The next day, sure enough, he sneaked up behind me, and put his arms around me again. I made a fist with my right hand, and using my left hand for added force, I hit him as hard as I could in the mid-stomach with my elbow. He moaned loudly, grabbed his stomach, and took off for the meat department. I followed him. I walked up to him and said, "I quit."

That was the only satisfaction I could expect in 1977: to hurt him and get by with it, then lose my bi-weekly paycheck.

I used to think that the days of women paying for sexual harassment were over. But they are not. I worked in 2001 for a large lumber company. A man there started, and as soon as he did, I told. I got "laid off"; he kept working. I was clueless that this could happen, until I brought it up at my synagogue and was told that I should have gotten a lawyer, and they should have heard of his actions from that lawyer, not me.

In 2004, I finally got up the nerve to seek employment again, when I learned that my husband's church was looking for someone to run the office. It looked perfect to me! They had no pastor, and after having experienced sexual harassment from three pastors in the old church, this looked perfect!

I got the job! And things went wonderfully, until they hired a pastor. I told my husband that night, "There goes my job." I promised him I would stay, though, until something happened.

Nothing did. And I am still there, loving my job and all the people there.

Now here's the bottom line of what I want to convey: teach your children that they and they alone have power over their bodies while at work, at school, and in church, as well as other places. If I had only known. If only!

But I can thank G-d that He protected me from rape, in spite of my ignorance.

My post, copied from "North and South"

G-d helping me, my inner southern belle needs to make herself more evident in my attitudes, thoughts, and actions.

I remember the attitudes of certain women I met in the South and in those who were from the South, and I really admire a lot of them. (Certainly, I met some whose attitudes and actions were certainly NOT admirable, but these are not what this is about.)

Now, I am definitelty a Westerner and a Yankee, but I am 36% southern Belle. I know this for sure: I took the test! You can take it, too -- right here! Sorry! I don't think the link is working. Try this: http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html
I didn't score quite as I expected on the next test -- I got "21% Dixie. You are a dandy Yankee Doodle." That test is here.
(You might want to check this out as well.)

But this is about the word gracious.

I recognize that some of the southern ladies I have met smiled sweetly and called people "honey," but as soon (or almost as soon!) as they were out of earshot, they had some biting things to say about those people. I am also aware that some southern ladies had a special way of talking to some people that would make them think they were being complimented -- until 15 minutes later, at which time they would suddenly comprehend that they had been solidly put down, lower than a worms' belly, by a woman with the sweetest smile on earth!

But there were also Southern Ladies who were an actual study in genteelity of the most unaffected kind. They were gracious. They were noble. They came across as cultured and kind, thus the capital S and the capital L on Southern Ladies here.

Such manners were not what I learned in my first fifty years. Let me change that -- in my first 55 years. I have been (as I have mentioned before) rough-and-tumble, loving the say-what-you-mean-and-mean-what-you-say attitude, holding no courtliness -- and-proud-of-it. Daring and once wild, I embraced and coddled what I see as my semi-hippy-like demeanor, holding it boldly in the face of anyone who was put off by it.

But I started a journey some 5 years ago that took me in a different direction.

For one thing, I was raised to be a Bible-thumper, and I am a Bible-thumper. But I simply did not realize what the Bible actually says! I read it through the dark, dark glasses of what I was, rather than reading it for what it says. Furthermore, certain people who were very influential to me reinforced this with meanness and vitriol that I swallowed and lived.

But having been away from such folk, gathering information from a different set of people, I began to see something different -- a different way to live. Only then did I see what the Bible had said all along: Be nice! Be nice! Be nice! It's in the Torah. It's in the Psalms. It's in the books of the prophets. It's in the books by the apostles.

So I began to take on those ways.

Then I met a certain young southern lady who told me, "That's your inner southern belle coming through!"

She was teasing, of course, but I began to consider that those very special southern ladies were like and decided that I could take that description on as well as declaring that I am simply learning what the Bible is actually saying about how I must conduct my life.

So fine! I am better off now for seeing how the Bible says I ought to act and trying to follow it, but I am also learning from the southern ladies -- the real Southern Ladies -- regarding how I can carry out biblical principles. I am sure the L-rd won't mind!

A Funny

I got a little irritated with my husband today. As a member of the church I work for, he often gets monthly offering-counting duty. This is his month. Because my position's Monday duties include accounting for the offering, I noticed a discrepancy and called to ask him about it in order to know if someone had told him to do something other than what should be done.

He told me what he had been told to do, so thinking out loud, I commented back that it should not have been done that way, so I would have to either correct it or send it to the accountant to deal with it. At that point, he started telling me what to do.

Okay. It's my job. I have been working there since 2004, and as my boss tells me, I am the Office Goddess: I think things out, I make the decisions, I make the rules, I set office procedure, I fix things, and what I say goes. So when he started telling me what to do, I admit it: I got irritated.

It's not like this is the first time I have gotten irritated with my poor husband for telling me how to do things I know how to do that are things he has no clue about! It actually happens often! But I keep my tongue. Today, however, I decided it was doing neither one of us any good to continue being silent about it.

A while after I had been home, I brought it up to him. Leaving out his side of this conversation:

"We get along really well. I rarely get irritated with you, because we really get along amazingly well. Perhaps that's why when I get irritated with you, it really stands out to me. But I have to bring this up to you because I need help. We both need help on this issue. I am asking for you to think this through and help me.

"Today, when I called you about the bookkeeping problem, you tried to tell me what to do. I run the office, and I know what to do, Honey -- you don't! Yet you told me what to do, and you were wrong!

"So I said, 'Uh-huh. Uh-huh,' and that was wrong! I felt like a liar. I felt disrespectful toward you, because I wasn't being honest. The problem is that this happens often, and I don't know how to do this right! I need your help!

"Is it because you were born a big brother and i was born a little sister? Do you think that's what's happening? But I need a solution.

"First, I really need you to try not to tell me how to do my job -- at work and at home! I admit that it bothers me when anyone tries to tell me what I already know or what they don't know when I do. I know this.

"Second, I need a better attitude. I am sorry I am troubled by this and that I have not said anything.

"What do you suggest?"

He apologized for the misunderstanding, thought a moment, then he said:

"Well, it really doesn't matter if I get my way or you get my way . . . ."

And that was the end of the conversation. We both broke up laughing and never bothered to finish our conversation!! I'm still snickering!

But I know we will both be more careful . . . .