Sexual Harassment

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Yavana
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Sexual Harassment

Post by Yavana »

This is a question for the guys: How do you deal with unwanted sexual advances and other harassment from women in the workplace in whom you have no interest? My experience has been that human resources is often unhelpful and that reporting such behavior, attempting to ignore innuendo, or even a polite decline if the individual becomes direct, will make you the target of relational aggression.
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Ayu
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Ayu »

Place yourself in front of her in the cafeteria without asking. Then ignore her and eat your lunch with open mouth all the time. I bet every woman is able to resist your sexappeal after this experience. :|
Tiago Simões
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Tiago Simões »

The Cicada wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:53 am This is a question for the guys: How do you deal with unwanted sexual advances and other harassment from women in the workplace in whom you have no interest? My experience has been that human resources is often unhelpful and that reporting such behavior, attempting to ignore innuendo, or even a polite decline if the individual becomes direct, will make you the target of relational aggression.
That's one of the characteristics of living in a patriarchy, males normally aren't taken seriously in this context and are expected to like it.

I've heard "Any man that suffers domestic violence should be hit harder" more times then I should... (Not in relation to me)
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Yavana
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Yavana »

Ayu wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:20 am Place yourself in front of her in the cafeteria without asking. Then ignore her and eat your lunch with open mouth all the time. I bet every woman is able to resist your sexappeal after this experience. :|
Actually I don't think it has as much to do with being a rico suave as much as it does with the egos of some women. Just the fact that I gave them a tacit "no" seems to be enough to set some women off. I had one young woman who flirted with me so strongly that another woman reported her to human resources, and when I decided it would be best not to get involved with her, she seemed to be determined to either get me fired or, for lack of a less ridiculous sounding description, to break my will. I had a girl at a previous job take a similar level of interest, to the point that she would throw her body weight against me if we were close by in a crowd. She would literally throw herself at me. This had more to do with my ignoring her than with being Right Said Fred.

Unfortunately, being too unattractive in such an environment isn't an option either, since it will get a guy out the door just as fast as anything. These issues are actually why I decided to do some blue collar work for a while after my last jobsite shut down.
tiagolps wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:24 am I've heard "Any man that suffers domestic violence should be hit harder" more times then I should... (Not in relation to me)
I don't mind that my current girlfriend hits me in the face when her feelings are hurt. She's ride or die.
That's one of the characteristics of living in a patriarchy, males normally aren't taken seriously in this context and are expected to like it.
You misspelled Illuminati.

Somehow, blaming these things on "patriarchy" seems farcical, at best. It isn't due to anything men did, it's due to the expectations some women have that what they want is more important than what others want—least of all my aversion to helping them break their marriage vows.

These women have agency, and the ones who do these things use it to do bad things. It could be argued that some aspect of culture enables this, but those who sinistrocerebrally conjure up bogeymen of patriarchal oppression in academia and activism are just as likely to sanction the behavior of such women as any white knight traditionalist—even more so, in my opinion.
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Tiago Simões »

The Cicada wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:14 pm Somehow, blaming these things on "patriarchy" seems farcical, at best. It isn't due to anything men did, it's due to the expectations some women have that what they want is more important than what others want—least of all my aversion to helping them break their marriage vows.
It is due to what men did, and are doing. It is because of expectations put on males by other males that human resources don't care about your reports.

Society needs to change and understand that men can be a victim too, and that it doesn't challenge anybody's "masculinity".
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by shaunc »

The Cicada wrote:
tiagolps wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:24 am I've heard "Any man that suffers domestic violence should be hit harder" more times then I should... (Not in relation to me)
I don't mind that my current girlfriend hits me in the face when her feelings are hurt. She's ride or die.
Let me get this right. If some woman makes sexual advances on you at work, it's a major problem that warrants involving the HR section but you think another woman taking her frustrations out on you in a violent way is fine.
Sorry, sunshine but you've lost me.
Last edited by Ayu on Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed quote.
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Eat pizza and stop going to the gym. Works every time.
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Yavana
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Yavana »

tiagolps wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:59 pm It is due to what men did, and are doing. It is because of expectations put on males by other males that human resources don't care about your reports.

Society needs to change and understand that men can be a victim too, and that it doesn't challenge anybody's "masculinity".
Blaming men for everything is ironically "sexist," in that you're denying the agency of women, their ability to choose, their capacity for free will and decision making. And in my case, it has had nothing to do with the expectations of human males but the expectations of certain human females and a culture that enables them to force those expectations onto others.
shaunc wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:09 pm Let me get this right. If some woman makes sexual advances on you at work, it's a major problem that warrants involving the HR section but you think another woman taking her frustrations out on you in a violent way is fine.
Sorry, sunshine but you've lost me.
If she's trying to get me fired because I turned her down, yes, it is.

My girlfriend is another issue. I chose to bring her into my life. I am not a "victim" in that respect. And she's not using proxies to compensate for her lack of physical strength in order to force me to become intimate with her—in fact, I chose to bring her into my life for that purpose. If I get tired of her, I get literally open the door, push her out with the bottom of my foot, and tell her things are over.

The difference is that she respects my right to determine who I am intimate with and is a person that I want to be intimate with—the women I described previously do not and are not. If this seems inscrutable to you, (and these issues can be the sort of thing you couldn't drive a van into some people to get them to grasp,) imagine if you had swapped the genders of your previous statement:

Let me get this right. If some man makes sexual advances on you at work, it's a major problem that warrants involving the HR section but you think another man taking his frustrations out on you in a violent way is fine.

Do women have the exclusive right to choose who they can become intimate with in our society while men do not?
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by DGA »

The Cicada wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:53 am This is a question for the guys: How do you deal with unwanted sexual advances and other harassment from women in the workplace in whom you have no interest? My experience has been that human resources is often unhelpful and that reporting such behavior
The particulars will vary from employer to employer, but in the US generally you have to report it anyway. Document it and report it, including screenshots of any unsavory emails or chats or whatever. Let your supervisor know. Document that you contacted your supervisor, HR, and so on. Wait for the behavior to change. If it persists, then call a lawyer.

It's worthwhile to go back to the sexual harassment training you had when you were hired (if you didn't have this, then your employer has exposed itself to serious liability) and follow those protocols to the letter.

This is assuming that the harassment is impacting your work and your life in a negative way, is unwanted, and so on.

But maybe you kind of like it? Maybe you were asking for it?

Were you wearing that dress again? You know, *that* one?

Maybe you should smile more.
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Yavana
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by Yavana »

DGA wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:46 pmThe particulars will vary from employer to employer, but in the US generally you have to report it anyway. Document it and report it, including screenshots of any unsavory emails or chats or whatever. Let your supervisor know. Document that you contacted your supervisor, HR, and so on. Wait for the behavior to change. If it persists, then call a lawyer.
I did this. Most of it was very subtle, though, like one supervisor edging her chair closer and closer into my cubicle until I was backed against the wall and responding "no you don't" when I told her I was uncomfortable and would appreciate it if she would give me some space.

The problem with coming forward is relational aggression, since most of these women feel they have carte blanche to do what they please in this regard and will work together to out anyone who doesn't fall in line. What did anyone see? Maybe I did something that seemed "aggressive" at some point—or that's the story the meangirl's squad will stick to. This is surprisingly common.
It's worthwhile to go back to the sexual harassment training you had when you were hired (if you didn't have this, then your employer has exposed itself to serious liability) and follow those protocols to the letter.

This is assuming that the harassment is impacting your work and your life in a negative way, is unwanted, and so on.
My previous employers didn't have a special training class for this, so this is something to consider.
But maybe you kind of like it? Maybe you were asking for it?

Were you wearing that dress again? You know, *that* one?
This is literally what I've been told.

I had a job at an agency that did collections for student loan debt and a young woman kept making passes at me that increasingly became downright shameless. Eventually I just explicitly told her that she made me uncomfortable and clearly told her to kindly "back off," she wasn't my type and I was in a relationship.

At some point after this I was brought into the office of the project supervisor over a disagreement I had with my direct supervisor in which she became loud and verbally abusive. As I was explaining my point to the woman in charge, my supervisor had an outburst about "what I 'did' to 'so-&-so,'" as if politely turning her down was a hate crime. Apparently, in the mind of my superior, I was socially obligated to give that young woman a date and whatever else she asked for if I was not a self-proclaimed homosexual.

The "dress" I'm wearing might be a phenotypical characteristic. This is something that peristently happens with young Caucasian women who apparently think I am, in fact, rico suave. I seem to hit a sweet spot in their minds between being intimidating and being intelligent enough to be interesting. They seem to mistake my impersonations of "Kill Bill's" Pai Mei as interest instead of disinterest. They seem to mistake my politeness for interest. They would likely take surprise Kung-Fu lessons personally and probably report me to the company, if not the police.

The idea that "I owe them something" seems to be fairly common. Most official channels are unsympathetic.
Maybe you should smile more.
Sounds degrading.
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Re: Sexual Harassment

Post by KristenM »

I'll call out the elephant in the room here. I highly doubt you are as irresistible to the ladies as you seem to think you are. I've never seen any man endure such harassment as you claim, ever, except rock stars.

No offense, but this idea that you are a victim of nonstop harassment seems laughable to me. maybe once or twice, but your stories are absurd. As I work in a female dominated workplace, I have never seen or heard of such over the top behavior.

Sorry, I'm just not buying it. :jumping:
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