Here we go—there’s another prominent male figure accused of sexual assault and harassment, and a growing list of women is coming forward to report, in some cases many years later, that they were sexually assaulted or harassed by this man.
Well-intentioned (I hope?) people on the internet (ha), have responded, inevitably, with: “Well I’m no fan of rape or whatever, but why didn’t they report it sooner? Suspicious.”
I have never been raped. I have never been sexually assaulted, nor harassed by a man with power over me. But I HAVE been sexually harassed more times than I can count, in person, on the internet, through email and social media, and over the phone. I’m a local public figure, and as most of us women in the business say, “it’s just part of the job.”
It’s just part of the job to have my level of skill equated to how well I fill out a body con dress; to have my male counterparts receive no criticism nor commentary about their looks, while if I gain weight/lose weight/change my hair/wear a new style/wear a color viewers don’t like/don’t match my lipstick to my dress well enough/don’t smile enough, I hear about it from viewers. I have been told by men to “cover up” and have been told by men that the station should just dress me in Victoria’s Secret, because they’d rather see me in that.
It’s frustrating, but it’s part of the job.
It’s just part of the job that regularly, men seek me out on social media, wanting to know, “Am I single?” or “When will I meet up with them?”
And when I say no, I’m not interested, it’s just part of the job that they either ignore what I say and keep trying, or cuss me out and tell me I’m not that hot anyway.
It’s just part of the job when they then track down my home address and send me roses, along with messages outlining our “relationship.” When they send me love letters from prison. When they ask me if they can buy my used underwear, or when they find my boyfriend on social media to “congratulate” him on “winning” the object that is me.
It’s just part of the job when these men send me pictures of their penises, sometimes up to a dozen pictures a day, from so many different email addresses that I can’t block them fast enough.
It’s so much a part of the job that I don’t even think to report it. I’m busy. All day. Working a high-pressure, high-liability job that I love, that occupies most of my working minutes. With the rest of my time, I like to maintain some semblance of a life. These men, these intruders on my busy day, these unwelcome advances that I’d just prefer to ignore—I don’t have time for these men.
But sometimes they cross the line enough that I get nervous. My natural instinct for self-preservation starts ringing alarm bells, and I tell someone. I tell my boss. I tell my boyfriend. I tell my buddy at the police station. They tell me to report it. I listen.
Here’s what it takes to report even a minor incident of sexual harassment or stalking: The victim must print and fill out several pages of forms, detailing exact times and dates of all contact. Find, and in so doing, look at, the dozens of unwanted and disgusting pictures of strangers’ penises. Print them out. Screen shot and print out facebook messages. Make copies of all texts, emails, and letters. Take the report to the police station. Sit and wait. Go into a room with a victim services advocate to go over everything you’ve printed and documented once again. Expect this to take quite a bit of your time, every time.
Then—you have a choice. Do you want to send a detective to their homes and scare them out of further harassment? Do you want to file for a temporary restraining order (usually lasts a month or two)? Do you want to face them, literally face these disgusting, unwelcome strangers, in court, to extend this restraining order? Do you want to have to prove to other strangers (usually men) that this behavior made you feel threatened? Do you want to spend hours on hours that you don’t have focused on this unwanted, unasked-for situation, just to feel safe?
You worry that any of these actions might cause these men to retaliate. We are not dealing with rational people. Normal people don’t behave this way. Any kind of contact might just make it worse. Is it better to do nothing and hope it stops?
Worse yet—who else knows? Are your bosses understanding and sympathetic? Or do they brush it off, make you feel like you’re making a big deal out of nothing? Could it hurt your reputation at work? Are you “playing the woman card,” “acting weak,” “overreacting,” or “being emotional”? Are you “just trying to get attention?”
I’m lucky in that I’m surrounded by a supportive team, an understanding boss, a loving family, and many great law enforcement officers who have gone above and beyond to help me. I’m lucky in that I can carve out time to deal with this, that I have a car to drive myself to the police station, and connections within law enforcement because of my job. Because of my job I might also be taken more seriously, since these men are “random weirdos,” taking penis pics in their mothers’ dusty basements, not wealthy, powerful men with connections and prestige that outpace mine.
These men have no power over me, no say in what jobs I’ll get or what opportunities I’ll have. They’re anecdotes; stories I can tell when female journalism students want to know what they should be prepared for in the real world. I can dismiss them. I don’t have to see them every day. They don’t sign my paycheck. And yet, dealing with them has cost me hours of time, days of worry, and far too much brain space.
When I think about what it would be like if the nameless stranger harassing me online were instead my boss, sitting in a glass office down the hall, calling the shots on whether I succeed in my career, it chills me. Who WOULD report it?
thewirelessmic.com 