This is my first post, and I’m sorry that it is a little long. I should start out by saying that I am relatively new to feminism (a couple of months of being interested in any meaningful way) and I do not feel empowered AT ALL, but reading about it is helping.
I felt like for you understand how I am feel everyday at work, I should give an overview of what has been my experience here for the last four years. I also needed to get this off my chest, which I feel able to do now that I am leaving. I work on the public services staff of the law library at a major university. One might think a law school would be more concerned with how they deal with some of these issues, given their first-hand knowledge of the litigious nature of American society, but alas, at least at this institution, the needs of (argumentative, paying-buttloads-of-money-to-receive-their-education) law students will always trump those of the non-professional staff members trying to serve them.
When the library upgraded their staff computers, a smelly ogre of a man spent the entirety of every day for a week hanging around my department. The history of this particular employee is that he works in IT (which in this case is a definite “boys club” with one much-beleaguered female---a PhD candidate in computer science who knows much more than the men who run the department), has a history of sexually harassing specifically Asian female work study students. The implications for a lawsuit here are very clear, but his supervisor’s way of dealing with this behavior was not to issue a verbal or written warning, not to fire this man (as would have been his legal right), but to set up a web-cam to monitor the behavior and “make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”
He was also involved in an incident of sexually harassing a work study student where said student told her supervisor, and the supervisor did nothing about it. The student told the library’s secretary about it, and because I was friends with the secretary, she told me. I was completely outraged, and wanted something to be done, but since I had learned of the situation through basically a string of office gossip, I didn’t know how to go about bringing it to the attention of the administration. I told my boyfriend outside of work, and even though we were colleagues at the time, I told him as my boyfriend. He wound up telling the dean of the school about the situation because he was outraged as well and wanted something done YESTERDAY. This was a big issue at the time and really bothered me because a) (the more noble reason) I felt like he didn’t give me a chance to handle it on my own and b) (the shameful reason) I felt like once the dean took action everyone in the library’s administration would know I had been a mole of some kind of never trust me again. At the same time, I’m sure no one would have listened to me even assuming I had been able to work up enough courage and figured out who I should speak to. But even though the dean (female) wanted something done, she delegated the disciplinary aspects to the associate dean who oversaw both the library and IT departments (male), and nothing of major consequence happened (a verbal warning), and the young woman never felt better about working in that department.
Now this same man is dating the new Associate Director of the library, and even though his job title within the IT department is A/V, he is always the person assigned or volunteering to deal with all of our computer issues. All of my colleagues welcome his presence seemingly without reservation, which I find puzzling. While he was deploying the new machines (which should not have taken an entire week as there are only 8 workstations in the department) he spent the entire week on our floor. As he was sitting in my chair switching my email account over to an Exchange server, he turned to look at me, and stared silently at me for a few minutes until I finally said “I can leave,” in a frustrated tone. His response was, “No I am just trying to rattle you. I’m teasing. You shouldn’t let people get to you. Plus you need to enter in your password in a minute.” Later on he said, “You should be less flappable. That’s why I like [name of one of my co-workers]--you can’t rattle her. I know; I have been trying.” How anyone would think that is a normal, acceptable thing to say at work is beyond me, but it isn’t outright harassment, so I didn’t say anything. I just awkwardly entered my password and continued to avoid him as much as possible.
There is a man who works in the library (but not in my department) who walks with a slight limp and has a blank happy look on his face all the time. He seems sort of affable and friendly, but he definitely leers at women, looks for excuses to touch their shoulders, or talk for too long, and a couple of weeks ago he definitely looked at my ass. I passed him in the stairwell, me going up and he going down (one of my worst fears, the only thing worse for me is being stuck with one of these ridiculous men in the elevator), and I looked back to make sure he WASN’T looking at my ass and of course he was. I think he uses the fact that people actually are not sure whether or not he is mentally disabled as a cover for being a total sleezeball. (Please tell me if I am being discriminatory here, but just as PWD can have sex lives and sexual desires, surely they can knowingly sexually harass others, right?)
There is another man who works in the library who I do not believe consciously sexually harasses women, but he is still overly interested in talking to women as opposed to men, and gets nervous during conversations with women to the point where he will be visibly shaking. I sympathize with his social awkwardness, but at the same time it makes ME uncomfortable, so I try to avoid extended conversation. When I am at my desk, I can pretend to be typing furiously and avoid eye contact with all of these people. When I am out and around the building, there is less I can do to look busy unless I am in the stacks actively looking for a book, which feels dangerous because it is secluded and easy for people to sneak up on me (as happened with the person I will talk about below).
All of these men have worked at the law school far longer than I have, and will continue to work here long after I leave. These three examples don’t count the men in other departments about whom I have heard women complain. Never in the past four years have I seen these types of situations be properly handled. None of this is even counting the repeated and continued sexual harassment I endured from a law student, about which nothing was done when the administration was made aware. In fact, my case was handled SO poorly, that the dean of student affairs (female) told the offending law student (male) that he should check with people (read: women) BEFORE he flirts with (read: harasses) them, because “some people are just not comfortable with those types of interactions.” She basically gave him the impression that he did nothing wrong and I was just an uptight freak. Given the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing when he made comments to his cronies while I was standing nearby about my “hot ass” and came up to my desk with a friend telling her how much he enjoyed his ability to make me nervous (btw, her response was to giggle and look at me with disdain), I felt completely failed by the administration and the policies of the law school. They didn’t want to hurt his precious career by making a big deal out of it, and the dean was clearly charmed by him in some way. Even my supervisor was dissatisfied with the response we received. This was two years ago.
Now, even though these are things I won't really have to deal with for much longer because I am finally leaving this job at the end the week, they are things that will stay with me and have been instilled in me the hard way through those negative experiences over the past four years. When I have to cover the circulation desk, I experience what can most accurately be called baby panic attacks. I have low-level panic symptoms that can last as long as my shift on the desk is. Most of it is a physiological response to an amorphous unknown danger that logically does not really exist. I know part of the feeling of danger is that I am on display for patrons entering and leaving the library as well as other staff members who are passing by, which is sort of my worst nightmare at this point.
My heart races, which of course makes me even more nervous, my breath becomes shallow, and my joints stiffen painfully. My new therapist gave me some breathing exercises designed to help with these reactions in general (I have not yet broached the topic of my work situation with her). The one which I have been using the most (because it is the most inconspicuous) is counting breaths. I breathe in for a count of 2, hold for a count of 2, and release for a count of 4. Working up from there I do 3-3-6 and 4-4-8. I do it for however long it takes for my heart rate to come down or until I have to interact with someone. It helps a lot, but I guess a part of me is still bitter that I have to do something like this at all.
This type of wariness adversely affects my ability to do my job. When a patron enters the library, I need to make eye contact and present some type of welcoming smile (not necessarily a verbal greeting if they are just walking by, but something to indicate I am acknowledging their existence!). I tend to glance, acknowledge them with one of those not-quite-a-smile-grimaces, and glance away back to my computer screen very quickly. Too quickly in fact, so that I do not appear to be overly friendly, so that they will not feel allowed to talk to me about anything other than helping them with a library matter. I do this more with males than with females, for the obvious reasons of feeling more able to trust women to keep their psychological distance. In a way, this does a disservice to the men who might benefit from a welcoming smile on a stressful or confusing day, but too bad because unfortunately I don't want to appear to be friendly OR welcoming because it does not feel safe for me to do so. And this makes me sad: that because of my past experiences and even because of the way society is structured, I have to limit how friendly and helpful I present myself lest that openness and willingness to help (which after all, is my job) be misconstrued. It also means that even though it isn't fair, women (and less aggressive-seeming men) get better and friendlier service from the library when I am the one representing it.
Since this is part of a larger issue affects me even outside my work environment, here is a question for the women here: Do you feel like you basically have to contribute to the general self-centeredness and unfriendliness of the world in order to preserve your own physical and mental safety? And if so, does that bother you?
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Do you feel like you basically have to contribute to the general self-centeredness and unfriendliness of the world in order to preserve your own physical and mental safety?
Most emphatically yes, I do feel like that. I am freaked out whenever I walk down a street or my campus. It bothers me rather a lot. I do not really want to make eye contact with random people or smile just because we've made eye contact because of the whole "women obligated to smile for general public" dealy that has been covered in significant depth on many blogs (that is my way of being too lazy to look up those posts). On the other hand, I am afraid that not making eye contact or not smiling is going to get me in trouble, e.g. "Smile for us, baby," don't smile, upgrade to, "Bitch, why don't you smile," etc.
I hate that something as simple as whether I want to smile at a stranger can have such a profound impact on my personal safety.
I also hate that were this discussion to occur anywhere but the feminist blogosphere, we'd all be accused of overreacting/imagining things.
IBTP.
If I were you, I would write them a letter, as calm and cool as you can, detailing the ordeals you went through and how it negatively effected your work.
Either way, it really sucks that you had to go through all this without anyone stopping it!
Jamie, you're right, the always-hovering accusation of "just overreacting" is SO frustrating. And wax_ghost thank you for that suggestion, but I have a couple of problems with that. The main thing is that instead of them actually learning or using anything from the letter, I feel like I would be making myself vulnerable to judgment and office gossip after the fact and I am afraid it would not help future employees because it would not be taking seriously. I am wary of burning bridges at what is basically my first job after college in the interest of positive future recommendations, but I do wish I could help in some way.
Interesting post...
1. Most library jobs involve some level of customer service. If I were you I'd look into how sexual harassment presents itself to customer service representatives and what other people do about it. Personally I would research it but you could talk to other CSRs, supervisors at other libraries, your peers, etc.
2. Law students really are classist and think they own the world. That's not news, but it's farked. If it makes you feel any better at least you can know that all the creepy asshole lawyers will in 20 years have bad jobs, no friends, and heart disease from being crotchety and mean.
3. I spend a good amount of time at the public library and I think they are a magnet for creepy people. Perhaps all the creepy people on your campus or in certain industries gravitate to that environment for some reason. Because librarians are supposed to be quiet and have an "anything goes" attitude (that attitude is just supposed to be about the books people borrow though... right?)?
4. If you can't talk to your therapist about the real cause of your anxiety and panic attacks, ovary-up and do it or get a new therapist. If you can't be open, you won't make any progress. Many anxiety issues can be dealt with sans medication. Being proactive about your needs both now and in any future job is important for your career, your mental health, and your overall well being. Talking about it here is step one. Keep climbing :)
5. IT guys generally have a reputation for being socially clueless. Words like autism as Asperger's get thrown around a lot. After years of observation, I think there's another factor. Some of those guys are just creepy, have no real life experience of women (even good relationships with sisters, friends, or peers), and shouldn't be given any metaphorical rope. Even if their creepiness has a cause, it shouldn't mean they can go around terrorizing their fellow employees with inappropriate behavior.
6. Even if you wait till you have a new job, if I were you I'd at least write a very stern letter (even anonymously) to the administration about the negative environment of the workplace. People like to think that sexual harassment is one creepy boss slapping a secretary's ass. But a miasma of classist, racist, and sexist sentiment from everyone in the department and all the library patrons can be just as damaging. Sounds to me like the deans, supervisors and rank and file all need a stern lesson in appropriate workplace/campus behavior. Someone needs to tell them such behavior does not have to lead to a lawsuit to be "real" or damaging. Everyone one campus from the janitor to the dean to a professor's five year old daughter ought to feel safe. Anything less may not be criminal but is grounds for a very low reputation and an exodus of mentally-normal employees. Speak up and good luck :)