This is my first post to Feministing. By all rights it should probably be at a Hollaback site, but there isn't yet one that covers the region this took place in.
This experience happened a couple of years ago. At the time, I was working in a retail store in the arts district of Columbus, Ohio. Even though we got the occasional drunk or creep in the store, I never felt unsafe working there. Until…
The manager (female, as were most of the employees) had gone to the back of the store, where the office and restrooms were. She was approached by a skeezy looking man who pulled down his pants and exposed himself to her. She reported the incident to the police.
About a month later, the assistant manager (also female) and I were working when the same man came in and wandered to the back of the store (the better to catch us alone?) I called the police, and was in the process of explaining the situation to them when he came back up to the counter and asked where the restroom was. I told him, and he shambled back to the back of the store, where he wandered up and down the aisles waiting for one of us to head back there.
Luckily, an acquaintance of the AM came in, and we asked him to stay with us in the store (it had just been us two employees and the pervert) until the police arrived.
The police finally did show, and they escorted the man out of the store. One of the cops told me that he had “definitely been up to something” and was “likely to escalate,” but then they refused to charge him with anything, since he hadn’t actually had the chance to do anything this time ! I’m sure the Manager would have been happy to identify him as the man who had exposed himself the last time , but they just kicked him out of the store and let him go with a warning.
I saw him once more in the store during the holiday season, but the store was so full of people he just strolled in and out too quickly to do anything about it.
Our job as retail workers was to be nice to people, to help them, and requires that anyone have access to the store/us. If he had wanted to attack us, to “escalate” as the police suggested would happen, we could have done almost nothing to prevent it. At least if they’d been willing to charge him with indecent exposure/sexual assault/whatever I’d have felt like they took our concerns seriously. I'd still have felt nervous working in the store late at night, but...
We began joking about keeping pepper spray or a baseball bat behind the counter, but beneath the joking was genuine fear. It reminded me of how vulnerable retail workers can be, how vulnerable females are perceived as being, and how little the police apparently care.
It feels better to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading.
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Wow, L. That's a bad situation. I'm sorry the police didn't do more to ease your mind. I work in a small store in Lancaster (Ohio) and a lot of nights, there are only two of us women there.
Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to keep at least pepper spray at the counter.
I used to work second shift at a gas station. I worked alone and closed up the store at midnight. There was a guy who used to stalk me. He'd come in and hang around for hours, sometimes saying gross and/or possessive things to me, or he'd hang around until closing and shoo people away when they drove up. When I wasn't working he would bitch at the other employees, and I had to keep my car locked because he'd try to get in it. He even threatened rape on me one night. Other customers sensed his sketchiness and called the cops on him several times. They never did anything except give him a ride home.
I hear you loud and clear, L, and it just indicates to me that attitudes have not really changed in over 20 years, despite the hype. You question whether the actions of the guy are taken seriously, and the preparedness/ability of the police to do anything about it.
I had a guy expose himself to me as I walked along a city beach (Adelaide, South Australia) when I was 17 years old. Being in a somewhat isolated section of the beach, I just ran faster than I have ever run in my life because I was so scared. I just went home and never told anyone about it at the time.
A couple or years later I did tell my Mum as we were watching a TV programme on sexual harassment. She was horrified, and asked me why I hadn't told her, or reported him to the police. I said that I felt too embarrassed to do so, and anyway, the guy would have been long gone so what was the point? A serious discussion ensued. I realize now all the reasons for why I should have reported him, but this was a 19 year old speaking about an experience at 17.
What reinforced my decision as being correct at the time, (until my mother forced me to examine it), were the attitudes held towards a man who worked at a (government) office where I had job before starting University. I was 18. On the first day when I was being shown around by another female employee, I was told about "Mr X" and the fact that he was a "dirty old man". I was told never to be alone in an office with him, or get into the elevator with him. This was all said with a tone of amusement and acceptance. The message was loud and clear. This guy was not held responsible for his behaviour. In fact it was regarded as an "eccentricity", and we females just had to make sure we watched our own behaviour so that we didn't get "caught" by him.
So was my 17 year old judgement so wrong in the context of the times (early 80s)? Would the police have taken my complaint seriously, or would they have questioned why I was walking alone on an isolated section of beach? At 17, I just did not have the confidence to take the chance. The experience of the attitudes held towards "Mr X" confirmed my suspicions.
It took the programme on sexual harassment (which was becoming a recognised issue at long last) and my mother to break through the belief I had built up that I was somehow responsible for being on the receiving end of uninvited and outright sexually deviant behaviour.
Laws have changed now so that sexual harassment in the work place is not tolerated. However, harassment outside of the workplace, (or in your case, in the workplace by a person who is not an employee), still continues and I am not sure that attitudes have progressed that much since I was 19.
Getting out of my car a few weeks back, I was wolf-whistled and had sexually explicit remarks shouted at me by a passing truck-driver. When I related this to a female friend, and said how it made me feel as awful now as it did when I was a teenager, her response was, "Come on... I'd be flattered to be still getting attention from guys at our age."
It put me right back where I was when in my late teens. Somehow the attitude still persisted (among some men and some women too) that the sexual attention of men, even when unwanted and in an offensive form, was supposed to be somehow validating for me as a woman. And at my age, early 40s, I should be damned happy I was still getting it!
L--
There needs to be a Hollaback Ohio. I'm from Cleveland, and I've seen shit like that up here, too. I'm seriously thinking of starting a site like that for Ohioans.
Genevieve - If you start a Hollaback Ohio, let me know. I no longer live there, but I still know plenty of people I'd send the link to.