Please Harass Me (If This is What Harassment Looks Like)
Wrong, “Women in Power.’ I’d love it.
Losing friends is never fun but losing a friend for reasons unexplained is both sad and maddening.
She and I were close. We worked together. We went out and drank together. We saw movies and shows together. We worked in the same office—our cubicles were fifteen feet apart. To my girlfriends and third wife, she was my 'girl friend' and, at times, we were practically inseparable. Then she came back from a work trip and one of our co-workers had been sexually explicit at a dinner.
She had recently had her fiancé break things off and was in that slightly reckless phase of 'putting herself out there.' He had kids her age and, although he wasn't her boss or even in a position of authority over her, he had been with the company a long time and was considered part of the infrastructure of the company.
According to her, he didn't touch her or get aggressive but rather, at a restaurant bar over drinks, he made an inappropriate comment about her body and suggested the two of them hook up. It really did a number on her. She made an official complaint, he was reprimanded, she was told offline that she dressed and acted too ‘available,’ I called bullshit on that to the CEO, and life went on for most but not for her.
Then #MeToo ascended and our differences on what and what was not harassment began to be a frequent topic of conversation. She felt he should be fired for his actions, I felt that while he was out of line and inappropriate, it hardly merited termination. We argued about allegations leveled at Morgan Freeman. We disagreed that what Louis CK did—asking if he could jerk off in front of women and when met with no refusal, jerked off—constituted harassment or sexual assault.
We agreed to stop talking about it because it was becoming a genuine wedge. She left the company and moved to New York. I left the company soon after and went freelance. She hired me for a number of events around the country. Then she ghosted me.
By then I was living in Vegas and had plenty to take up my time. Once in a while, I’d shoot her a text or an email to see how she was or what she might be doing. She never responded. It made me sad because I missed her but also a bit feisty because I didn’t know why she’d cut me off.
Losing friends is never fun but losing a friend for reasons unexplained is both sad and maddening. There might be any number of reasons she decided to cut me out of her life and the above circumstance is but one of them. It does seem the likely one, though.
It isn’t difficult to see how and why, in a society where men dominate even though we are less educated, die younger, and have far higher rates of suicide and homelessness, people would start to expand the definitions of inappropriate behavior once the powers that be were listening. An off color joke hurts no one but the impetus to paint the idiot in the office who dares utter one as unemployable, while extreme, is still within the outlines of the bloated concept. A suggestion that "Hey, we should go dance in the sheets," is only uncomfortable if you find the guy suggesting it unattractive. If Harry Styles made the same suggestion, he's likely getting laid rather than reported to HR.
In a recent interview with (gasp) Ronan Farrow, Pamela Anderson on her book tour, said “My mother would tell me — and I think this is the kind of feminism I grew up with — it takes two to tango,” Anderson said, attempting to explain the rationale behind her controversial #MeToo comment. “Believe me, I’ve been in many situations where it’s like, ‘Come in here little girl, sit on the bed.’ But my mom would say, ‘If someone answers the door in a hotel robe and you’re going for an interview, don’t go in. But if you do go in, get the job.'”
This is only victim blaming if you consider being hit upon as an egregious violation of common behavior. If you can say that suggesting a woman smile or complimenting her dress is an act of aggression, sure, then the woman on the receiving end is a victim. How, then, do we categorize the woman who works as a secretary whose boss chases her around the desk and frequently presses his crotch up against her while dictating a letter?
My mother has horror stories of being very aggressively harassed but none of them involve being complimented or called 'darling' by a man. Her stories, shy of actual rape, are full of management being incredibly handsy and holding her job over her head while she was single with two kids and desperately needed the work. She lived through a time when there were few consequences for that behavior and is happy that the needle has shifted but would hardly call being complimented—even a gross and overly sexualized comment—harassed.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to stop asking people how old they thought I was. It was silly and vain and not a little embarrassing that I kept it up in my late fifties. On my birthday, one of my new co-workers asked me how old I was.
"Fifty-seven today," I replied.
"Fifty-seven? You look much younger. What is your skin regimen?" she asked.
I laughed. "Skin regimen? Caffeine and nicotine with a semi-regular injection of whiskey."
We laughed and then it occurred to me that if the roles had been reversed, it might have been characterized differently.
"How old are you?" I'd ask.
"Fifty-seven," she'd reply but cautiously.
"Wow! You look much younger than that. How do you keep your face looking so young?"
Flagged for inappropriate harassment to HR.
When I was working at the casino a few years ago, we had a no charging your smartphones policy. I walked around the corner one afternoon and a young woman was sitting on the floor, charging her phone. I stopped short of walking over her, took a step back, and said "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't allow you to charge your phone on the casino floor."
"BACK UP!" she barked. "Your penis is invading my personal space!"
Again, reverse the roles. If I had barked to a female manager "BACK UP! Your vagina is invading my personal space!" then I'm a toxic male insulting a woman.
“That’s a horrible thing to say but that’s how I was,” Anderson continued. “I skated on the edges of destruction, I just had this sense of value and self-worth. But I think a lot of people don’t have that or they weren’t taught that. Thank god for the #MeToo movement because things have changed and people are much more careful and respectful.”
I'm less certain the new-ish protocol is more respectful but it is definitely more careful and maybe that's enough. I've never really understood the catcalling type of guy but I'm not Italian. What I see is not respect but fear—fear of losing a job, fear of being branded a monster for standing too close or noticing a sexy top, fear of women in general. Unfortunately, fear often takes a sidestep to anger and some of #MeToo backlash is angry.
These days I recognize I'm more Johnny Lawrence than Daniel LaRusso, a bit of a throwback to a simpler time, a time when one couldn't cycle through dozens of pictures to find someone to express interest in, swiping the uglies and fatties (or shorties and wimpies if you're a chick) away like crumbs on the kitchen table. I'm pretty much done with a search for The One—I found her and she decided that prostitution was a better fit for her than marriage—and I've never dated anyone from work before because I'm not an idiot.
With that being said, if harassment looks like calling me a 'lovely gentleman,' suggesting I smile more, or commenting slyly on my sweet ass, I'm all for it.
