I heard about a high level executive for a baseball team who was fired due to text messages he sent to a woman years ago.
Yes “those” kinds of text messages. Complete with photographs.
For every guy condeming it, there was another guy trying to justify it or saying it wasn’t that bad, or asking a thousand and one questions about why the woman didn’t handle the situation better.
There’s still a real problem guys don’t seem to understand. There’s still a real problem where this isn’t treated with the disdain it needs to have.
Men have the power to make this right and to put a stop to it. But collectively, we’re not making it right.
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Asked for Help
I once had a co-worker who was the victim of sexual harrassment. Allegedly. I use that last word because I don’t know the exact facts or truth to it. I wasn’t there. But I believe her. And that’s that.
A relationship in the company didn’t pan out and a rumor started spreading about her. I had heard it but had no idea of it’s validity. I didn’t give it much thought as rumors were rumors.
Until one day she came into my office and asked for help dealing with it. She was having a tough time.
I listened as best I could. I told her I didn’t know the best way to handle it all.
I told her I was sorry it happened. I remembering wishing I’d had more experience managing those things. I wish I could have solved the problem for her.
I told her it wasn’t fair, and that I didn’t know how it was going to play out.
Situations like that are rarely fair to the woman.
Someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong has to decide whether to let it go and live with it and let the offending party off the hook, or stand up and speak out and now has to have everything out in public in some type of “investigation.”
She’d gone to the higher ups and did not get the resolution she was hoping for. She was considering going for help outside the company. I told her I would do anything I could to help her. Whatever she decided, I’d support her.
I wonder if that was enough though. I wonder if I really helped her as much as I was capable of.
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When I Didn’t Act
I remember the organization holding a “presentation” soon afterward to go over sexual harrassment in the workplace and company polices. Everyone in the company was in the room. This was their way of showing they cared and were treating it seriously.
It was one of the biggest pieces of nonsense I’d ever experienced.
For some reason the company handed out pipe cleaners to each table. Like the things you get when you’re in first grade and you make arts and crafts projects. I had no idea what they were for. We were supposed to play games while we learned about what to say or not say at work.
The guy leadng the presentation, our pseudo “HR” led a make-shift sexual harrassment jeopardy segment where we had to guess the proper policy of the company. We had to shout out what things were appropriate or inappropriate to do, or say, or touch.
It was about as insulting as it sounds.
I remember thinking how absurd it was. I remember feeling insulted as a man, much less wondering how it must have felt to be a woman in the room.
I remember how close I was to standing up and making a speech about the failure of the organization and how much of a joke this was of such a serious topic.
I rememember deciding that at the very least, I was going to get up and walk out of the room.
I didn’t do it. Maybe I didn’t want to put the woman even more on the spot (I think she was required to sit through the presentation too, I don’t remember.)
Or maybe it was my own failure because I was already on thin ice with my job by speaking out on some previous issues.
I sat there and grit my teeth through it. I wonder now if that was enough. Looking back I should have been more outspoken. Maybe I should have said something or at least walked out. Maybe that was my moment to take some type of action and I failed.
I wonder if I let the woman down. I wonder if she was waiting for me, or another man, or any man, to stand up and speak his piece.
I wonder if there were other women in the room who were waiting to see if there were any men willing to do so.
No man stood up. No man made it right.
I remember, the very second that I got back to my desk, wishing I’d done it. I questioned if I’d let myself down, or the woman down, or every woman there down.
I told myself it was over and I couldn’t go back in time. I told myself all I could do now was treat it as a learning experience. I told myself I wouldn’t refuse to speak up again.
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When I did
Year later I started a company with a partner who in restrospect I definitely should not have. It was my failure. My poor judgement. My fault. Mine alone.
He’d made jokes about women before in passing that I thought I could overlook. He’d told me about customers or employees that he’d slept with. I thought I could overlook it. I thought if I wasn’t in the company then there’d be no one to hold him accountable.
I wonder if I messed up through it all. I wonder if I should have put a stop to it sooner. I wonder if I had failed in my pledge to be different. To be better.
One day he made inappropriate comments to employees in an online company chat group. Jokes about genitals and masturbating. It wasn’t the first time he’d made offhanded comments like this, but the first time it was so public and in writing.
I put a stop to it. I said we could do without that. That as a company we didn’t need to say these things, especially in official company communication channels.
I said that from my experience often women in a company don’t feel comfortable speaking out in situations like this. They don’t want to be thought of as being “difficult” or “uncool.” Especially in male dominated professions or companies, they want to move up and not cause “problems.”
I said that because of my experience, I was speaking out. That any company I was a part of, wasn’t going to allow this behavior. Whether or not other people had a problem with it, didn’t matter.
Whether or not women in the company had a problem with it, didn’t matter.
I had a problem with it.
Soon I was the problem.
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Making it Right
Other employees posted jokes and memes about what a scene I was causing. Other employees joked with each other about me and my prudeness.
Soon I got messages from my business partner. “You knew beforehand, who you were getting into business with!” he angrily texted me.
I was the killjoy. I was the one without a sense of humor. I was the one being overly sensitive.
It wasn’t a problem for men in the company to post sexual references within company intellectual property.
It was a problem for one man to stand up and make things right.
“It’s okay,” I told myself. I didn’t care much what others in the company thought of me. But there were a number of women who worked for the company. I thought maybe one or two of them would speak to me privately. Maybe one at least would thank me for my actions.
None of them did.
Maybe they weren’t offended. Maybe they were but didn’t want to get involved. It didn’t matter. I knew what was right and what was not.
But I remember being a bit disheartened about that. That not a single employee, male or female, thanked me for speaking up. No one offered support for squashing the inappropriate words.
I remember thinking it didn’t matter though. It wasn’t about me being thanked or being given support. It was about doing what was right.
It was about making things right for all those years ago when I didn’t speak out.
I hope the woman who came to me for help and advice understands that just as she wasn’t sure the best way to handle things, I wasn’t sure either.
This time I spoke out. I hope it was enough.
I hope I made it right.
