Harassment in the Workplace
***Trigger warning: recounting of sexual harassment in the workplace***
It goes without saying that no one should ever have to go to work and be concerned about being harassed. The fact that harassment in the workplace is still a reality is disheartening to say the least. Harassment can come in different forms; There's verbal abuse, humiliating behaviour, threats, physical violence, and sexual harrasment. When I started to write this blog I did some research to better understand how many people have been impacted by some form of harassment in the workplace in Canada. Statistics Canada did a study in 2016 on harassment in the workplace which truly put things into perspective. This was an overview of the survey:
“Overall, 19% of women and 13% of men reported that they had experienced harassment in their workplace in the past year.
The most common type of workplace harassment was verbal abuse. 13% of women and 10% of men had reported being verbally abused in that past year. The other two most common types of harassment were humiliating behaviour where 6% of women and 5% of men had reported experiencing that form of harassment in the workplace. And 3% of both men and women had experienced receiving threats.
In this study it was also reported that women were more likely to report sexual harrasment in the workplace than men were.
I have experienced sexual harassment first hand at a workplace. There was a man at my workplace who was a little too friendly. It started with him grabbing mine and my other female co-workers' sides and overall getting a little too close. The moment that really sent it over the edge was when he swatted me on the butt with a folder, in that moment I knew I had to say something and thanked god that my manager had witnesed it happen with his own eyes and that there was a security camera right behind me that had caught everything that had just happened. The rest of my shift that morning was filled with having to fill out incident reports and recount the situation and what feels like over and over with the HR department. What made it worse is I had to go back to that work place that afternoon and train a new employee and act like nothing had happened that morning. I remember on my drive home between shifts crying and wondering if it was my fault? If I hadn’t been bubbly and friendly (so myself) would he maybe not have done that? Am I just at that age that this type of stuff is going to become more normal in a workplace? And I came to two realizations:
Being my friendly and bubbly self is never an invitation for someone to come into your personal space and touch your body without your consent.
At no age or workplace should forms of sexual or any type of harrasment be normalized.
I was extremely lucky in the sense that the situation could have been way worse, like thank god it was a folder and not his hand and that there was some sort of “justice” that was served in that situation.
I’ve become more aware that sexual violence isn’t always physical acts it can be expressed verbally as well. These are some statements that were said to me that made me feel uncomfortable and made me feel as though I had been harassed:
“Do you have a fanpage, you’re so pretty”
“I want to take you to dinner, I get paid on Thursday”
“Be sexy when you talk about it”
“I’m going on vacation, can I pack you in my suitcase?”
“I’ll drive you to the gym if your car isn’t working”
Having been someone who has experienced this first hand if I could give a piece of advice it would be to tell someone you trust. It takes bravery to come forward and talk about these things, but know that the people who truly care will have your back and support you.
Written by: Anonymous