The tables have turned and thank God for that

I've been writing about harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace for many years now. I've experienced both personally as have any number of other women I know. This is not just an American phenomenon, I can attest to that. Norwegian academia has its share of bullies and sexual predators who have run roughshod over the younger women and men who work for them. Some of us just got sick and tired of sweeping the bad behavior under the rug, as so often happens here. In the name of what--preserving the Scandinavian belief that those types of behaviors don't happen here--in purportedly gender-equal countries? They do, and I am here to attest to that fact.

Academia has traditionally been a conservative, male-dominated white collar profession. And there are many good men in academia who have behaved respectfully toward the women and men they lead. I know a lot of them and I am glad to know them. They better the lives of the people who work for them, because those people get the chance to grow professionally without having to succumb to the brutality and/or lust of their employers. But now is the time in society to shed light on the darker sides of life, and harassment and sexual harassment are the darker sides. If you have experienced them, you know this to be true. It taints so much of what should have been a good experience--having a career and growing professionally. The bullies and pigs can make you sick, physically and psychologically. It's easy (and wrong) to tell victims not to take it personally. How else can they take it? The bullying and/or disgusting behavior are aimed at them personally. I am so glad that the tables are turning now in society and that the sexual predators and bullies are being called out, named and shamed. It's their turn to suffer. They deserve it.

Society has dealt too much in victim-shaming. The days when I would let that happen are long-gone for me. They were gone a long time ago, the first time one of the pigs opened his mouth to say something disgusting or off-color to me. Or the first time a domineering and bullying man at work opened his mouth to tell me to shut mine. I told him to shut his. I also told him that he was the rudest man I knew, and he is. He's an old man now, and you could wonder why he's never learned how to behave properly. But he hasn't and he never will. Dealing with him is like dealing with a tantrum-prone child--boring, dissatisfying, and ultimately pointless. You deal with them simply by putting them in their place. And if you are labeled a bitch for doing so, well, then you are a bitch in some people's eyes, but they are not the eyes I care about.

I am re-posting today a piece I wrote back in October 2016 about sexual harassment in the workplace. The only thing that's changed is that more of this disgusting behavior is coming to light. And that makes me happy.

https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/search?q=sexual+harassment

Weighing in on sexual harassment in the workplace

I came to Norway in October 1989, and began working as a senior research technician in January 1990. I remember many things about that time, but one thing that stands out is the behavior of the research institute leader at that time (now deceased). While he was friendly to me, he was also someone I felt uncomfortable around. I found his jokes to be rather stupid, e.g. wondering if I or my family were in the Mafia because I had ancestors who were born in Italy. The first week I was at work and he met me in the hallway, he said hello and went on his way. An hour or so later, he returned with an oversized lab coat for me to wear, so that my mini-skirt would be ‘covered’, as he put it. I guess he found me too tempting for the men who worked there--a young woman working among them who wore her skirts above the knee together with high-heeled boots. I found his behavior odd, but thought no more about it. As the months went on, I was told that he and his wife were religious people and had served as missionaries in Africa for a period. I am not sure why that mattered, as I found him to be a man whose spiritual qualities were quite rusty, whereas his physical (read—sexual) needs seemed to matter more. He was already in his sixties when I started to work there. I’ve written about him before, but the stories concerning him bear repeating, because he was a man who behaved in a sexually-harassing way. No one would have called it that then, but they would now. If I commented on his behavior to the others I worked together with, they would tell me that’s just the way he was, to ignore him, he was harmless, etc. But still I never felt comfortable around him, and I am not so sure he was as harmless as they wanted me to think. I was together with him in an elevator one day, just us two, and he cornered me and began to ask me if I knew the difference between the Norwegian words fytte and fitte. The former is usually used as part of an expression to denote irritation, e.g. fytte fan (similar to ‘goddamn it’), whereas the latter is the slang word for pussy. Of course I didn’t since I was just starting to learn Norwegian, so he of course had to explain the difference to me, and I know he enjoyed doing so. He enjoyed having that power over me, enjoyed that I felt uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to get off the elevator. Perhaps he enjoyed testing to me to see how I would react. After all, I came from New York City, sin city in his eyes for all I knew. I’m sure that’s how he felt about it. His wife was a pleasant older woman who was probably sick to death of his flirting with younger women. Because for all his religious leanings, he really was a dirty old man. I have seen him dance with younger women and grab their breasts, and I know that he grabbed the rear end of a female Brazilian scientist who promptly told him where to go. That story was relayed to me along with several others that cemented his reputation as a dirty old man, at least to me. He was also not interested in giving credit to those who actually did the work on research projects; he planned who were to be the authors on a research article before the work for it had even started. His view was that the only people who could be included as co-authors on an eventual article were those with PhDs and MDs. At that time, I had a Master's degree and was considering starting PhD work. One of my colleagues, a male MD, protested that this was unfair, as I did, to people like me who would actually do the work. I am forever grateful that he did that, but it didn't change this leader's mind. I can tell you that my interest in helping this leader was null. The project never got started because there was no one to do the work. He was a sexist pig who hid his proclivities under the cloak of religion.

Through the years there have been other men who have behaved similarly, commenting on ‘the view’ if you happen to bend over, or telling jokes about ‘a bush’. Or drunk male scientists at research conferences who danced with the younger women there, and who were all over them which resulted in their having to be forcibly removed from the dance floor by some good men because they would not let go of the women. I’ve witnessed all of these things.

Why do I bring up these behaviors today? Because these types of behavior do not belong in the workplace. After this past week’s revelations of how Harvey Weinstein treated many of the actresses who were working in the films his company was producing, I see the importance of calling a spade a spade. Weinstein’s behavior borders on/is criminal, especially if he did indeed rape some of the women who have called him out on his behavior. Sexual harassment in the workplace really is a terrible thing. There is already enough harassment and bullying in the workplace (including academic workplaces where the balance of power lies firmly with male mentors and leaders) against women by powerful men, and if you add in the sexual component, it becomes a nightmare for many women to have to go to work each day. When you are young, you don’t always know what to say when someone treats you like this. You may blame yourself first. The smart thing of course is not to do that, but I don’t know too many women who have managed to blame the men first, to fight back or to challenge their harassers. It's very easy for those who have never experienced harassment to say that they wouldn't stand for it, that they would fight back, etc. The harassers have the power and control, and most women do not. If women complain or stand up for themselves, they are labeled as difficult and out-of-control. Consequently, they are not considered for leadership positions and are otherwise frozen out of the old-boys club. And that’s the problem. When I was younger, the old-boys club thought they could get away with treating women as sex objects and making them feel inferior, and not much has changed now that I’m older. Power-hungry men still run the show, and some of the perquisites include being able to have women at their beck and call. And there will always be women who undermine other women in order to curry favor with the old-boys club. These are the women who will tell you to ignore their behavior, or he didn’t mean it, or it’s worse at other workplaces, or he’s really a nice guy, or he's never done that to them. There are some men who say the same things. These are the women and men who wake up years down the road (perhaps when their own daughters become victims of sexual harassment), when it’s too late to do anything about it except to regret that they feigned ignorance or deliberately ignored abuse when they could have spoken up and supported those who needed their help. They have to live with their guilty consciences. Frankly, I don’t care about them or what happens to them. 

Sexism and misogyny are alive and well

Don’t ever for one minute get sucked into a state of false belief that sexism, misogyny, and sexual harassment are things of the past, and that women have won all the battles that they need to win. In fact, the battle is just beginning. After getting a glimpse of Trump’s America, I think we’ve been set back by about fifty years. So we need to begin again. We need to raise boys and girls to have respect for each other. We need to remind young adults that NO means NO when it comes to sexual activity, and that no one should ever feel pressured to have sex just to please another person. Male chauvinist pigs like Trump need to go back to the school of hard knocks to get re-educated. It’s not ok to sexually objectify your daughter, your wife, other women, etc. In fact, it’s not just creepy, it’s ethically wrong and illegal if you step over any line in that regard, even if you are married in most civilized societies. Since he seems to have a hard time keeping his pants zipped, it’s no wonder he can’t keep his mouth zipped. I guess there are women stupid enough to fall for his tricks. That’s what always surprises me, the women who come out in support of this dinosaur. Men like him are nearing extinction in my book. They’ve had way too much power and they’ve misused it when it comes to women. I don’t know if women will be any better in the same positions of power, but it sure as hell might be nice to find out. And we will if Hillary gets elected.

You might also think that dinosaurs like these are only an American problem. WRONG again. Norwegian academia has and has had its share of these dinosaurs throughout the past twenty years. Men who comment inappropriately on your looks, men who step over the line physically and verbally at Christmas parties when they’ve had too much to drink, an institute leader (deceased) who saw nothing wrong with patting the rear end of a visiting woman scientist from Brazil. The same institute leader who used to like to corner non-Norwegian women in the elevator to ask them if they knew the difference between ‘fytte’ (used in connection with curse words) and ‘fitte’ (pussy) because if you are not Norwegian, those words often sound alike and you can make a fool of yourself if you pronounce them the wrong way. Another male scientist who regaled his female colleagues with jokes about ‘bushes’, again in the elevator where you couldn’t just escape immediately. The list of sexist, odd and questionable behavior is endless. These are men who enjoyed making women feel uncomfortable so that they could joke about it afterward. These are men like Trump, with a lot of power and no respect for women. Because it's really simple in my book--if you respect women, you don't behave this way. These are men who consistently ignore women in favor of men when it comes time for choosing new leaders or promoting from within, even when those men are clearly less qualified compared to the available women. Men who tell women who get angry about the unfairness and injustice of these types of behaviors that they are ‘unbalanced or psychologically unstable’, or that ‘perhaps they should get some professional help’. Men who joke that these women who get angry just need to get laid. And the women who joke like this about other women are just plain traitors to their own gender. Men have had the power now for eons and eons, and it’s time women took the reins. I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but we’re not going to get there if feminism is defined solely by women who take off their clothes in the name of emancipation (from what or who?), so that they can appear in porno rags and online videos and define these actions as feminist. It might be one definition of modern feminism, but it’s not the major one. They get paid a lot of money for it, however. Perhaps that’s how they think they will gain respect. They will gain money and power, yes, but not necessarily respect. That’s not a given. But perhaps for them, it's enough. I don't know and frankly, I don't care. It's not my definition of feminism and it does not help most average working women to fight the daily battles that they fight in their workplaces.

Oddly enough, if you look at many of the classic films from the 1940s and 1950s, there are roles written for women that are worthy of respect. The female characters are strong, opinionated (think Katharine Hepburn's character in the comedy Adam’s Rib), and they sometimes suffer for their independent ways and strong wills. But they are women to look up to. Many of them work, they are professional, they speak and dress well, and they stand up to and stand their ground with the men in their lives. I can relate to the women's roles in these films, in a way that I cannot relate to many of the modern roles written for women now. How can that be? I am not sure what happened, but respect for women has taken a real nose-dive recently. We need to figure out why and how to fix that. And I think we should start by emphasizing that both men and women have a lot to gain by treating each other with respect, in the workplace and outside of it.