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Writer's pictureAmy Young

Standing up to Sexual Harassment.



I wasn’t raised to stick up for myself. I was taught to ignore negative behavior and attention. Not many women my age were taught how to deal with sexual harassment because it wasn’t talked about back then.


I’ll never forget the first time I spoke up about harassment.


When I was in my early twenties I worked for a large chain fast food restaurant. One of my coworkers was a sexist pig. That’s honestly the nicest way I can put it. All the women who worked there knew it. He would say sexually explicit things to all the women and make inappropriate jokes that if we got offended by - it was our fault because we were too sensitive.


He was careful not to say or do too much when the male coworkers were around. He knew how to play the game. Of course, none of us women said anything. As I said - we’d been taught to ignore this type of behavior, not fight it.


So we stayed silent.


That is until a new girl was hired. A young woman fresh out of high school, who was innocent and a bit naive. Of course, the sexist pig loved the fact that he could embarrass this young woman so he set his sights on her.


That was when I had had enough! It was okay (in my head) for him to disrespect me, but when he went for this young woman, I was done. I wouldn’t speak up for myself, but I was not about to stand around and let him treat this young woman so awful.


I told the other female coworkers that I planned to talk to the manager and asked if they would back me up. They all fervently said yes. They were sick of it as well.


Needless to say, the manager was quite surprised when I told him about what had been going on. He talked to all the other women and they told him the same.


The manager brought the guy in for a talk. I know for a fact that he was not going to fire the guy - he just wanted to talk.


But something unexpected happened. Well, it was unexpected to the manager but not to any of the women. The sexist pig got mad. He exploded. He told the manager we were all a bunch of stupid bitches. He called the manager a pussy for taking us seriously.


The manager fired him. He had no choice at that point.


On his way out, the sexist pig looked at me and called me “a fucking bitch.” He knew I was the one who had spoken up.


Y’all - I was terrified.


For the next month, I had someone walk me to and from my car. I did not have any opening or closing shifts that I was ever by myself.


It was scary.


A few weeks later we were all talking about the sexist pig. The male coworkers tried to excuse his behavior by saying he must have been going through some difficult times. They said this was not who he was.


Surprisingly, it was the young woman who spoke up and told them they were wrong. This was exactly who he was. He had been like this the entire time he worked at the restaurant.


All the women nodded in confirmation. Our male coworkers were baffled. How could this guy who they thought was a good guy, maybe just a little crass, be that bad. When we told them about all the incidences (and there were a lot) they finally got it. They finally realized that there were sexist pigs among them who hid in plain sight.


I should have been proud of myself for standing up and saying something, but truth be told, I was just exhausted. I had dealt with this before and I knew I would have to deal with it again.


However, I did come away from that experience with one ray of hope - that I wasn’t alone. The other women I worked with backed me up. We were in this together. We would stick together and keep speaking up.


Hopefully, the more people speak up, the more people will listen.


Amy Young

Confessions of a GenX Mom




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