So, something else about this subject that some women may find of particular interest concerns this fact: Not counting the women who are sexually harassed, insulted, humiliated and degraded, in the workforce on a daily basis, simply due to their female physicality, studies have shown that a woman who exhibits masculine personality traits will get targeted by males almost twice as much as other women. Now, this doesn’t mean that if you are a woman who happens to have very hairy knuckles, you will automatically be targeted for sexual intimidation. You can be a perfectly feminine-looking woman, but if you possess ANY natural-born, personality traits that have been previously thought of as exclusively “male”, there is a strong likelihood that these particular personality traits tend to threaten certain males, especially in a competitive workplace, where the offending coworker is in a position of power. In this situation, the male may use sexual intimidation tactics in order to put a woman “in her place”. Of course, the perpetrator’s actual goal is to get rid of you in the most humiliating, and painful way possible, as you are a perceived threat to them. But understand that workplace sexual intimidation has NOTHING to do with actual sex, (unless it leads to physical assault) but has EVERYTHING to do with an offending male establishing his power and territory over a targeted female. And if it’s starting to sound like “it’s a jungle out there”, in many ways it is, as most women are keenly aware of the delicate maneuvering that we sometimes have to do in order to protect ourselves from the wrath of fragile male egos. And lest you think that this type of insidious male behavior is confined to lower level organizations, the problem is even more widespread in academia and especially in the sciences. This is not to say that there are not good men out there. As we all know, there are, and we should treasure and appreciate these men for their immeasurable value and worth in our lives. And so, if you have become the target of this type of workplace abuse, it is critical that if you do decide to leave a threatening workplace after your complaints have been ignored, and nothing has been done, take the time to acknowledge the strengths that you possess that triggered the offending male in the first place. Leave with your head held high. There is something better out there, and it’s just waiting for you.
For those who have not seen this, the above is a partial description of one of the incidences of sexual intimidation and harassment in the workplace as recorded by one of the victims, and relayed from Ron Johnson to Todd Sutton. (previously published content by WRAL). If Johnston County School Board Chair, Todd Sutton can somehow believe that what is described here may be “possible” harassment - he is very wrong. This IS textbook sexual harassment, plain and simple, and no female employee should have to work under these threatening and unsafe conditions.