Sexual Harasssment in the Workplace

When I was 18 – 21 years old I was a waitress making money for college. It was one of two jobs I held each summer. Every evening I drove over to my favorite Italian restaurant in my polyester uniform and worked with friends/co-workers serving, for the most part, lovely customers. Every once in a while an unruly patron came in and made suggestive comments to the servers. Once, and because I didn’t know any better, I twirled for a $20.00 tip from a drunk guy who hit it big that day at the race track. One of the owners of the restaurant, seeing the exchange rushed over and put the guy in his place (Thank you Marie).

Fast forward a couple of years and I was working at my first professional job at the corporate headquarters for a huge retail firm. The VPs would wander the halls late in the afternoon prowling for fresh young things to ask to dinner. Some women went and came back the next day with stories of how the men would tell them that they could pull a few strings and talk to a couple of people, possibly offering a bait of a raise or promotion IF the young woman would spend the night. I was asked to go on those dinners a few times but said no (even before knowing what went on) because those guys were creepy and about as old as my father.

This type of harassing behavior was common place and I saw it in every company in which I worked until one day, someone, somewhere sued a company and history was made. Finally.
In the early 80s I was a learning and development program designer and I was asked to write an anti-harassment program to help stop this intimidating nonsense within my own company. Human Resources put policies in place that said that in no way, shape or form would sexual harassment be tolerated. It went on to state that words, actions, pictures, threats, bribes, jokes would not be tolerated. If someone felt they were being harassed they were to tell the harasser to stop and if that intimidated them, they should go to the Human Resources department. I designed the training and presented it to the teams within the division. While the policies and training didn’t work all of the time, it tremendously cut out the harassment. The training was eventually rolled into an anti –discrimination/harassment training that is the standard for those companies today.

Lately I’ve read that a couple of the newscasters at Fox News are suing the organization for sexual harassment. I wonder why the boorish behavior of Roger Ailes wasn’t immediately handled. Was it because of his position of power and authority? No man or woman should put up with any type of harassment. Whatever the case, men and women today who feel as if they are discriminated against or harassed should thank the men and women who came before them to write the very policies and programs used to stamp out this crude, ignorant behavior. 

For further information or to learn the history of the policies please see https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment_guidance.cfm at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.