This Guy’s Story About A Female Coworker Sexually Harassing A Male Sparks A Debate On Double Standards
Sexual harassment at work is a serious problem, especially when the United States’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) estimates that about 80% of the victims don’t report it. Usually, because of fear of retaliation, as well as not being sure what the what behavior constitutes as sexual harassment and what does not. With so many cases kept private, it is hard to see the full picture of this issue, however, it should be taken seriously regardless of the gender of the victim or the perpetrator.
With the recent rise of sexual allegations, one user shared his own encounter with the sexual harassment his coworker experienced at work. While many people supported the coworker and his story, a lot of commenters were against his expressed sentiment that sexual harassment against males is taken less seriously. We reached out to the original poster for further comment. Scroll down to read the full story and tells us where you stand in the comment section.
One user shared a sexual harassment story he witnessed at work
Many supported him and the victim
But others couldn’t agree with his statement that “sexual harassment against men isn’t as big as a concern”
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"She reported him for sexual harassment." She is one of the many reasons that the #metoo movement isn't taken as seriously as it needs to be for both genders.
Nasty people of all genders screw it up for us all. It's not male against female, but jerks against good people. We all need to remember this.
She was wrong and made it worse by claiming he was the one who did it. She should have been terminated esp. since he had a witness. I've seen woman sexually harass men and for some men it's torture. They feel boxed in and helpless in trying to get it to stop. People need to learn that NO means NO, no matter what sex you are!
I agree with the bottom comments. It happens to both genders by both genders and should stop.
True, but it this case that clearly didn’t apply. Apparently the company took it seriously when a woman reported it and almost fired the guy until a different woman went to bat for him. The fact that they gave zero weight to what either of the men had to say and almost fired him while giving the woman a slap on the wrist for not only making a false accusation but actually harassing her co-worker, shows that at least at this company, it is skewed in favor of the woman. She victimized him twice over, and aparently got away with it.
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To those saying there is no double standard, try rereading the story. He was going to be fired after she accused him of sexual harassment. When the truth was revealed that she was the harasser AND that she falsely accused him....she was only reprimanded. How is that NOT a double standard. She should have been fired on the spot.
Until recently the men weren't fired or reprimanded if they were the instigators. This is how it's been for women for centuries. It's only now that women are saying they've had enough. Now men are experiencing what women have and see the unfairness. Ya. It's unfair. That's why we're fighting back! And yes... she should have been fired.
Load More Replies...
When I had my first job out of high school, I was working at a tax prep company and I would often wear blouses and straight cut skirts with high heels. I was the receptionist and I knew that many of the guys were married. So when one male co-worker approached me when we closed up for the night and said "We should get together sometime and go to the hotel next door." I replied with "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Should we call your wife and ask her..or should we ask your boss first?" He got all offended and said "No need to be a b***h about it." To which I turned to our boss sitting two desks away and said "Am I being a b***h about threatening to tell his wife that he just asked me to go with him next door to the hotel?" Our boss, female, became very irate. She took him to the back office where I heard yelling. He came out, apologized to me, and left. She apparently threatened to call his wife if he ever talked to me again. He avoided me the rest of tax season.
I will add that word quickly spread of the incident around to the rest of the men in the office. They were nothing but respectful to me and one even gave me an "atta girl" for how I handled it.
Load More Replies...
I was sexually assaulted on more than one occasion at work. Actually, just quickly, as I was being shown round on my first day, my boss commented to everyone we came across how I was the first woman to work in their department and how they'll now have to be on their best behaviour and how he hopes I don't make them effeminate. A man I worked with grabbed my underwear and another time grabbed by behind with both hands while I was bending over, shook it and grunted. The next morning I had a performance review and was told I was doing incredibly well and my boss was thrilled with my work. That lunchtime I reported my co-worker to HR. The next day I was fired.
It does happen and it's HORRIBLE! If we, as a woman, want men to be outraged when it happens to us and be our advocates, we need to be outraged when it happens to a man. Unwanted attention is unwanted, period and we need to stand up for each other.
Same thing happened to me. Caught a female co-worker going through my brief case, told her not to but didn't report it. She reports me for sexual harassment, I got fired.
It happens to men and women. There was a job i had wherr this one colleague was constantly around me and always trying to hug me, touch me etc. Then he was showing up in the middle of the night bringing me meals hed cooked. Then he started to bring me presents. I went to my superiors and they told me i was over reacting and thta he was just being nice..... Like wtf
This is nothing to do with the victim's or culprit's gender. It is the competency of the MANAGEMENT. The culprit whatever gender might be is in THE WRONG and should NOT be tolerated in any circumstances.
There is a double standard, as men are "supposed" to like sex "all the time": they can rarely report harassment because they don't get taken seriously... The law where I live even grants any woman the right to accuse a man of violent abuse and he gets to jail before his trial, without any further inquiries. It's to protect women better, they say. Men are considered stronger and more violent, but it's not always the case. Gender identity is not relatable to potential of violence or sexual misconduct.
Women who sexually harass men need to be punished equally and women who falsely accuse men of rape need to be given a jail term as long as someone who has actually committed rape. Both destroy lives, women seem to get a relative slap on the wrist and it's so wrong.
Then comes the tricky question. How do you know for Real that there was now rape? A lot of rapse can´t prove without a doubt it had happen. And the rapist goes free, because evidens are very hard to prove if the two people was alone. Should the women goes to jail even if she was raped but there was noe hard evidens?
Load More Replies...
I've worked in more than one setting where HR just issues a blanket reprimand-memo to anyone reported, no investigation, b/c that's easiest. I've worked in settings where my breasts were considered public property, an dI was just "emotional". And I've worked in settings where HR laughed at the idea of men not wanting sexual contact with anything/one. (My husband was mocked for reporting a woman in his workplace for grabbing him.) Moral: People can be idiots.
It seems that there are people who like this issue to become a male - female war by emphasizing how the offender did or didn't get punished. It's not about who got the lesser punishment, it's all bout how this beheaviour just need to stop. Noone should have to fear to become someone's "sex toy" at any given time at any given place just because the offending person knows there are little or no consequences.
Due to my career, I need to keep my training updated in two separate industries. Employee training in both industries stresses that sexual-harassment can happen to a person of any gender, and the perpetrator might be the same or opposite sex. In the work place, sexual harassment often involves a power-play, with the person in the position of authority preying on a person lower on the hierarchy.
Try working in an environment where you’re a woman in a male-dominated industry, being harassed by the owner of the company and having HR be the owners sister. Literally NOTHING could be done. Because “blood is thicker than water.”
When I was young, the company skank (you know, the one who has slept with the entire company) hit on me. I told her to go pound sand. She said "What are you? A f***t?". Yes, I replied. I was fired 10 minutes later. THANK GOD! I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if I had stayed at that very sick organization.
There needs to be zero tolerance on all kinds of sexual harassment, from men or women. I never reported being pinched or brushed on my bum because in 1966 nothing would have been done about it. We had to put up, shut up or be dismissed!
He is part of the MeToo movement, not some kind of evidence against it!
Is my imagination or BP has changed the name of this post 3 times?
It’s provably not your imagination. They do that to posts often
Load More Replies...
Sexual Harassment is Sexual Harassment. Whether it's a man harassing a woman or a woman harassing a man it should all be taken seriously. Anyone can be a victim. No one should have to put up with it.
It is very strange. Usually, men pester a woman. In this case, you should always protect yourself, especially now there are more condoms https://viabestbuys.com/popular-and-strange-flavored-condoms/
I think these comments have just gone a long way to restoring my faith in humanity. Yes, it's about bad behaviour and a lack of motivation to fix it (from HR). Has nothing to do with gender, and is not a double standard. Harassment should ALWAYS be called out.
It seems like the job actually does take harassment seriously but the problem was that she said it first. That's why so many cases of he said she said leave a bitter taste because no matter how many witnesses there are it's hard to be sure about anyone's innocence anymore. From this persons story I do believe that she was let off too easy but judging by her reaction to his rejection I think that she could have very easily pulled out all kinds of legal c**p on the company because she is on record as complaining first and she could really damage the company and its reputation by what she could make this look like on paper.
But from this view she is a despicable human being and should have been fired nobody should have to be afraid of being assaulted and it's a f****d up world we live in that we had to be afraid of this kind of c**p happening to us
Load More Replies...
My hubby works in construction, and he used to work on a crew where the guys regularly groped one another as a type of roughhousing. Hubby repeatedly told them to keep their hands to themselves, never touched anyone, and finally complained to the foreman. The foreman asked, "what, you gay?" to which my hubs responded that he preferred not to be groped by men, and he was pretty sure his orientation had no bearing on that preference. The grabass got worse the next day since he "cried" about it, so he quit. Sexual harassment has many forms and is dealt with in many ways. It is time that it stops being seen as a women's issue and is recognized as a people problem.
DOUBLE FREAKING STANDARD! I'm a girl and am thankful every day for what the women before me have done so I have the opportunity to do what I do. BUT. The double standard is incredibly real. For example, imagine two movie scenes. The first is in a girl's changing room, and all the teenaged girls are in bras and pants. Absolutely inappropriate, right? Now imagine it's the same scene (dialogue, age, movement, etc) but the teenagers are shirtless boys. How many people are going to eye their muscles? Or whistle in appreciation? THIS ISN'T FAIR. IF IT'S WRONG TO DO TO A GIRL, IT'S WRONG TO DO TO BOY, AND VICE VIRSA!!!!!!
Sexual harassment is sexual assault. Anyone can be sexually harassed and it needs to stop. If someone is not sexually interested in you that is okay. That doesn't give you the right to bother them, lie on them, or fire them.
There is indeed a huge double standard concerning this topic. Men are expected to be grateful for every sexual interaction with a woman, as long as she looks good. Thus, nobody seriously interprets a certain behaviour as sexual harassment if committed by a woman. The main problem is, most men who have been harassed even don't know that they actually have been harassed. For the same reason, most male rape victims don't even know that they actually have been raped by a woman, because the society expects him to enjoy this situation.
I've been thinking seriously about getting a go-pro type camera and just having it on me all the time when I'm in public. I'd put a little sign on it saying, "Smile! You're on camera!" I got this idea from getting a ride from a dealership to a place for me to wait while they worked on my van. I asked the driver why she had a camera like this on the dashboard and it was because another driver in a company car had been in an accident, which he said wasn't his fault and the other driver disagreed. This way there could be no question as to what was going on.
This is a double standard. Regardless of gender/sex, every human being deserves to be respected in the work environment. Being a woman, doesn't give her the right to demean a mans body. We have constant conversations about how the work environment are skewed more toward men; they get paid better, more opportunities for advancements, promotions and the like. If we really want equality, then everyone needs to be treated equally. That woman deserves more than a "reprimand." No one has the right to make another person feel unsafe.
It's not about double standards, it's about that it was about bloody time that they feel the same way that women had felt over the centuries. Equality.
Rebecah will now tell us how women have felt over the centuries. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Load More Replies... To one of the comments saying that the me too movement was because women have been dealing with this for decades....what on earth makes you think that men haven't???? I mean really...this kind of thing has been happening to men forever and they are literally JUST NOW able to come out and talk about it....I hate how little we care about our guys feelings, they are just as important as women's feelings and they get downplayed so often it's ridiculous
My thing is this... If I am sexually harassed, I make it VERY CLEAR that their advancement is not acceptable - then if it happens again, chances are, I too will be getting assault charges.
The whole #MeToo movement is getting abused, with people accusing others & ruining lives left & right, and people blindly believing it with NO EVIDENCE! The power of the Media is absolutely terrible & undeserved! Next time you hear someone making big claims, PLEASE! THINK FOR YOURSELF! There have been cases of people committing suicide over false accusations! This is insane!
This is why I advocate telecommuting. The majority of jobs today can be done from home. It will create a better work/life balance, save tons of money on gas, cut pollution down, and prevent issues like this.
I know of a similar story. Good looking guy named Joe got harassed by boss’s wife repeatedly. She even tried to force herself on him and ripped his shirt off as he was running, but when she reported it as rape, he did ten years in prison. It all worked out eventually. He became the most powerful man in Egypt.
Okay, this was just stupid, and yet I'm the one who read it and commented on it.
Load More Replies...
rape is un-consensual sex. guys can be raped too. ANYONE can be raped, regardless of gender. Also some women are pretty freakin strong. https://www.muscleandfitness.com/muscle-fitness-hers/hers-athletes-celebrities/11-strongest-women-history-all-time-ever-walk-earth
Load More Replies...
"She reported him for sexual harassment." She is one of the many reasons that the #metoo movement isn't taken as seriously as it needs to be for both genders.
Nasty people of all genders screw it up for us all. It's not male against female, but jerks against good people. We all need to remember this.
She was wrong and made it worse by claiming he was the one who did it. She should have been terminated esp. since he had a witness. I've seen woman sexually harass men and for some men it's torture. They feel boxed in and helpless in trying to get it to stop. People need to learn that NO means NO, no matter what sex you are!
I agree with the bottom comments. It happens to both genders by both genders and should stop.
True, but it this case that clearly didn’t apply. Apparently the company took it seriously when a woman reported it and almost fired the guy until a different woman went to bat for him. The fact that they gave zero weight to what either of the men had to say and almost fired him while giving the woman a slap on the wrist for not only making a false accusation but actually harassing her co-worker, shows that at least at this company, it is skewed in favor of the woman. She victimized him twice over, and aparently got away with it.
Load More Replies... To those saying there is no double standard, try rereading the story. He was going to be fired after she accused him of sexual harassment. When the truth was revealed that she was the harasser AND that she falsely accused him....she was only reprimanded. How is that NOT a double standard. She should have been fired on the spot.
Until recently the men weren't fired or reprimanded if they were the instigators. This is how it's been for women for centuries. It's only now that women are saying they've had enough. Now men are experiencing what women have and see the unfairness. Ya. It's unfair. That's why we're fighting back! And yes... she should have been fired.
Load More Replies... When I had my first job out of high school, I was working at a tax prep company and I would often wear blouses and straight cut skirts with high heels. I was the receptionist and I knew that many of the guys were married. So when one male co-worker approached me when we closed up for the night and said "We should get together sometime and go to the hotel next door." I replied with "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Should we call your wife and ask her..or should we ask your boss first?" He got all offended and said "No need to be a b***h about it." To which I turned to our boss sitting two desks away and said "Am I being a b***h about threatening to tell his wife that he just asked me to go with him next door to the hotel?" Our boss, female, became very irate. She took him to the back office where I heard yelling. He came out, apologized to me, and left. She apparently threatened to call his wife if he ever talked to me again. He avoided me the rest of tax season.
I will add that word quickly spread of the incident around to the rest of the men in the office. They were nothing but respectful to me and one even gave me an "atta girl" for how I handled it.
Load More Replies... I was sexually assaulted on more than one occasion at work. Actually, just quickly, as I was being shown round on my first day, my boss commented to everyone we came across how I was the first woman to work in their department and how they'll now have to be on their best behaviour and how he hopes I don't make them effeminate. A man I worked with grabbed my underwear and another time grabbed by behind with both hands while I was bending over, shook it and grunted. The next morning I had a performance review and was told I was doing incredibly well and my boss was thrilled with my work. That lunchtime I reported my co-worker to HR. The next day I was fired.
It does happen and it's HORRIBLE! If we, as a woman, want men to be outraged when it happens to us and be our advocates, we need to be outraged when it happens to a man. Unwanted attention is unwanted, period and we need to stand up for each other.
Same thing happened to me. Caught a female co-worker going through my brief case, told her not to but didn't report it. She reports me for sexual harassment, I got fired.
It happens to men and women. There was a job i had wherr this one colleague was constantly around me and always trying to hug me, touch me etc. Then he was showing up in the middle of the night bringing me meals hed cooked. Then he started to bring me presents. I went to my superiors and they told me i was over reacting and thta he was just being nice..... Like wtf
This is nothing to do with the victim's or culprit's gender. It is the competency of the MANAGEMENT. The culprit whatever gender might be is in THE WRONG and should NOT be tolerated in any circumstances.
There is a double standard, as men are "supposed" to like sex "all the time": they can rarely report harassment because they don't get taken seriously... The law where I live even grants any woman the right to accuse a man of violent abuse and he gets to jail before his trial, without any further inquiries. It's to protect women better, they say. Men are considered stronger and more violent, but it's not always the case. Gender identity is not relatable to potential of violence or sexual misconduct.
Women who sexually harass men need to be punished equally and women who falsely accuse men of rape need to be given a jail term as long as someone who has actually committed rape. Both destroy lives, women seem to get a relative slap on the wrist and it's so wrong.
Then comes the tricky question. How do you know for Real that there was now rape? A lot of rapse can´t prove without a doubt it had happen. And the rapist goes free, because evidens are very hard to prove if the two people was alone. Should the women goes to jail even if she was raped but there was noe hard evidens?
Load More Replies... I've worked in more than one setting where HR just issues a blanket reprimand-memo to anyone reported, no investigation, b/c that's easiest. I've worked in settings where my breasts were considered public property, an dI was just "emotional". And I've worked in settings where HR laughed at the idea of men not wanting sexual contact with anything/one. (My husband was mocked for reporting a woman in his workplace for grabbing him.) Moral: People can be idiots.
It seems that there are people who like this issue to become a male - female war by emphasizing how the offender did or didn't get punished. It's not about who got the lesser punishment, it's all bout how this beheaviour just need to stop. Noone should have to fear to become someone's "sex toy" at any given time at any given place just because the offending person knows there are little or no consequences.
Due to my career, I need to keep my training updated in two separate industries. Employee training in both industries stresses that sexual-harassment can happen to a person of any gender, and the perpetrator might be the same or opposite sex. In the work place, sexual harassment often involves a power-play, with the person in the position of authority preying on a person lower on the hierarchy.
Try working in an environment where you’re a woman in a male-dominated industry, being harassed by the owner of the company and having HR be the owners sister. Literally NOTHING could be done. Because “blood is thicker than water.”
When I was young, the company skank (you know, the one who has slept with the entire company) hit on me. I told her to go pound sand. She said "What are you? A f***t?". Yes, I replied. I was fired 10 minutes later. THANK GOD! I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if I had stayed at that very sick organization.
There needs to be zero tolerance on all kinds of sexual harassment, from men or women. I never reported being pinched or brushed on my bum because in 1966 nothing would have been done about it. We had to put up, shut up or be dismissed!
He is part of the MeToo movement, not some kind of evidence against it!
Is my imagination or BP has changed the name of this post 3 times?
It’s provably not your imagination. They do that to posts often
Load More Replies... Sexual Harassment is Sexual Harassment. Whether it's a man harassing a woman or a woman harassing a man it should all be taken seriously. Anyone can be a victim. No one should have to put up with it.
It is very strange. Usually, men pester a woman. In this case, you should always protect yourself, especially now there are more condoms https://viabestbuys.com/popular-and-strange-flavored-condoms/
I think these comments have just gone a long way to restoring my faith in humanity. Yes, it's about bad behaviour and a lack of motivation to fix it (from HR). Has nothing to do with gender, and is not a double standard. Harassment should ALWAYS be called out.
It seems like the job actually does take harassment seriously but the problem was that she said it first. That's why so many cases of he said she said leave a bitter taste because no matter how many witnesses there are it's hard to be sure about anyone's innocence anymore. From this persons story I do believe that she was let off too easy but judging by her reaction to his rejection I think that she could have very easily pulled out all kinds of legal c**p on the company because she is on record as complaining first and she could really damage the company and its reputation by what she could make this look like on paper.
But from this view she is a despicable human being and should have been fired nobody should have to be afraid of being assaulted and it's a f****d up world we live in that we had to be afraid of this kind of c**p happening to us
Load More Replies... My hubby works in construction, and he used to work on a crew where the guys regularly groped one another as a type of roughhousing. Hubby repeatedly told them to keep their hands to themselves, never touched anyone, and finally complained to the foreman. The foreman asked, "what, you gay?" to which my hubs responded that he preferred not to be groped by men, and he was pretty sure his orientation had no bearing on that preference. The grabass got worse the next day since he "cried" about it, so he quit. Sexual harassment has many forms and is dealt with in many ways. It is time that it stops being seen as a women's issue and is recognized as a people problem.
DOUBLE FREAKING STANDARD! I'm a girl and am thankful every day for what the women before me have done so I have the opportunity to do what I do. BUT. The double standard is incredibly real. For example, imagine two movie scenes. The first is in a girl's changing room, and all the teenaged girls are in bras and pants. Absolutely inappropriate, right? Now imagine it's the same scene (dialogue, age, movement, etc) but the teenagers are shirtless boys. How many people are going to eye their muscles? Or whistle in appreciation? THIS ISN'T FAIR. IF IT'S WRONG TO DO TO A GIRL, IT'S WRONG TO DO TO BOY, AND VICE VIRSA!!!!!!
Sexual harassment is sexual assault. Anyone can be sexually harassed and it needs to stop. If someone is not sexually interested in you that is okay. That doesn't give you the right to bother them, lie on them, or fire them.
There is indeed a huge double standard concerning this topic. Men are expected to be grateful for every sexual interaction with a woman, as long as she looks good. Thus, nobody seriously interprets a certain behaviour as sexual harassment if committed by a woman. The main problem is, most men who have been harassed even don't know that they actually have been harassed. For the same reason, most male rape victims don't even know that they actually have been raped by a woman, because the society expects him to enjoy this situation.
I've been thinking seriously about getting a go-pro type camera and just having it on me all the time when I'm in public. I'd put a little sign on it saying, "Smile! You're on camera!" I got this idea from getting a ride from a dealership to a place for me to wait while they worked on my van. I asked the driver why she had a camera like this on the dashboard and it was because another driver in a company car had been in an accident, which he said wasn't his fault and the other driver disagreed. This way there could be no question as to what was going on.
This is a double standard. Regardless of gender/sex, every human being deserves to be respected in the work environment. Being a woman, doesn't give her the right to demean a mans body. We have constant conversations about how the work environment are skewed more toward men; they get paid better, more opportunities for advancements, promotions and the like. If we really want equality, then everyone needs to be treated equally. That woman deserves more than a "reprimand." No one has the right to make another person feel unsafe.
It's not about double standards, it's about that it was about bloody time that they feel the same way that women had felt over the centuries. Equality.
Rebecah will now tell us how women have felt over the centuries. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Load More Replies... To one of the comments saying that the me too movement was because women have been dealing with this for decades....what on earth makes you think that men haven't???? I mean really...this kind of thing has been happening to men forever and they are literally JUST NOW able to come out and talk about it....I hate how little we care about our guys feelings, they are just as important as women's feelings and they get downplayed so often it's ridiculous
My thing is this... If I am sexually harassed, I make it VERY CLEAR that their advancement is not acceptable - then if it happens again, chances are, I too will be getting assault charges.
The whole #MeToo movement is getting abused, with people accusing others & ruining lives left & right, and people blindly believing it with NO EVIDENCE! The power of the Media is absolutely terrible & undeserved! Next time you hear someone making big claims, PLEASE! THINK FOR YOURSELF! There have been cases of people committing suicide over false accusations! This is insane!
This is why I advocate telecommuting. The majority of jobs today can be done from home. It will create a better work/life balance, save tons of money on gas, cut pollution down, and prevent issues like this.
I know of a similar story. Good looking guy named Joe got harassed by boss’s wife repeatedly. She even tried to force herself on him and ripped his shirt off as he was running, but when she reported it as rape, he did ten years in prison. It all worked out eventually. He became the most powerful man in Egypt.
Okay, this was just stupid, and yet I'm the one who read it and commented on it.
Load More Replies... rape is un-consensual sex. guys can be raped too. ANYONE can be raped, regardless of gender. Also some women are pretty freakin strong. https://www.muscleandfitness.com/muscle-fitness-hers/hers-athletes-celebrities/11-strongest-women-history-all-time-ever-walk-earth
Load More Replies... 
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