Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

     We get a lot of traffic to our site from people looking for information on sexual harassment of men.  Still, men are very slow to speak up about sexual harassment, even though they have always been targets.  Increasingly, they are being targeted by women.    

     The article below was published a few days ago by Associated Press, and I’m going to add it to our archive here.  While this forum remains devoted to publishing original accounts of people who have been harassed, I hope adding this will encourage other men to speak up when they are being targeted.  Hopefully, it will encourage more to share their stories. –Ceara, Admin

 

Man Gets $18 million in sexual harassment case

Associated Press

 

October 28, Los Angeles:  A jury has ordered The Vons Companies Inc supermarket chain to pay more than $18 million in damages to a former employee who claimed the company fired him after he filed a report accusing a female supervisor of sexual harassment. The Simi Valley jury awarded more than $16 million in punitive damages to James Stevens, two days after ordering Vons to pay the one-time inventory clerk $1.7 million for economic loss and emotional distress, said attorney Gloria Allred, who represented Stevens. 

 

Stevens, a Ventura County resident who worked for Vons for 25 years, was fired in May 2004.

 

He sued the company that November. During a month long trial, Stevens testified the supervisor subjected him to various forms harassment. In addition to making sexual remarks, Stevens told jurors the supervisor at one point simulated sex with a feather duster. 

 

“I hope my victory will inspire others to come forward if they are being mistreated at work knowing that the law protects them,” Stevens, 48, said in a statement.

 

Vons intends to appeal, said its spokeswoman, Sandra Calderon. “We do not think that the evidence supported any of Mr Stevens’ claims and believe the damage award was excessive,” Calderon said. 

 

Vons, a unit of Safeway Inc, has 325 stores in Southern Califonia and Nevada, according to its Web site.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 29th, 2006 at 11:29 am and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Retaliation, Backlash, and Victim-blaming, Sexual Harassment of Men, Sexual Harassment by Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.