Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Joe, U.S.

     At my school, there’s a teacher. The odd teacher. We’ll call him Mr. Q. Mr. Q, since day one of journalism class, has sexually harassed my classmates and I. I just feel like I need to say this, to get it off my chest. I need to talk to some more people about it, because I just can’t keep it to myself.

     He’s the teacher who’s always putting his hand on your shoulder, brushing up against you in the hall, or standing too close to you in class. That was weird of course, but we more or less dismissed it in the begining.

     Later, things started to decline. There would be comments, more aggressive movements, favoritism. Everyone in class saw it, and everyone knew that it happened only to the boys. I started to get worried, but simply ignored it. I never even conceived what was happening.

    One day, while a (male) friend and I were looking at the latest issue if the paper, he came and stood in between us, put his arm around both of us, and asked us what we were doing. Creepy enough, right? Well, I immediately withdrew from the situation. But as I was walking away, he said, “Wow Joe, you have big shoulders.” I was more than creeped out. But something in me said that I was being stupid, or imagining things. I kept quiet.

     Well, today in class, we were discussing the type of things that wouldn’t be appropriate to print about someone. He said something along the lines of, “For example, I’m sure Joe wouldn’t appreciate me writing about how he bungee jumped off a cliff in a speedo.” I nearly collapsed.

     I didn’t say another word that whole class. I was so disturbed that I sat, blank faced for the first ten minutes of my English test, and it took the whole period for my hand to stop shaking.

    I knew then that I had to talk to a counselor. Immediately.

     After school today, I wandered the halls for about an hour before I had the courage to go talk to a guidance counselor. Does that tell you something was wrong?

     When I got into her office, I told her everything. About the whole year, the paper incident, the comments, the speedo remark, everything. She was more than alarmed, but her response was that she would talk to him tomorrow and to return if things didn’t stop.

      So here I am, feeling all messed up inside and I don’t know why. I did NOTHING wrong. I don’t want to think about him, and I can’t hardly stand being in the same room with him. I’ve decided that if he isn’t fired, I’m not going back to Journalism next semester. I LOVE journalism.

     Right now, I feel stronger, better, and that I have done the right thing. But if it wasn’t for the support of a great friend and this website, I might still be terrified of waking up tomorrow and going to school. I can weather the storm if it means it will keep someone else from getting hurt the way I did, or worse.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 10:59 am and is filed under Sexual Harassment in Education, Effects of Sexual Harassment, Same-sex harassment, Sexual Harassment of Men. 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.