Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Anonymous

     I am a department head at a local government.  I started working several years ago and was promoted to various positions with my most recent “promotion.” 

     Over the last 1.5 years, my manager has made many offensive comments, such as describing the lingerie purchased for a honeymoon, or “you’re hot today.”  He will also stare at my breasts during meetings, and look women up and down when he talks to them.

     I started telling the manager that his comments were unwelcome.  Weekly, if not daily, my response was “please don’t make those comments to me,” or “you can’t say that to me,” etc.  It had no effect.  

     There are about 10 other women that I know of, that have had similar experiences. 

     Last year, after my requests to stop the inappropriate comments were not complied with, I went to the Human Resources Director.  Within a month, I was ‘promoted,’ but in all actuality, was really demoted. 

     Recently, during my performance evaluation, which was mediocre and not consistent with the ‘Outstanding’ ratings from previous years, the manager made inaccurate statements.  When I pressed for clarification or examples of my “inadequacies,” he pushed back and asked that the Human Resources director be present for future meetings.

     I believe I was retaliated against because I requested that the comments cease and reported my manager to Human Resources.  What are my options?  Any advice?  I’m relatively new to my career and am afraid that pushing this issue may jeopardize my future career.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Retaliation, Backlash, and Victim-blaming. 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.