You won’t tell, would you?
Jill Thompson, Maryland
As a self-employed female vendor, my customers were car dealers. Until it happened to me, I never even thought about sexual harassment. Believe me, when working and investing in my skill and business to be self-employed, sexual harassment was never considered as a factor in the equation.
It started out of the blue at my best account by the used car manager in charge of authorizing my work. One day, he lowered his voice and started talking about us getting together (this man was married). At first, I was so numb that the only part I remember word for word was what he would always follow up with and he would say “and you won’t tell, would you.” This went on here and there for a period of several months. Then one day, I was in the key room collecting keys and he came in and physically tried to grab me.
I was shocked. I basically tried not to anger him and got out of there as fast as I could. Eventually, I walked away from the account altogether.
Later on, thinking it would help me to not be so angry, I filed a claim with the automaker. The response I got was horrible. First, the GM at the dealership lied in writing about an investigation that never took place. Then the big automaker who pretends to care so much about working women refused for more then a year to give me my claim number in writing until I contacted the ACLU.
Unfortunately, no attorney equals no zero tolerance policy and since there isn’t much in place to protect self-employed women, there was nothing I could do.
So, for free personal therapy, I wrote a funny screenplay about my not so funny experience and I have decided to post it on a website including the name of the big automaker.
It’s time for women to stand up for themselves. No one wants to talk about sexual harassment yet look at the number of women affected by it. I say, we need to start talking and who cares about a lawsuit. Thanks to sexual harassment, I have nothing to loose anyway.
