National service started on a good note, until some of the men in my office started to misbehave towards my fellow female service personnel and I. It started with sexual jokes which we were all not comfortable with. Then it moved on to gifts, money and promises to buy us stuff all in the quest to touch our bodies.
There was one particular man who would go round each morning to greet everyone. He used that opportunity to rub his hands on our backs till he felt our bra through our dresses. I ignored it the first time thinking it was just my imagination. He did it again the next day and I began to feel uncomfortable. The third time he tried it, I gave him a bold and polite warning that I wasn't comfortable with that. His response? He shouted at me and asked me which sort of person I was and rained a few insults on me. I ignored him and reported the issue to my boss to talk to him on my behalf. Fortunately for me, my boss is one of the few upright men in the office. He did talk to him. The man has been hostile to me since that day. He would come round and greet everyone with the exception of me and even go to the extent of giving the other girls pecks to spite me. The girls would squirm in discomfort when he did that, yet they would not speak out. I wasn't even bothered about it because I was free from him.
There was also this man who I used to respect a lot. I was scribbling something down one day when he appeared from nowhere and stood for over a minute, looking at me. I kept wondering why he was standing there saying nothing. After a while, he giggled and left telling me he didn't see anything. I found his statement quite absurd until I looked down and realized the first button on my shirt had opened and all that while, he was peeping through my shirt. I was really disappointed in him and all the respect I had for him vanished. I stopped being friendly towards him. He realized I wasn't happy with his behaviour and stayed away from me.
As if these weren't enough, this fat man with his protruding belly decided to use my neck and shoulders as his pillow anytime he was feeling bored. He would come over and rest his head on my shoulder and run his hands over my arms and his breath would be all over me. One day, I mustered courage, threw his arms off me and warned him never to try that on me again. I did that in the presence of the other men and my fellow service personnel. It was quite a scene and since that day, he hasn't uttered any word to me. Since then, I've had my peace of mind in the office.
The other girls have told me that the way they used to be harassed by these men has reduced since that day though some of the men are still doing it. Why they are refusing to speak up like I did still baffles me.
For lack of space, these are just a few instances of the ordeal my friends and I go through as young girls in the office. And the most amazing thing is that all of these men are married with children. This harassment issue I'm told has been going on for years now and I don't know why management has not done anything about it.
Sistas, when you find yourself in that situation, speak up. And don't just speak, back your words with actions.
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The Patriarchy. It has become synonymous with the devil in our new surge for equality and everyone of us(almost) is on a mission to reform culture and tradition all by blaming this invisible entity, patriarchy. I hope we get a location for its HQ soon.
ReplyDeleteI had a point, so here; we can't expect a healthy progressive discussion about gender roles and more importantly hope for change by having a biased view on how things are or were regarding the dynamics of gender roles. Girls were exempt from traditional "manly" labor. Tbh there were plenty days I'd rather sweep than take on the lifting of heavy crap around the house, being asked to go check who was at the door, taking the trash out etc etc. Also, let's not ignore the context and origins of these traditional ideas or the whys of it. We practically have to undo everything we are now as a people in order to have the type of radical change of gender roles in our society. My solution has always been; teaching kids about respect. Respecting people as human over their gender because in our effort to push for equality, we wrongly target menial roles as a defining factor in gender relations. We need to respect people in every facet of its meaning instead of this erroneous approach of discussing equality.