Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

Jennifer Loviglio offers a personal account of sexual harassment and how workplaces today almost normalize the crime as a chore.

Excerpts:

I grew up knowing this: it's my body and no one has the right to say or do anything that makes me feel uncomfortable. My mother tried to build a protective wall around me by hammering in this message repeatedly.

By the time I was 14 and started waitressing, I'd heard it a zillion times: "It's your body and no one has a ...."

"Well duh, Ma," I'd interrupt. "It's my body. Like, whose else would it be?"

My first week waitressing, I got the warning. It's the same warning the congressional pages got about Representative Mark Foley, the same warning people all over the country give newcomers every day: "Look out for so-and-so. He's a creep."

I can't remember my first creep's name. I can't remember his name for the same reason that the warning is so ubiquitous: because no one does anything about sexual harassment. There have been so many creeps since my first creep that their names all blur together. So many leering co-workers, groping college custodians, obnoxious dates, and hinting bosses. It's hard to keep track.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the restaurant, I avoided... let's call him "Mark." He was the cook, so I had to be friendly. As long as I stayed away from the walk-in freezer in the basement, I was safe. I saw the other waitresses race up the stairs carrying bins of lettuce or tuna, swearing and grabbing napkins to wipe Mark's smelly kiss goo off.

They were older than me, and they put up with it. But I knew it was wrong. Like a 4-year-old acting out an imaginary battle with the bad guys, I decided that if Mark pinned and groped me, his ass would be out of a job and in court.

Be gentle: I was only 14 years old. What did I know?