I have had a hard time watching this #metoo movement progress. It is not that I don’t agree 100% with it but many of us from the previous generation did not have this opportunity. I had so many instances where a boss did my work for me only because he was trying to lure me to his hotel as he thought I would be grateful enough to go.. Then there was blatant discrimination and sexual harassment by a boss. I reported him and he got promoted and I got demoted. I got demoted another time because I was told that I got the promotion for the wrong reasons. The guy who promoted me was a known philanderer. I did nothing wrong, mind you, but the end result was that my salary was reduced.
I wonder how those things could have happened in corporate America but it was so prevalent. I had customers tell me that if I wanted to make a sale bad enough, I had better show it. Come on, that was never going to happen but yet the constant barrage of harassment still existed. We could not do anything about it though as we knew that we would be blackballed from any further work. The fear of never being able to get another job kept me from choosing legal action. Compare my story of the 90’s and early 2000’s, and we have come a long way. Powerful men have been justly brought down. Women have been believed and have banded together to stop this errant behavior. I am so glad we have now gotten to the point where there is no fear of bringing this out into the open. There is no fear in speaking up. I was both embarrassed and afraid to speak up because as a typical woman, I blamed myself. Maybe I was just not doing a good job…no way. I see the progress. I hope, because of my story, you can feel better about this movement and the progress that has been made.