Earlier this year, my wife began working for a locally-owned company, whose staff, I am told, is somewhere between 100 and 200 persons. A while ago one of the supervisors–but not HER supervisor–found out that she’s married to a person of a different race, which he finds offensive. Consequently he’s been sexually harassing her, in the hostile-work-environment-sense: he’s asked her invasive questions about her sex life, he suggests porn movies she might enjoy, he leaves sex mags on her desk. More than once he’s kept at her until she was reduced to tears.
One of her co-workers told me about this, because Mrs. R. has not–because, she says, she was afraid of my reaction. Now, while it’s true that my first impulse was to resolve this situation with a baseball bat, I know that’s stupid. More to the point, I used to work in HR, and I know what she should do. Make a formal complaint to her boss and to this fucker’s boss. Document everything that happens. Say nothing to him not required by work, and remain professional in everything she says–but don’t swallow shit the law protects you from.
But Mrs. R. doesn’t want to do that. Partly it’s because this miserable fuckwit is the owner’s nephew; partly because she’s a little odd when it comes to standing up for herself in this context, for reasons I won’t discuss here. Her plan seems to be to avoid contact with the harasser whenever she can and to tolerate his knavery until she is in private. She thinks it’s an improvement that she can keep from crying until she’s alone in the car and then fix her makeup before she gets home, because she doesn’t want to worry me.
She also wants to deal with this problem herself, by which I mean she doesn’t want me to solve it for her or advise her how best to solve it. When I started to go into my HR spiel, she asked me to please let her deal with it her way; it’s something she thinks she needs to do, she says.
So I swallowed my advice and my desire to remove the guy’s kidneys. But her friend told me today that things are going on the same way.
Which brings me to the thread question. Am I doing the right thing by staying out? How can I persuade her to let me help?
You said that she doesn’t want you to get involved, but perhaps she would accept the help of someone else. So perhaps you might put her in touch with a labor attorney or a counselor or both and then back off yourself.
My gut-reaction reading this is that she is in an over-whelming situation and it may add to the stress if you press her to do something about it. If you stand by her and her decisions you may find in time she’ll get her bearings and be more open to your suggestions. It sounds, to me, like she needs support first, advice later. I would make it clear you’re in her corner and then wait for her to ask for your help if she needs it. I know this easier to say than to do though, good luck.
It’s not your place to deal with it. How would you feel if she came to your workplace and yelled at your boss in the same situation? She is an adult and she needs to take control of things. You can’t force her to and you can’t do it for her. All you can do is support her and try to convince her to stand up for herself. Worse comes to worst, she should start looking for another job, if she refuses to deal with it herself in any other way but crying. But if you get involved, you demean her as a grown woman with her own career (and with legitimate ways of dealing with this that do not involve her husband fighting her workplace battles for her).
Perhaps one of her female co-workers might have better luck convincing her to stand up for herself. Unfortunately her situation is too common for many working women - just last week I was discussing such a matter with one of my female students, who told me that her boss harrasses her on a regular basis but that she hasn’t reported it for a variety of reasons: she doesn’t want to risk her job, she doesn’t want to create a fuss, she feels like people will think she’s creating a mountain out of a molehill since he hasn’t physically harrassed her and “that’s just how he is - he doesn’t really mean anything.” I tried to get her to see that she was perfectly justified in reporting him and that she has no responsibility whatsoever to put up with his bullshit, but she seemed to think that reporting him would be seen as some kind of feminine weakness. Basically what it boiled down to was that the hassle involved in calling him out wasn’t worth it, from her point of view. It was very frustrating for me, since she’s in my Gender Studies class, for God’s sake, but there wasn’t much else I could do.
“When come back, bring grammar”. Listen, I’m only suggesting that you may assist in accumulating data in support of issues she is facing. You have some expertise. It is up to her to attack, but you have some juju to mix into the equation.
I agree with Rubystreak. Of course you’re infuriated, but it’s her job to stand up to him, not yours.
It strikes me that the boss probably doesn’t want to deal with a huge lawsuit against his company for his nephew. Has the boss got any idea that his nephew is behaving in such an ugly, illegal, sue-worthy fashion? I mean, if I was the boss I’d be delivering some serious smackdown firing to this guy.
I’m reminded of that old advice for dealing with bullies–“Ignore them and they’ll go away”.
It doesn’t work.
She needs to either stand up to this guy and tell him to back off, or she needs to go to HR. Period. If she just tries to put up with him she’ll be a human sponge for this behaviour. But it does have to be her. I agree that if nothing else, she should start looking for another job. No one deserves to put up with that shit.
I mostly agree with you, Rubystreak, though I never suggested I would go yell at her boss; that would be nearly as stupid as solving the problem with a baseball bat. But what I’m really thinking about is what **HazelNutCoffee ** wrote:
Would I be as out of line in suggesting the appropriate action to her co-worker as I would be doing so myself, when she has specifically asked me not to? Because my gut says yes, if I’m telling the co-workers such things in order to get her to talk to Mrs. R. I’d just be using the co-worker as a proxy.
I don’t mean you should ask her co-worker to do anything. From what you’ve posted her co-worker is already aware of the situation - you wouldn’t be telling her anything new. My suggestion is that maybe your wife would be more willing to discussing the situation with her co-worker rather than with you (since she is a woman and a colleague), and that for the same reasons her co-worker might have a better chance of persuading your wife to change her mind about how she’s going to deal with the situation at thand.
I think it’s a really bad idea. That’s just my opinion. It seems patronizing and infantlilizing, though I know it’s coming out of love and concern. All you can really do is try to help have the strength to take care of her own problems. IMO, you can’t get involved personally without undermining her credibilty, self-confidence, and trust in you. It could put a strain on your marriage in addition to her other worries if she ever found out, and she would be right to be angry at you.
As a person of action myself, I completely understand and sympathize with you. It’s very hard to watch people you care about suffer, esp. when you’d handle the situation differently than they are. But you can’t do anything. I hate to tell you that, but you can’t, without making her look like a little kid who can’t deal with her own problems.
No war here. I’m sorry if I did not recognize it. It is clear that I am new here. You might admit that it is a phrase that can be easily taken out of context.
Is this affecting your married life, or life outside of work (her life)?
No, do not stay out of it. Encourage, but do not force it on her. It’s like telling the guy that his actions are ok because people dont want to disrupt the chain all because of who he is. How much effort does she have to go through to avoid contact with him?? Is he harrassing anyone else? What if someone else comes along and is subject to his behavior? Basically - How LONG will this go on until something is done??? This will not go away on its own, and personally I think it is a disservice to others when someone expects/wants another to “get their hands dirty” and take care of business. Some companies (most likely large ones) reserve the right to fire anyone who knowingly ignores harrassment of any kind instead of reporting it. I have witnessed a couple of people getting fired because they did not report an incident that they witnessed.
Maybe put a bug in her ear, such as:
What if another woman becomes a victim to his harrassment and he takes it to yet another step, she reports it but noone believes her because this guy has a clean record & perhaps she couldnt work long enough to gain some concrete evidence.
Now - what are the chances of his perfect record getting a blemish? Even if another woman steps forward?
Harassment cases are extremely hard to prove! If your wife is receiving a lot of ammo to build a case, she is doing a diservice to every victim/survivor out there. What is it going to take to get your wife to see that ignoring it will not make it go away - him groping her breasts? between the legs?
If I was on a jury panel and I heard plantiff indicate that he/she wanted to deal with it their own way, I would have a hard time empathizing with that person. If the defendent took the victim approach (person is sour because they didnt get promotion/called off affair/etc) I cant say I wouldnt wonder if that wasnt the case… why? because the plantiff did not take the documented (yes, I said DOCUMENTED) steps to officially stop the defendant.
Blah… I’m rambling… but I’m hoping this explanation would help your wife to see that not taking action is more harmful, IMO. Oh, and she will not be able to take care of this on her own - it could seriously backfire and harm her.