This industry is an extremely male dominant industry.  Not that I have a problem with male dominance but just to give you an idea the building I’m in is only 8.7% female and that includes a few males that dress and act like women.  The men who give me tips on how to wear my hair or makeup and wear gold ankle bracelets work inside and not “out in the field”.   It is just the nature of the business; the majority of the females in this world don’t want to do this kind of work.

**note I said they don’t want to not that they can’t so dig your panties out of your crack and go wash your hands**

The few females who do work “out in the field” are tough and certainly NOT feminine in any definition of the word.  No makeup, no nails, Levi’s and a T-Shirt, hair stuffed through a ball cap or chopped off, they smoke, they cuss and a few of them even spit.  In other words they are “just one of the boys”.  So when a sexual harassment suit came to light and a whole department of the male gender was fired over it people sat up and took notice.  Or rather the male population’s blood pressure shot up, their nuts and appendage got stuffed between their legs and their joking set aside for now.

Then the shuffle happened. 

One of the female participants (there were 2) got shuffled into our department inside the building.  A department where she is only the 3rd female out of 27 people – yes she is considered a minority.  Not in the sense that she isn’t Caucasian but in the sense that she is female.  Nothing out of the normal here.

Not wanting to be prejudice I didn’t form an opinion about what happened because I didn’t have any solid details and only had the whispers at the water cooler to base my opinion on.  Not a good solid footing if you ask me.  Now I have had the chance to work in close proximity with her and form my own opinion based on what she told me happened and the observations of her actions I can say that I disagree with the firings that took place.  Some of the men who lost their jobs had been here 20, 25 or even 30 years. They have wives, children and in some cases grand-children to support, this was the only life they knew.  It was a knee-jerk reaction by the company.

Now, calm down, I’m not advocating sexual harassment in the workplace unless the harasser is me and the harassed is 6’2”, brown eyes, nice chest wearing tight Levis and has his appendage freed from between his legs (a special thanks goes out to Mike my eye-candy).  As a matter of fact I have been on the receiving end of some harassment from Lustful Larry who thought that rubbing his penis on my arm would just make my day.  I posted several times about Larry and since I’m too lazy to look them up and link to them here you can check out my blog index and find the Larry posts yourself before curiosity kills the cat.

The issue I have is with some of her comments in front of the currently employed males.  She wants to act like “one of the boys” but got offended when they, in turn, treated her as “one of the boys”.  The beginning of the sexual harassment issue started with a male commenting on how tight their jeans were.  I wasn’t there so didn’t hear the exact comment nor was I there to judge the tone of voice used – it might have been a sneer as far as I know.  What I do know is that yesterday I overheard her describing to one of the male population about her riding her Harley wearing a halter top, boots and skin tight Rockies.

I’m confused – why is it alright for her to talk about herself wearing tight jeans but not alright for one of her peers to speak the same language?

In general, Men are simple creatures that lack the complexity that women have in their brains and their emotions.  If you want to be treated like one of the guys then they will treat you like one of the guys and won’t realize, until it is too late, that they shouldn’t treat you like one of the guys on the 3rd Tuesday of every month with an “R” in it.  If you don’t want to be treated like one of the guys then quit acting like one and set some boundaries.  For the most part (Larry aside) the men here treat me with the respect that I expect and demand and treat myself with.  Poor Larry eventually did come to an understanding of what I wouldn’t tolerate from him after several “Come to Jesus” meetings.

This woman is wild and thinks nothing of discussing her nightly escapades in the office.  I heard her talking about picking up guys in bars, going to concerts and great details about the births of her daughters.  She left the door open along time ago and by discussing these things herself made it ok for the male population to say anything - no holds barred.  Then she got offended and people lost their livelihoods over her lack of indiscretions.

Like Affirmative Action it is a sad day when the pendulum, set in motion to correct something, then swings too far the other way.