Tales of workplace sexual harassment

Sheila’s* story

“I’m 33 years old. I’m a born-again Christian. I’ve been married three years now. For six years I worked in an organisation where my boss constantly sexually harassed me. He was 34 back then, in 2010, and was married with two kids. I worked closely with him.

“I joined the communication team of the organisation when I was still single. There weren’t many female employees there; out of 800, less than 100 were female. A majority of these women were either single ladies or divorced mums. Only a handful was married with children.

“Getting pregnant while on the job was frowned up. The bosses weren’t happy when a female employee took maternity leave. I learned that they did whatever they could to make sure the contract of the returning-to-work mum wasn’t renewed. Or they’d frustrate her with warnings when she took time away to deal with nanny or baby drama.

“I also learned that not every one of my colleagues had medical cover: it was given to some members of staff on a need-to-have basis. Pension was out of the question. We weren’t allowed to take more than five consecutive working days of leave.

“The sexual harassment from my boss started a few months into the job. He asked me when I was planning to have children. The first time he asked me, I firmly told him that my Christian values dictated I wait to get married before having children. But he’d tell me that ‘us Kenyan women’ usually have kids before getting married. He told me to give him a warning before I got pregnant. I laughed him off.

“This went on month after month. Sometimes he would come to my desk to ask me. Other times he would shout it across the office. If he bumped into me in the corridor or at the water dispenser, he’d ask me. I am naturally chubby and my weight tends to yoyo: whenever I’d add a few kilos, he’d ask me if the tummy was a baby.

“He was also very intrusive and disrespectful of my personal time. If I took a day off, he’d call and insist to know why I wasn’t at work. He’d throw in that baby question again. It’s only when I told him that I was handling ‘lady issues’ that he would back off.

“I felt downtrodden, frustrated and humiliated. I didn’t report him to anyone, not even HR.

I got married in 2014 and thought he would stop the harassment. He didn’t. I took three weeks of my leave to attend to my wedding but I had to ‘pay back’ two of those weeks until I left the organisation. I was chronically fatigued when I left the company in 2016.”

***** 

Annette’s* story

“I’m 28 and dating. I’m a marketer. I was sexually harassed in 2013. It was on the second day at my new job. I was still settling in. I didn’t think anything dramatic was going to happen in those first few days of work, and I definitely thought it was too early for sexual harassment. I mean, day two? Usually the wolves start to circle around week two. But perhaps that is insulting to wolves. Perhaps I had underestimated their guts?

“There was a birthday party in the office that day, and as in most offices, that means cake. We were lining up to get cake and then one guy – older, maybe late 40’s, with a prominent ring on the left finger and pictures of his kids on his desk – came up behind me as we were filing and grabbed a chunk of my buttocks! I’d seen the guy around the office, he had been particularly friendly to me since I got there the day before.

“You always think that you’re some independent, strong-willed woman who will be able to smack someone as soon as anything of the sort happens. In fact, you’ve analyzed the costs of a court case and a settlement. You have a premeditated dress-down for the idiot who would ever dare to.

“But in the moment that it happens, your whole body freezes in disbelief. And you do none of that. I took my cake and sat down, and later told my male supervisor about the incident. My supervisor put the buttock-grabber in his place, I assume, because he didn’t look my way or try anything again. I never tried to talk to him again.

“I didn’t report him to HR because I didn’t think it was big enough a deal. I thought it could be dealt with right there and then. The incident didn’t emotionally scar but it made me ask myself why I didn’t smack him. What was I so scared of? Was I scared of being that newbie chick who is so dramatic and everyone thinks is problematic? I also thought about his feelings – he had a family and kids. Reporting him to HR would make him look bad.

But I wish I had smacked him. I really do.”

*****

Mary’s* story

“I’m 29 and single. I work as a creative in advertisement. I was sexually harassed by my senior in 2013.

“I’d been working at that agency for a few years. I was comfortable around my male colleagues because I’d built this rapport with them. We spent a lot of time together working on client deadlines. We were casual buddies. They understood my boundaries because they never did or said anything to offend me. They respected me as a woman.

‘One time, I was working at my desk when this senior manager came up from behind me and ran his fingers across the back of my neck. He wasn’t on my team and I hadn’t worked with before. We had no relationship beyond sharing office space. I was startled. I turned around and told him not to do that again. I was stern and made it very clear.

“I suppose he ignored my warning because a few days later, he did the same thing. I was appalled this time. I wasn’t going to stand for that nonsense. Just because he was a senior didn’t mean he had the right to do as he pleased. He had intruded my personal space. I felt dirty. So I got up from my seat, turned around and punched him right in the nose! I actually don’t remember what happened to him – I don’t remember if his nose broke or if he bled. I really didn’t care. I didn’t even care if the punch threatened my job.

“I got back to my seat and carried on with my work as if nothing had happened. Most of my colleagues and friends with whom I shared the incident found my reaction too extreme and violent. But I’m not apologetic about it. I grew up in a flower farm in Naivasha. I saw many women on the farms being raped and assaulted by their supervisors. The response from management was always the same: a committee would be formed and the families of the two would meet so that the rapist could be reprimanded. The case usually went quiet after a few months and he would rape another woman again. I couldn’t stand for that back then and I won’t stand for it now. As a woman, you have to call these things out as they happen.”

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Types of workplace sexual harassment

Quid pro quo means “this for that”. It involves expressed or implied demands for sexual favours in exchange for some benefit (say, promotion or pay rise) or to avoid some detriment (say, termination or demotion). It’s perpetrated by someone in position of power or authority over you. Clearest example: a supervisor threatening to fire an employee if he/she doesn’t agree to have sex with them.

Hostile working environment harassment arises when the speech or conduct is so severe and so pervasive that it creates an intimidating or demeaning environment or situation for the employees.

This type of harassment can be perpetrated by anyone in the work environment – a peer, supervisor, subordinate or customer. Such cases of harassment are not as easy to recognise; the individual comment may not be severe, it may not be based on sex and there may be long stretches of time between offensive incidents.