I work night shift at a convenience store, and while taking a fair bit of flack for working at night when only men should be working I’d mercifully been spared the most derisive comments.
However, last night when a drunk customer asked me first for a hand job and then other sexual favors, oh and he’d pay me.
I guess I forgot, female working at night?
She must be a hooker.
Oh well, guess it’s MFIF.
#MFIF
KEA, Pennsylvania
Tags: night shifts, work
September 20, 2010 at 6:50 am |
That sounds very strange to me – as well as the stories for street harassment I sometimes read here. Is this considered normal in the US?
My country has quite strong patriarchal traditions, but in most cases such behavior will not be tolerated. I’m amazed your coworkers didnt kick the asshole out of the store…
September 20, 2010 at 10:52 am |
Um, not to sound rude, but you seem to be a man. You will basically have no idea how women are harassed every day on the street in every country I’ve been in, and all the ones where I’ve spoken to other women.
I feel quite confident in saying no country in the world will be immune. It’s just that the arseholes who do that kind of thing won’t generally do it to a woman under the “protection” of some man, i.e. in front of you. Lone women are fair game.
September 20, 2010 at 1:11 pm
It’s not rude, it’s a fact. No need to apologize. Also, it is sad that lone women are fair game. Reporting that is the entire basis of this site and others like it.
September 20, 2010 at 5:00 pm |
It happened to me all the time when I was waiting tables, and I can safely say I was not putting a “flirt with me” or “hit on me” vibe out when I was on the clock. I was there to bring people food and drinks, but apparently, there was a whole list of off-menu services I was failing to provide. It was sick, and put me off restaurant work for life.
September 20, 2010 at 8:30 pm |
When you say, “That sounds very strange to me,” I hear, “I don’t believe you.”
September 21, 2010 at 6:15 am |
O, I do believe every word of it. I have friends in the US and I work with American Peace Corps Volunteers here. I’ve heard lots of stories.
And I know that lone women are considered “fair game” by some people everywhere. Here too.
Its just that it seems to me, the public tolerance for such behavior is much higher in the US than in my country (which is strange, because, as I said, society is way more patriarchal here).
September 21, 2010 at 9:38 am |
That is an amazing country you live in.
I have been harassed similarly to this story in public in the middle of the day in Sweden, Germany, Scotland, the Republic of Georgia (speaking of patriarchal former Soviet nations), and Jordan (patriarchal AND I was wearing hijab).
Women don’t sit down and discuss all the times a strange man pulled out their penis at her and told her to suck it, tried to belittle and persuade her into a car with him, or pushed her up against a wall and told her what nasty things he’d like to do to her. What makes you think that you, as a man, would hear about them? Unless of course you’re in a relationship with the woman at the time – my husband knows of most things I’ve been through while we’ve been together.
September 23, 2010 at 11:28 am |
I really don’t know why you’re insisting there’s so much more “public tolerance” of it. Just because women in certain countries are more willing to speak out about the problem and report more incidences of it doesn’t mean that women in other countries experience it less.
Egypt is certainly up there on the patriarchal scale, and women there are trying to start an SMS mapping service to report harassment incidents: http://harassmap.wordpress.com/. I’m sure you’d say Egypt doesn’t have as much “public tolerance” of harassment as say the US, but it’s pretty damn evident that it’s a significant enough problem that they want to spend time and energy getting it off the ground.