It’s always disappointing to see someone experience sexist harassment on the street, but it’s always worse when similar attitudes are coming from the people you have to deal with every day rather than random jerks.
And this is something that women have reported experiencing in many ways when they enter environments that are supposed to be professional. If they’re not being turned away from the job entirely due to blanket assumptions about women, it’s hardly uncommon for their ideas to be dismissed and stolen in practically the same breath.
That’s bad enough when these attitudes and practices exist on an individual basis, but it’s also not unheard of for a business’ policies to adversely affect female employees and to do so blatantly.
But it’s hard for sexist working conditions to get more blatant than what one woman had to deal with before she finally had enough.
After securing a job as a secretary and receptionist at a small accounting firm, one woman had a lot to report after seeing her family at Christmas.
As her uncle relayed in a Reddit post , the management would keep making inappropriate comments about her body, including telling her that she should get breast augmentation to “improve her performance at the reception desk” or wear a tighter dress to “highlight that figure for us.”
But the worst of it seems to come from her most immediate boss, who dangled a promotion in front of her with the condition that she go to dinner with him. When she refused, he was suddenly full of negative feedback about her performance.
He also hates using her name because it sounds too “ethnic” for him and insists on using an Anglicized version despite her protests.
And in case you think this person is specifically obsessed with her, he’s not shy about showing how little he respects women in general.
In the uncle’s words, “Boss makes sexist comments that women are incapable of holding positions of authority in the workplace and make ‘good assistants and secretaries’ because women ‘are designed to serve and obey.’ And that she should be grateful for ‘this opportunity at our business.'”
She’s brought up these obvious examples of the hostile work environment he creates to HR multiple times, but was never told anything more than “we’ll look into it.”
And considering that management doesn’t pay her for overtime hours despite the fact that she’s legally entitled to time-and-a-half compensation as an hourly employee, it’s clear that her workplace problems go way beyond one man’s actions.
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Nonetheless, that man managed to drive her to her breaking point at a meeting before the holidays that also included the firm’s CEO.
That meeting saw him stand behind the niece with his hand on her shoulder and tell her she should “strive to be more compliant in life and never say no at work.”
He also said that if she wants any chance at a raise or a bonus (which she hadn’t received that year), she should be more like his “obedient” wife.
This led the woman to stand up, slap him across the face and tell him exactly how sexist and lewd he was before quitting on the spot.
And while the uncle updated his post to say he’ll pass along that documenting illegal activity like this and suing is a better option than opening oneself up to legal liability by slapping the guy, he couldn’t help but feel proud of his niece.
h/t: Reddit | dracula912
