Sexual harassment is a constant fight, let us not relent

A few weeks ago, Standard Media Group held a conference where they were celebrating their mentorship program and introduced their latest cohort of mentors and mentees to each other. One of the topics covered was Sexual Harassment, especially in the workplace. They began by first describing what sexual harassment is and gave various instances of sexual harassment. According to ReachOut Australia, sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual behaviour that’s offensive, humiliating, or intimidating. It can be written, verbal, or physical, and can happen in person or online. In the office, it often manifests itself as superiors asking juniors for sexual favours for them to help them professionally. At that moment, my brain felt like a computer with many tabs open, and in a second, the tabs all synchronized with many stories and instances where I have listened to my friends tell me about their personal experiences with sexual harassment and I remembered a few of my own experiences. 

Listening to her, I realized how much sexual harassment has been normalized in our society. I remember sharing a story on my sexual harassment and the response I got was “That’s how men are” or “Boys will be boys.” I remember feeling so dismissed and disregarded. Like my experience was not valid. Mind you this was a female authority figure in my life. The experience that hit me at that conference was a different one though. I was working in a certain institution a while ago and I had a couple of supervisors I was reporting to. One of the supervisors was from a different department so we did not interact as much. After a while of seeing each other around he started hitting on me but I ignored his advances. He got the hint and stopped pursuing me. 

One day, the internet in the office stopped working and my phone’s internet bundles were not functioning as well. I had an urgent document in my email I needed to download and since he was in the office, I approached him and requested him to hotspot me for five minutes since it was urgent. He first asked me why I ignored his advances and told me he would only hotspot him after I told him why. I should have walked away in that instance but against my better judgment, I did not. I went ahead and told him that I was not willing to go out with him since I was not ready to sleep with him. He looked offended and his whole demeanour changed. Since I had answered his question, I asked him to hotspot me and this is what he said: “I only hotspot women I’m sleeping with.”

X’s Story

I have loved acting from a young age. I started acting in primary school. In high school, I joined the drama club to nurture my acting talent. After high school, I joined the travelling theatre where we would travel to different high schools and act out set books. On campus, I still pursued acting. When I was in my second year I was approached by a group of fourth years to help them with their film project. I accepted their request and we started rehearsing. During the rehearsals, everything was okay and things transitioned smoothly. 

Shooting day came around, and we were on set filming. I was playing a major role and the scene was a party. I was escorting another actor to the party. We were dancing the way people normally would. Some actors had been given the role of dancing inappropriately if they had to. I was not among them. While dancing, one of the producers who was also part of the cast spanked me. It was on set, the cameras were rolling, and I felt so humiliated and annoyed. We had to stop. I yelled “Cut.” I was very uncomfortable and we had to take a break. We finished acting later and the incident made me never want to work with them again. The director was annoyed that I had stopped the set. He was a bit fifty-fifty about the situation but went ahead to tell the guy that it was wrong. A few ladies on the set agreed with me and the producer was warned against doing certain acts without consent. 

Y’s Story

It was a school event I was attending. Some of the guests there were from the media sector. As I was networking, I came across a writer from a certain media house. I was in my third year of University at the time. As we were conversing, the writer asked me what I wanted to do in my career after I’m done with school and my reply was I wanted to be a news anchor. This man looked at me and proceeded to say, “Good Thing you are good-looking because you will have to sleep with a lot of people to be a news anchor.” I was left questioning my career choice and started second-guessing whether or not I wanted to pursue it. It was offensive and left me feeling horrible.

Z’s Story

I recently joined an organization as an intern, a few months ago. It was all going well until recently, my boss asked me to sleep with him so that he could give me a job. I recently finished my campus studies, I am awaiting graduation. My boss knows I need a job that is why he keeps asking me for sexual favours. It is getting out of hand that I cannot do my job properly since he is always coercing me to sleep with him. I am the firstborn from a single-parent family and I need this job but I don’t want to sleep with him. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

All these experiences by young girls are subconsciously teaching them that they need to use their bodies to advance career-wise. There are countless untold stories of other girls who have experienced this and worse. Almost every woman has a story of sexual harassment because it has become an every other day occurrence. What society does not realize is that these small occurrences chip away at women’s esteem and the normalization of sexual harassment invalidates our experiences and feelings. Sexual harassment is a gross violation of women’s rights and needs to be treated as such. 

Article by Benedette Wanyaga- AMWIK Intern