March 9, 2006
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IT’S TRUE…I DESERVE IT
The “Sexual Harassment” post below made featured content. On the rare occasions this has happened I’ve found it to be a dubious honor because I get all sorts of off-the-wall comments.
I got a really unusual one yesterday. It simply said “You’re a Democrat, so deal with it.” I suppose that this implies that because I’m a Democrat I deserve to be sexually harassed. Or perhaps this person believes that all Democrats are sexually promiscuous and harassment is simply a normal byproduct of our libidinous life styles. It’s hard to tell. They did try to soften things up a bit, though; they concluded with “no offense.”
I chuckled and clicked over to see who my commenter was and was surprised to find that it was a 14 year old girl. I’m certainly not going to have any sleepless nights over the opinion of someone who is 14 but I’ll have to admit that I find it disturbing that someone that young can already be filled with seeds of hatred toward others different from themselves.
Maybe “seeds of hatred” is a little overly dramatic for a 14 year old. I remember the world being a pretty black and white place at that age, but hearing a belief that others deserve bad treatment because they are different than you come from someone that young gave me a cold chill. I suddenly had visions of the movie “The Boys from
Thanks to everyone for your advice, I really appreciate it! (A special thank you to my son for his incredibly poetic rant that I am committing to memory. My favorite line – “Now get your hands out of your pants and let’s get back to work”). For the time being, I’ve decided to document the comments but pretend that I don’t hear them and simply change the subject every time it happens. Perhaps if they don’t get a reaction it will fizzle away. I thought I was done with Jr. High, but the 14 years olds just keep popping up.
Comments (24)
You’re right. Their behavior is very “junior high”. Maybe, like during REAL junior high, if they get no rise out of you (no pun or harassment intended!) they will go their pathetic way. This proves some school yard bullies never grow up! It’s a shame about the cynical 14-year-old. When I was 14, had Xanga existed, I don’t think I’d ever have enough nerve to leave a comment to an ADULT!
Kathi
You are right about the “seed” thing. The frightening thing, is that such a politicized conclusion over a question of sexual harrassment came out of a 14 year old. Obviously, it is drawn from the parrot reaction of dismissing anything which requires any semblance of critical thought response, which a 14 year old is quite capable of excersizing, but that may be a thing of the past when critical thought process was required. Then again, the current craze of political punditry, as presented by so called adults, is perhaps equal to that of a 14 year old: a mindless shout down and dismissal of anything which requires brain activity. “I don’t like or can’t deal with what you say. It requires me to think, compare and contrast and eventually defend my own position. You must be a Democrat, plain and simple.” It is not only dismissive, it is a concealed form of dehumanization and it is dangerous and to “seed”, as it were, such automated response in the young, well, that’s just wrong.
What I find even more astonishing, is that out of all the wit and intelligence of your observations, whether in more serious mode or light heart, that one entitled sexual harrassment was the one which drew the most response. Not that the entry wasn’t important, it was; however, it only goes to show what alerts even the most casual xanga travellor’s attention.
Peace~
Ohmigosh….what a visual! Dear Departed used to put his hand right inside his waistband of whatever he was wearing when he told a joke. The kids still laugh about it and do it to make me laugh.
I am constantly amazed at the level of prejudice that comes out of the mouths of babes. I too wonder where they get it. Now for my part, I have a middle son whom I think has decided to be exactly the opposite of dear old mom and dad. So as liberal as we are, he is conservative. I am amazed at some of the things that come out of his mouth and I wonder where they heck he got it from. Certainly not from our teaching. But at times I think he says a lot just to get a rise out of us. Documenting is good, but don’t take too much crap from them. Sometimes bullies need to be dealt with swiftly. LOL.
I don’t recall even having a political affiliation at 14!
I had a political affiliation. I was in the Babes and Mt. Dew party.
I think I still have my membership card somewhere.
At a staff meeting this morning, we were shown a video about sexual harrassment. In it, a nice but clueless guy named Frank makes inappropriate remarks. He gets charged with sexual harrassment and finally comes to realize that, even though he didn’t mean anything by them, his remarks were offensive and harrassing.
NOTHING Frank did comes even close to the level of vomitus you are experiencing at work.
Point being, if you wanted to pursue it, you could make all kinds of trouble for your company on that basis. Lawsuit city. But when it was all over you might have to leave Oklahoma and move to civilization to escape retribution. (Yes, that remark was prejudiced, but not sexually harrassing.)
Jr high? You’re Mr. Lucky. I deal with Romper Room, every single day.
xoxoxo
I seriously think that at 14, the apples are not falling far from the tree.
Don’t let that silly teen deter you from listening to the occasional voice of wisdom under 21. There are a lot of immature kids out there (I go to school with them every day), but there are a few who really do care about what goes on outside of popular culture and getting a date!
Good luck with the harrassment issue at work–I think you should speak to your manager and have a meeting with the offender. If things don’t change, go back to your manager and request corrective action. If that fails, request that employee’s termination.
Best wishes!
That is why MANY of us disable eprops… we want to AVOID featured content!!!!!!
I had a co-worker ask me how big my nipples were once…. I ignored him…but if you wanna get a lawyer- see if he’ll take two cases for one fee and we will both get even. I dont think “getting even” is biblical…but if we think about it we can come up with a way to justify it…right?
a 14yo ann coulter wanna-be is even scarier than buying a new bikini . . . although, this may be the type of person the poop brown bathing suit was made for . . . you know, the person who is full of shit but doesn’t know it.
seriously, it is sad when a kid is that closed minded.
I have many friends on here from either political party, I love them all just the same. Yes, a 14 year old has not even LIVED yet so she doesn’t have a clue. It’s sad, they have so much to learn yet.
RYC: I would be more than happy to come hook it up, as soon as you start smearing some mayonaise on some desks. If you can make any of these guys cry or get fired, I will personally steal you a fiber mux and then you can have bandwith running out your wazoo! wait is that sexual harrasment? How about “a whole bunch of bandwith”!
Reminds me of the many occassions when I have been teased about my body at work – I am rather well endowed for my ethnicity so the guys AND girls go at it. Until 2 years back, I shut a whole conference room of people up by saying that “you guys are bordering on sexual harassment and I could sue you for it” that they realised they copped a big OOPS there. I said it because they were making racist jokes about a colleague of mine who was of Indian descent, then proceeded to poke fun at my body surplus’. I have had occassions when women friends/ acquantainces made fun (some close friends still do) about my breasts and on a few occassions I look at them condescendingly and sneer “When you’ve got it, flaunt it” *pause for effect, followed by bitchy look* “Oh dear I forgot, you haven’t got ANY”.
The look on the face? PRICELESS.
Or maybe that 14 year old just said she was 14. But maybe she’s 44……it’s so easy to pretend to be something you’re not on the internet.
I’ve had a few youngsters come my way and act all high and mighty and judge me….Bah! Little buggers need a good sound spankin’!
OK Mr. Mark…men and “done with junior high”?…..I thought men were never done with their junior high behavior!….only sort of kidding!
I like that you are documenting and ignoring, hopefully, if true to junior high behavior, they will stop, cause it is only “fun” when it gets a reaction out of you, and no reaction means not fun…
I would probably have gone to her site and asked her what being a Democrat had to do with it.
Wow, that’s pretty sad, but unfortunately not very surprising. The divide in this country is only going to get further as long as we have Bush and his cronies in office–at least IMHO.
I’m sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through at work–I REALLY hope you get it straightened out soon. You need to come to Asheville; I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t get that kind of harassment here (yep, I’m still smitten with this place
).
Regarding your last post – do your workmates know about your blog?
The “you are a Democrat so you deserve it” bothers me. I guess she also thinks the poor who are Democrats also deserve to be poor…has to be what she hears at home. Sad, but she can still be saved, it is the 50 years who think that who really bother me. Good luck documenting.
People like that shame the fourteen year old community. Even though I’m not fourteen yet. We’re not all that bad. Just the vast majority. I apologize on behalf of my largely misguided people.
RYC: LOL that is sooo true about Sarah J Parker. She does remind me of the witch from Oz. But she also reminded me of Jennifer Aniston. I think it’s the chiseled jawline and cheeks. Which looks a little masculine on a women, but comes from working out rigorously and having no body fat. I know people think I’m odd, but I find that look somewhat attractive. I can see why a guy wouldn’t though.