{"id":859,"date":"2021-06-22T15:30:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T15:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/?p=859"},"modified":"2021-06-22T15:30:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T15:30:25","slug":"on-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/on-power\/","title":{"rendered":"On Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.<\/em>” -Alice Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.<\/em> -Gloria Steinem<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trigger warning: This blog details incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault, which may be triggering to some readers.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 21, 2019, 8:03 a.m.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple hours before I was supposed to meet my colleague, Debby, I sent her a text to reschedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDebby, I am very sorry to have to do this\u2026but I need to reschedule our coffee. In short, I was sexually harassed yesterday and need to meet with my boss this morning to discuss next steps. Thank you for understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debby responded immediately. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you go get this settled and then shoot me some dates that you have that would work for you? I am so sorry that you have to deal with this. Dammit!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met with my boss at my day-job on that morning in June 2019 and walked him through the incident that had occurred at the harasser\u2019s office. He asked how I wanted to handle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see him again, I don\u2019t want him to contact me, and I want off his subcommittee,\u201d I started. \u201cI also want to write him an email explaining why<\/em> he is no longer permitted to contact me anymore in any setting, and then I am going to block his email address from my Outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He asked if there was anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, the only emotion I had shown was anger, which my male boss reciprocated in solidarity.  The harasser\u2019s behavior was inexcusable on so many levels. It would have been unthinkable to have not<\/em> been pissed and disgusted. I turned my head, trying to maintain the hard exterior I was conditioned to believe led to success. I paused to the point of discomfort\u2014not because I was trying to develop additional conditions\u2014but because the last point was the hardest for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I said. I had to stop to clear the lump in my throat and blink away the tears that had formed. \u201cIt\u2019s not right that people like him stay in positions of power. If he sexually harassed me<\/em>\u2014someone who let him know very<\/em> clearly what my boundaries were more than once\u2014imagine what he\u2019s done to the people he\u2019s supposedly serving, who are a lot more vulnerable than I am.\u201d And then, my final condition: \u201cI want him off the leadership team and committee entirely.\u201d My boss agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shut my office door for the rest of the day, communicating only with my boss, the office manager who screened my calls to ensure that the harasser didn\u2019t make it through to me, and my two female friends on staff who affirmed that the harasser\u2019s behavior was, indeed, sexual harassment. And then I did what Quality Improvement Practitioners who are Type-A Virgos with a background in research, writing, and advocacy do: I set my emotions aside for the moment so I could clearly and objectively document every interaction I had had with the harasser leading up to the incident. With it, I tucked away the knowledge that one day, I was going to make this shit public in a meaningful, productive way. I just had to be patient and ready for when the opportunity arose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 27, 2021, 10:22 p.m.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My phone lit up on my nightstand as my husband and I watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show<\/em> in bed. The message from a friend was an image of a Facebook post from a woman I didn’t know. The post concisely detailed her achievement of getting a man kicked off the Board of a nonprofit I was familiar with. I sat up in bed, startling my husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shared the post with him. The harasser wasn\u2019t named, but he didn\u2019t have to be; I knew exactly who it was. \u201cThis happened before<\/em> he harassed me,\u201d I said, \u201cwhich means I was right. He just keeps doing this, and he keeps getting away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sent the woman a friend-request, and she accepted within minutes. Without going into detail, I shared that I, too, had been sexually harassed by this man, and thanked her: \u201cI\u2019m sharing this because I never felt safe doing so before because of how many \u2018leaders\u2019 laud him and allow him to be in positions of power. Thank you for being open about this so others (like myself) can be too<\/em>.\u201d We exchanged messages offline, and I learned that her name was Rachel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receiving the screenshot and connecting with Rachel was no coincidence. I\u2019d had a nagging feeling the previous week that I needed to \u2018get ready.\u2019 Ready for what<\/em> exactly<\/em>, I wasn\u2019t entirely sure, but I contacted human resources and requested the file regarding the sexual-harassment incident almost two years prior. Without additional thought, I saved the files and checked the task off my to-do list. I didn\u2019t know it, but I was getting ready for the work that Rachel I were about to do. Her post was the link I had been waiting for and would become the bridge to sharing my story in a way I could help others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Process and Power<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting Rachel Richardson for the first time instantly felt like community. We learned that we\u2019re both writers, feminists, and solution-focused advocates, so it didn\u2019t take long for us to go from sharing stories about the harasser to putting together a plan. The outcome we desired was simple: disgrace for the harasser<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My background as a Quality Improvement Practitioner kicked in. The kind of work I do at my day-job, and in my life-coaching business, MillenniAlign, uses frameworks to systematically improve outcomes by stabilizing processes and reducing variation. I brought up how disgrace for the harasser wasn\u2019t enough of an outcome for me: I wanted to share with others how they could overcome sexual harassers in positions of power using the process we\u2019d develop. I figured that, if we were going to go through the trouble\u2014that is, the risk<\/em>\u2014of creating a process to challenge the status quo, we could use this as a quality-improvement opportunity, community-wide. Rachel agreed, entertaining my excitable nerd-musings on the importance of things like \u2018operational definitions.\u2019 We decided to blog about what we were doing (the old \u2018build-the-plane-as-we-fly-it\u2019 approach) and develop an easy-to-follow guide of sorts for what is likely a not-so-simple process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the six weeks we\u2019ve been meeting\u2014and particularly after I read the first draft of Rachel\u2019s blog that kicked off our On Drowning Rats<\/em> series\u2014I\u2019ve been flooded with memories that I thought I had tucked away years ago. Sexual harassment is not just a single incident that can be isolated when seeking healing. For me, it\u2019s a weighty backpack of the various traumas I carry with me daily, without the privilege of pockets to sort the acts of sexual harassment from the acts of sexism from the acts of sexual assault, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male restaurant owner who, when I put in my two-week notice, told me that I was just going to \u201cdrop out of high school and get pregnant like every other girl\u201d my age. (I was fifteen and an honors student. [And I did stay to finish my two weeks, for some reason.])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male doctor who performed his \u2018updated\u2019 version of a scoliosis test on me when I was finally old enough to drive to my annual checkups without my mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the boyfriend who wanted to take things further than I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male coworker who would come up behind me unsuspectingly on the retail floor to whisper sexual things he wanted to do to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…It\u2019s the male friend who began stalking me when I became single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male boss who told me to \u201cflirt\u201d with one of my client\u2019s account reps so I could deepen \u2018our\u2019 relationship with the company. It\u2019s that same male boss who told me that he was giving me an account because the account rep \u201clikes pretty girls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male coworker who was shocked to learn that he had gotten so drunk at the Christmas party the night before that he left bruises on my ass from smacking it while calling me a \u201ccock-sucking whore.\u201d (He kept his job, by the way.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the group of boys in school who sexually assaulted me, and I was too scared of the social consequences if I admitted the truth. (So, I lied when asked what happened.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…It\u2019s the adult male coworkers who referred to me as \u201cjailbait\u201d when I was a minor, and I had to ask someone what that meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the married male trainee who invited me to sit on his lap while I fixed his computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…It\u2019s the three large males who descended on me at a club when I was in a hallway by myself, two of them restraining me until I fought my way out of their grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male manager who revealed the serious acts of sexual harassment happening against me, lies that had been spread to literally dozens<\/span> of male coworkers and customers, only after his<\/em> own reputation was in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…It\u2019s the male customer who cornered me on one of his visits to show me a photo of his pierced penis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It\u2019s the male friend who, just days<\/em> after I confided in him about sexual harassment I had experienced and he asked how he could \u201cdo better\u201d as an ally, sent me a contextless message of an anus made of punctuation marks and a cringey movie clip of two children \u2018turning on\u2019 an adult woman in a chat room by talking about anal acts. (This alleged \u2018friend\u2019 assumed the role of \u2018gaslighter\u2019 after I expressed shock and subsequently blocked me.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s these accumulated attempts to devalue me as a woman\u2014as an executive, as a leader, as an employee, as an advocate, as a creative, as a community member, as a patient, and even just as a <\/em>human\u2014by those who are in positions of power, whether those \u2018power\u2019 positions are real or perceived<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked an older female mentor why<\/em> women are still<\/em> having these conversations, her response hit me hard: \u201cPower doesn\u2019t want to let go of power.\u201d The incidents that I have experienced, including the incident by the harasser who will be the subject of the On Drowning Rats <\/em>series, were never about sex. They were always<\/em> about power, the brand of power that is used over<\/em> people rather than with<\/em> them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a point of clarity though, this blog series will be focused exclusively on sexual harassment and how we can push back on this version of \u2018power over.\u2019 We won\u2019t spend much, if any, time on incidents of sexual assault or violence, or discrete acts of sexism. This will help us stay in scope with our desired outcome, and should not be interpreted as minimizing the messy, unpredictable trauma that occurs when harassment breaches into the territory of assault. Should you decide to follow Rachel\u2019s and my journey through On Drowning Rats<\/em>, we invite you to take care of yourself along the way. Reach out to your support system and\/or consider therapy if you feel triggered. You are valuable, and your worth is so, so<\/em> far greater than the backpack of trauma you, too, carry. Thank you for supporting this mission of taking on, and reclaiming, power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How You Can Follow and Support Our Work<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sign up to receive the On Drowning Rats<\/em> blog series here: https:\/\/forms.gle\/YLK419ag8qhw3p5v6<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the name of valuing our work, time, emotional toil, and toll, we humbly request that, if you are in a position to do so, show your support in the form of Patreon contributions. We will: gather and offer resources and publish pieces to distribute throughout the community; establish a system where we see results when we call out our harassers; and create a culture where women need not question our sense of self or existence in spaces we have every right to inhabit. Sign up here to support our mission: https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/girlpartspp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not in a position to support us financially, you can play a role in advancing this work by forwarding this to a friend and sharing on social media. You can also request to join the private On Drowning Rats<\/em> Facebook group and engage in additional discussion, share resources, and come up with solutions for accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cami Roth Szirotnyak is a writer and intersectional feminist, and is the owner of MillenniAlign, a life-coaching business for millennials. She publishes postmodern fiction under the name candy broth. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram at @millennialign and @candybroth.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” -Alice Walker Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself. -Gloria Steinem Trigger warning: This blog details incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault, which may be triggering to some readers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[21,22,23,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlpartspp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}