7 Degrees of Sexual Assault
You can't call it rape? Fine. Let's call it "the power of being an authority figure assault".
I imagine this is how the degrees of murder and manslaughter were born. Yeah, he did it, but you know, the guy stole his wife and copulated with his daughter. He really had a basis.
So, why, when we’re talking outright rape, full-on vulgar abuses of power, why do we not have 74 different options to call these pieces of trash what they are? They’re rapists. They’re using their authority like a giant penis stamp, just smacking it across whatever woman’s’ life and career they see fit.
When I was a young woman, there was an engineer I worked with. Good looking man, young wife, and kid, absolutely sexy dude. But married. I don’t operate that way. I never have and never will, and I’m very vocal about it.
One day, we were reviewing some prints, in his very private office. The air in the room changed. I placed myself between the door and his desk because I was a young woman, not a stupid woman. He grabbed me, inappropriate in any corporate setting, especially when a seasoned engineer is doing so with a young, female engineer just trying to learn the ropes.
I didn’t just let it go. I went to my boss. And his boss. And do you know this douchebag screamed at me, in front of an office full of people? Not because he did it, because I had the nerve to tell on him. He couldn’t believe I would try to ruin his life, his career.
What in the actual fuck? How did I try to ruin anything? I was trying to do my job, to review a drawing with a man who knew much more than myself. I made a mistake, sure. I went to a mans office. Alone. I guess that said to him “she’s looking to be groped, and made to feel like trash because she called me out on my behavior”.
Was it rape? Absolutely not. Did he assault me sexually? You bet your ass he did. Then he shamed me. And the powers that be? They decided as long as we didn’t work on any projects together, the problem had solved itself.
This is how corporate America, led by men, for men, in the interest of men, deals with the sexual abuse of women. Every single day, young, bright-eyed women like myself are shattered when they find that, ultimately, how smart they are, or how motivated they are, that doesn’t matter. How they look in that double-breasted jacket and slacks is what matters.
I remember dressing myself down, I remember going to work without my make up, tying my hair into a bun. Anything to make myself less of an object, more of a brain. Why? Why was it ok for that engineer to assault me, but if I walked up and punched the accounting manager in the throat, they would have had me hauled off the property in handcuffs?
No, it wasn’t rape, but if we were given degrees, yea. He jumped right onto the 3rd-degree train right there. He put his hands on me in a sexual manner, then he demeaned me, then he humiliated me. He raped my reputation. I moved on from that job within a year. It was never the same.
There is a lot of talk about Weinstein and the favors he did for these women, and why accept the help if you weren’t into the filthy trash groping you? Because sometimes, in our career, we have to tolerate things like what that engineer did to me, like what Weinstein did to those actresses. Because sometimes, as women, we really don’t have another way. I couldn’t go to a firm and say, hey, I don’t know anything, but you should hire me.
Instead, I thought that working under this awesome engineer was a gift. Turns out I paid for that gift with my self-esteem and self-worth. In the end, I was ok. I wasn’t blacklisted for calling him out. But my life isn’t Hollywood. I imagine for the circles that they travel inside of, those actresses thought if they didn’t submit to that man’s authority, their dreams were dead.
So is it rape? To some degree, yes, it is. To have power over another human being and use it to make them feel they owe you sexual favors, that is rape. It may not be forced copulation by violence, but that’s not the only form of rape. Sometimes, it’s just grabbing a woman’s’ breast and thigh and making her out to be a whore to the rest of the staff.
Sometimes, it is promising a career for a blow job. Sometimes, it’s making a child feel they owe you for being a refuge in their storm. All of it is rape. And there should be a degree in the law that covers it. It’s the only way we’ll be able to hold these men accountable for the abuse they continue to wield, the giant penis stamp they continue to smack our work cards with. I just want to do my job, Mr. Penis, the one I’m qualified to do. Is that ok? Or should I just assume the position?