Listening To: News about Corona (probably like an awful lot of other people these days). In particular been listening to Last Week Tonight
I didn’t really think I’d be posting about stalking on here; I guess it’s unavoidable. It’s a problem, and one I wish I could say I had no experience prior to this. I’ve had several experiences in the last ten years or so? I’m not going to talk about all of them. I will be talking about the one’s that have occurred in the last year though. In the last year, my family has had two cases of stalking, that have had varying degrees of response in the workplace in how it was addressed and handled. Mine was the more positive overall experience, and I have to say there were probably a few different things going on to make it so. The biggest thing, and I’m annoyed I have to say this, is that I am a girl and my claims were taken more seriously by higher ups in the company I work for for that factor alone. My brother is getting some very different treatment in regards to his own current, ongoing issue. Fair warning: this is going to be a fairly long post and I did try to cut down unnecessary details where I could.
And before we get too deep into what happened in each case, I want to just define a few things. They are pertinent to how I’m viewing this whole issue. The first is going to be how I define feminism. I’ve told people before that I’m a feminist, and I have received the response that I’m not because I’m not a bra burning feminazi that would like to see women more powerful then men. I’m not feminist because I am a very feminine cis-gendered woman instead of some butch “fuck the patriarchy” non-conforming person. I’m not because *insert bullshit stereotype* here. I reject that because those stereotypes reject, in my mind and in the mind of non-extremists, what feminism is. Which is to say: I call myself a feminist because I am seeking to change things so that everyone has equal opportunities and equal access regardless of race, gender, sexuality, etc.
The second thing that I am going to define here is stalking. I taught about stalking in college with MVP a few times. The definition that I personally work with, and I think is reasonable is this- Stalking: harassing another person, often in an aggressive, threatening and illegal manner which creates room for reasonable fear. I’m going to be using my two experiences in the last year to show that a: not all stalking is overtly aggressive, threatening but can still cause reasonable fear, and that b: when the above definition applies BUT it is to someone who identifies as male, it’s not taken seriously.
So, for my story, I owned a ’96 Ciera Cutlass. My baby was about as old as I was, and I was very, very proud of it. It was one of two in the city I live in, and my brother has actually met the owner of the other; we apparently made the same jokes about being twins. I digress (this is not about the other owner, just intended to give an idea that my car was fairly unique). I say was because I no longer drive this car so I have no real problem mentioning the type of car it was.
I also have never really had an issue talking with people about my car, for the fact that it isn’t a common car and I was very proud of it. So when someone came into work one day asking about it, I didn’t think much of it. My co-worker thought that this guy had hit my car and that was why he was asking about it. So I answered it was my car, and he starts telling me that he noticed my car a while before hand, and had figured it had to belong to someone who worked at the store I was in because it was always there when he came in to shop. I thought the comment odd, but it didn’t send up any red flags at the time. To be fair, I was rather distraught that day about a number of personal things. At that time, I thought one of my family members was in the hospital dying, and I was not thinking clearly.
This guy then spends about fifteen minutes talking to me about my car (I was fifteen minutes late leaving the end of my shift due to this and it was adding to the stress). Specifically he was asking me questions about how I take care of it, and then proceeding to tell me all the things I was doing wrong to take care of it. In spite of being insulted by the way he was talking to me about this, I was trying to disregard it considering my mechanic loved my car since it was very well taken care off. So I finally get to leave, and I go to meet my mom at the bank to take care of rent before we’re supposed to go leave for the hospital. To my relief, my family member was okay and had more than likely taken a sleeping pill without remembering, because they were perfectly healthy.
I told her that I would go tell my brother who was still at work . I get to his work place, and at first he’s worried until I tell him the news, and then do a bit of shopping. I wasn’t getting much but I do remember I was getting some lemon creme filled creme horns (I stress eat and even though I was relieved the stress had gotten to me pretty badly that day). As I was in line for self-check out, the same guy that had been talking to me at my job comes up behind me, unnecessarily close, and starts asking if the creme horns were my dinner and if I was on my lunch break.
I was freaked the fuck out at that point. I curtly told him no, scanned my items, and scurried out of the store. It started to click for me that this guy had a: more than likely followed me from work, to the bank, to the grocery store and had more than likely followed me in the store as well and b: had worked out enough of my schedule to know that I was a regular worker at my job and that all he would have to do was ask around a bit. I did not go straight home. At that point I actually looped around my city for a bit until I felt reasonably sure no one was following me, and went home. I made my mom get my brother from work that evening with no real explanation why I didn’t want to go out. I mentioned it the next day to one of the other managers and she agreed to help me keep an eye on if anything else happened, and for about 2 weeks all was quiet. I thought that was the end of it, and I’d let myself get worked up for nothing.
And then he came back, and I will be honest I didn’t fucking realize it was this guy, because I work with dozens of people a day. I vaguely recognize peoples faces and go: oh they must have come to the counter at some point or another. So when he was standing at the end of my counter asking how I was, I didn’t think anything of it. I said I was fine. And then he starts asking how my car is doing and IF IT’S WHEELS ARE STILL WORKING. Like what the fuck kind of question is that? And it immediately clicked. I gave him a curt kind of: “my wheels are working perfectly fine, thank you,” kind of response and made a mental note to go check my car later. I wish I could have ducked into the breakroom at the end of my counter while he walked away to use the bathroom, and avoid further contact, but at the time I was in the middle of something very time-sensitive and could not do so. When he came back out he proceeded to tell me that at some point he should come and bless my car.
All of this creeped me the fuck out. It was enough that I was actually shaking when I asked the other managers that were there at the time to come back and talk with me, so that I could tell them what had happened and ask what to do from there. Turns out this guy had given them a hard time up front, and we’d actually managed to get his name and information off a check, so that if we needed to follow up with higher ups about that, we’d have that information on hand. We also pulled up video of the guy so that all managers knew what he looked like, and could warn me if he came in the building until we were given further direction.
I stopped driving myself to work at that point. The next evening he came back before I got a chance to leave for the day. It was just at the time of clock out, and our evening manager caught me before I headed out, and hauled me into the office, where we monitored for when he left. He came in and out of the building three times. And one of the times we caught on camera him turning and going down to where I had been regularly parking my car. It was on the opposite end of the parking lot from where he was parked. I know this because my ride was outside waiting for me, and observing his behavior.
With all of this information, I went to my store manager the next time we had a shift together, talked to her and we agreed that our district manager needed to get involved, and that I was not to be handling this individual alone, and was to be warned if he came in, at which point I was supposed to go to the nearest locked room (usually the break room) and wait for him to leave. Our district manager agreed that it was creepy and forwarded it up the chain. We were told there wasn’t much more that could be done on their end and that if I wanted to pursue it with the police I was welcome to, and that the way we were handling the issue, at that point, was the best they could offer. It was honestly more than I was expecting since my previous experiences with stalking hadn’t been taken too seriously and that was by police officers.
Over all, I think that this has been decently handled. The solution is not the most convenient for me, should he come in. He tends to come in for 45+ minutes at a time and will leave and come back in multiple times before we’re sure he’s left. It makes my job difficult at best. But, that said, at least I felt like the people I work with had my back the whole time. I felt like they took it seriously and did everything in their power to try and make my working environment safe for me to come to each day.
Now. We’re going to contrast that with my brother’s experience. He’s been dealing with a co-worker who is not the greatest of guys. For the sake of avoiding confusion here, we’re going to call his co-worker Bob. This is not his real name, or anything close. Bob does a lot of… questionable things. Bob has been reported multiple times for harassing comments about a range of things including race and sexuality, and my brother has been one of the people that reported Bob multiple times for such comments. One of the times my brother reported Bob and Bob had gotten in trouble, he told my brother casually that he (Bob) had wanted to be a hit man. That was about six months ago, give or take? I don’t remember how long ago this whole issue started. It is an on-going saga of one thing after another.
It’s a fucked up thing to say, especially when you’re talking to a dude that has reported you for making harassing comments. Not enough on its own to constitute stalking, threatening behavior, but it’s a start. Let’s fast forward to the last month and a half or so. Turns out, every time my brother has his back turned and he’s on the same shift as Bob, Bob is glaring at my brother’s back. Fun. Still not enough.
And then we get to blatant cyber stalking. Bob is out back with my brother and a female co-worker looking up personal information about the female co-worker on his phone during work hours, and commenting how easy it is to find out information about her like her birthday, where she lives, who her family is and who she talks to. This girl is understandably horrified and uncomfortable. He then proceeds to try to do the same thing to my brother. My brother is, apparently, much more difficult to find, but that’s got a lot to do with the fact that he and I both try to minimize our online presence.
At this point, my brother is feeling extremely uncomfortable and at least moderately threatened by this guy. He tried reporting it to his section’s manager, who had brushed off both my brother and the other co-worker who was being harassed by this behavior. My brother, unsatisfied with the continual lack of handling Bob, went to HR, thinking at the very least THEY would do something about it. His HR representative, when presented with the information, told him point blank that they didn’t consider it a problem of stalking because he is male and that his co-worker had a stronger claim because she is female. Unsurprising, the female coworker’s case about cyber stalking had also been dismissed during this conversation. She then proceeded to tell my brother they would go about enforcing the no cellphone on the floor policy and dismissed the issue entirely.
I have to say that I find that response appalling. There is a case of reasonable fear in all cases. My brother’s co-worker asks him to wait after his shift ends now, until she gets off work and they’re both on the same shift with Bob for obvious reasons. My brother is more than happy to comply with that request to make sure she leaves safely. I applaud him for taking the extra time out of his day to do this for her. It shouldn’t be a necessary act.
What I’m going to say is this: how we react to stalking should not be limited by gender. Telling someone that they have a “stronger claim” because they are female and you are not is absurd. Having people in a position to help you, and having them deny that there is an issue, despite how clear there IS an issue is concerning. For people having problems like that (and this is the same advice I gave my brother) I have a few things you can do next: first of all, reach out to people that you trust and have you back for support. Having a support system is definitely going to help you feel a bit better emotionally. If you have a case of someone that you are supposed to be reporting to not doing anything and just dismissing the issue, go to the next person up, or if you need to, go to the police, and at least make sure you have the issue reported so that if it escalates further, you have a trail of paperwork to make it easier to handle then. Finally, there are always hotlines that you can call that have advice as well. This also applies whether it is a case of workplace stalking verses relationship stalking.