As someone who is considered a leader in the community, I encountered a woman who shared with me that she had been touched inappropriately by a well respected local professional. This took place in a clinical practice, where she works as a para professional. She was prepping this man as a patient for an annual exam and, according to her, he reached out and placed his hand on her hips, giving her a few short pats there. She expressed to me how shocked she was when he did this, clearly recognizing it as inappropriate. She didn’t say anything, but immediately after told the owner of as well as the manager of the practice.
The patient was a friend of the owner’s and also a practicing physician. They both practiced in different fields and often patronized one another for an exchange of services. This fact was known, so this patient was viewed as one of the owner’s personal friends. Upon hearing of this inappropriate behavior, as reported by the employee, the owner deeply apologized for this behavior, also denouncing this man as a real friend. He explained that this man was a bit of a jerk and should not have done that. He apologized and expressed how sorry he was that it had happened. The manager, upon hearing the report, also offered a heartfelt apology, expressing how inappropriate this behavior was. The woman who experienced this just cried and the issue was taken no further.
As this story is being told to me, I am becoming deeply bothered. I’m not only upset that this happened, but that no one in leadership took any further action to bring it to this man’s attention – making it so our level of accountability to one another as humans has no chance of being exacted in this situation. By them simply apologizing on this man’s behalf, they excused him from the conversation. I expressed that I thought the man who committed the act as well as the owner and manager needed to all be addressed. I committed to getting involved to ensure that this happened. I took the man’s name and left the conversation to plan my next steps.
The next day a received a message from this woman, asking me to please not do anything. The message included how she didn’t want anything to jeopardize her job and how HIPAA regulations say that she should not have even shared this information with me. Upon reading this, I become more bothered. I began to consider how this system of domination culture is so strong that it hinders a person’s ability to expect and, if necessary, even demand for basic human respect to take priority over social hierarchy. I also realized that this woman had suffered a loss of power and agency. Even in my pursuit to help, if I brushed her fears aside and simply took charge of her situation, I too would be in a sense, taking power from her again – another powerful man taking ownership of something very personal and private to her, and without her full consent. I reached back out to her and let her know that it was not my intention to be overpowering in her situation, that I was glad she shared it with me, and that I’d be here to support if she decided to take any further action. I didn’t quite know what else to do. I really question this entire system though.
There is a deep play culture of pay equity and lack of advancement that induces a long term sense of powerlessness in working class people. Single moms who have taken on the burden of providing for their family, but who have also sacrificed advancement in exchange for stability, are trapped in feelings of powerless. Sexual misconduct in the workplace is sort of sponsored by this larger system of domination culture in the workplace. There are so many ways to challenge it and I don’t feel like we do enough on a consistent basis. We only appear to want to point fingers at the misconduct, but have yet to turn our attentions to the larger system at work.