By: Sally Pyne

I’m not surprised. Any woman my age (I’ll be 60 this summer) knows first-hand that there are men that commit sexual harassment & misconduct on “the regular” and get away with it for years. Even as a little girl we learned about these things. I guess those men were the sexual predators and child molesters. In grade school, we knew to wear shorts under our dresses because Mr. F liked to stand behind us at the drinking fountain and look up our skirts when we all lined up to get a drink of water after recess. We warned the new girls about it and instructed them to do the same. In junior high, when we studied human physiology we knew our science teacher would be asking the girls if they wanted to go out to the green house area with him privately so he could show us how to listen to our hearts using the stethoscope under our shirts. The older girls warned us about that one and we carried on the tradition to tell the younger girls to decline his invitation. Both these men are deceased. If they were still in the classroom I would feel supported in reporting them in this new culture of change.

That is the change I AM surprised about-that the days of just tolerating sexual harassment and misconduct might be ending. Human Resource departments are not just pacifying women who report-action is taken, no matter how “high up” the offender is, it seems. There have been incidences in the past that were championed for women suffering in the workplace. Remember the Mitsubishi Motor plant in 1996? That news made The New York Times and a car plant representative stated that they were “surprised and horrified by the manner that the incident had been brought to the public’s attention. A public spectacle had been made of claims against the company.” Oh my-if we only knew then…….

I remember thinking how brave those women were. As many as 700 had legitimate claims to a “hostile and abusive work environment.” There were workplace trainings implemented at many businesses. What constituted harassment? While overt and lewd actions were obviously offenses, I remember many men questioning why using words like “honey” and “sweetie” were wrong, and displaying calendars of nude or scantly clad women in their office spaces were a problem? I worked for an agency that had been contracted to hire the initial 2900 employees at Diamond Star Motors and had to explain to an older man there why he was not allowed to sneak up behind me when I was sitting and working and give me a “massage.” It creeped me out for sure, but HE was offended that I would say such a thing. Luckily, he wasn’t my boss and had no way to retaliate against me. My warnings to other females there inoculated them as well. That guy is deceased too. Honestly, my stories are endless, and sadly, I am confident that other women have many similar stories as well.

I’m wondering if this is a generational thing. Certainly, some of the offenders in the news were a bit younger than me, but there seems to be a pattern. Can I be so optimistic to think that younger men “know better?” Is it possible that mothers who had to “put up and shut up” taught their sons about respecting women? One can hope. Maybe our recent “public spectacle” will be an agent of change for our culture.

I also want to acknowledge that there are wonderful and decent men in the world who are astounded and embarrassed that others of their gender could do these things. I also wonder if there are those that committed their offences so long ago, and have corrected their ways,that will begin to “out” themselves, confess and turn themselves in, rather than wait for the women they violated to report them. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Would they get to keep their jobs? It’s hard to say how much more this will “play out,” and what will ultimately come of it, but for now I am pleased that the silence of abuse has at least turned up its volume a bit, and those with secrets might feel safer in bringing the offenders in to social awareness. What does the future hold? A workplace where everyone is treated with respect and given an equal opportunity to achieve their best.

Dr. Sally Pyne is a lifelong resident of Normal. She is a retired educator and served both Illinois State University and Lincoln College Normal. Her husband Ed owns the Normalite newspaper as well as seven other weeklies in McLean County.

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