I’m working at my low-wage, customer service job when a male coworker from another department walks by. He asks if I’m being paid to stand around and look pretty. I shrug it off. A week later, I’m clocking out and he asks another male coworker, from a third department, if I can be told to stay later because they need something pretty to look at. The second coworker says that probably won’t work out because I won’t be paid for the extra work. The original guy says, “Oh, she doesn’t have to work. She can just sit there and look pretty.”
I’m a woman, half the age of the man harassing me. Like a non-person. A thing who is there to be stared at, who doesn’t do real work, or have a subjective experience. And who “should” be flattered by being treated like a fucking object.
