Lone buck, and JASG, and any of the rest who read this. I do apologize for wrapping all of you up in the same bundle. I'm working on it. But it may take me a while, I'm sure I have allot of pain to process and let out before I am done with this subject.

Don't sweat it. I'm not taking any offense.

I don't mean to discourage you, but a _lot_ of guys do talk like that, although a good amount of them are BSing. False bravado just trying to impress other 'men'.

Perhaps I'm not pure as the driven snow (who is?), but I've always highly valued and greatly enjoyed non-sexual physical intimacy.

I've also had more than a few male friends and acquaintences question if not outright ridicule me for that view. Their loss, not mine.

Some years ago I also worked mostly around men, where many times I was the only female around.
I never heard those types of conversations, I don't know if they avoided it while I was there or whatever was the reason.
They always respected me and if by any chance one of them would say a bad word there was always another one yelling "watch your language, there's a lady here".
More recently I have been doing a different type of job but the warehouse guys in the company that I work for seem to respect the "girls". During our 3rd shift I believe that we only have one female that starts at 2 or 3 am, as far as I know she doesn't get disrespected by the male coworkers.

I believe that sometimes the employees behaviors have a lot to do with the companies' policies. Many companies simple don't tolerate that type of behavior, it's considered harassment, discrimination or something else. Behaviors like that can be punished in and employees might get terminated if they don't comply with the policies.

Did you ever bring that situation to the management's attention?

1Loop, now you really hit it. There was one, my supervisor who wasn't saying sexual things to me, but really bullied me. No the policy of the store manager was anything goes. I was told repeatedly to just deal with it. After many years, I went out of my store to HR headquarters. They threw some money at me and sent me down the road. Everyone thinks I sewed them for sexual harassment. I didn't sew them, and I was so afraid for the term sexual harassment to come up. Talk about black ball yourself. I repeatedly told them I am not saying it is sexual harassment, I would never be hired by anyone in the industry again if I did that. I lost my job. They gave me two pieces of paper to sign, one agreed that I would follow a set of rules, (different then anybody elses) and that if I so much a sneezed I would be fired, the other paper gave me a small severance package, If I signed for the small severance pkg (which was basically 8mo cobra paid, they would not fight unemployment and one weeks pay for each year I had worked for them. Those were my two choices. The severance pkg came with a legal document that I could not share this information with anyone. ooooops......I guess I just did. Oh well.

By the way. The store manager who wouldn't do anything about it retired about 6 mo. ago, and a new mng. took over. The supervisor that was bulling me for years, just got demoted, I don't know why, but he was a horrible supervisor to everyone. (ex-Marine thinks he is a drill Srg.) I guess your right 1Loop, it all depends on management.

I am so sorry to hear that, unfortunately we still have situations like that going in some work places and no one seems to care about doing anything to stop that.
But on the other hand there are many other companies with policies in place to avoid it. I am lucky to work for a good one.
Maybe this could bring you some comfort, not all men act like that around female coworkers, there are a lot of respectful guys that don't engage in that type of behavior when women are around.

I'm glad there is a better place. I will keep that in mind moving forward.

man Whipple, I have never been witness to that. That is just not right. I am sorry you were treated in such a manner.

I hope you find a better place for you.

You have never witnessed it before because companies put a lid on it. They THREW money at me, they gave me no option. They want you to sign a paper that says you have been re reimbursed for harm done AND, you are never to speak of the compensation. NEVER! They don't want women to know that most companies will pay you to keep your mouth shut. The other paper, with the rules, that was a threat, they gave me two options, both included loosing my job, one gave me insurance until I could find my next job. If I had been financially capable, I would have turned them down and screamed it for the world to hear.

I never dreamed, when I went out of my store to get help, when I asked HR to help me, I never dreamed they would throw shut up money at me, and I would be the one loosing my job. Good old boys club. Yee Ha!!!

I bet you didn't ever think that, I wouldn't, as well as many wouldn't probably.

What could they do to you if you did go public with it?

They could sew me. While all of this was going on, I read an article on MSN written by the author of a book on work place bullying. I e/m her and told her what was going on. She advised me to take the money. She told me it was common place, it happens all the time, and it really sucked, but it was the smart thing to do.

She had me write out some things that happened. She is going to put it in her next book, but she won't mention my name or the company. Thats as close to telling my story as I am going to get, unless I win the lottery, in which case I'll throw their money at them and scream my story from the highest tree.

how frustrating to not have a right or say.

be careful cus if you win the lottery they can take more money from you.

can I ask, do you feel any sort of relief (for lack of a better word), that you were able to get your story out at least in some form?

or is that hill, mountain, building........I don't know, something tall. I'm tired, this thread has brought out more stuff then I can deal with on this one day. I'm game to not talk about it anymore for now, but thank you everyone for helping me get it out where I obviously need to work on it.