Last edited Mon Apr 6, 2026, 10:39 AM - Edit history (1)

I know for a fact that is why I was never able to get anywhere professionally. If I wouldn't fuck or blow somebody, my paycheck was either lower or I wouldn't get the job in the first place. Performing sex for a job was a dealbreaker for me.

It was part of the 3 martini lunch routine, men became really handsy after lunch. Like you, I ignored them and got the reputation of being mean. I received a good salary and union benefits, so f um. I was an administrative assistant, no real opportunity to move up. Didn't have to tolerate their bs, as long as I could type.

"Mouthy" because I stood up for myself and could outwit them in conversation.

Sometimes it was kind of fun messing with the wee minds of those poor dolts.

As well as "aggressive" and "feminist" (said in a demeaning manner).

In one meeting where I would not let a point go until my emphasis was made, I was told to "let it go" by one of the black male members there. I was stupefied. I had stood up for him on so many occasions, and yet here HE was cutting me down on a point that was vital to my continued willful employment there.

After the meeting, I couldn't even be around him, I was so angry. I thought if we minorities can't stick together to get things done for ALL of us... we're ALL going to fall once again!

The next morning at the office frig, he had the audacity to say "do you have anything to say to me" (Meaning an apology). Honestly, the thought had never crossed my mind... but I DID let him know basically what I said in this message. And I told him his PHD didn't mean diddly squat to these white men when it interfered with what they wanted, and I'd get off the high horse about it. Simply because he had risen through the ranks for gain the money to afford himself study and hard work toward a PHD didn't mean everyone else was beneath him... and that women were still (and especially in the DoD) on the bottoms of the almighty totem poles.

I tell you, he was taken aback with my attitude! Couldn't believe that a short white woman would dare talk about the disparities of employment among minorities and not shut up and be totally on his side! I don't know that he ever "got it"... and mores the shame for it, IMO. It never stopped me from sticking up and helping those around me, regardless of where they were in the social pecking order... and I considered myself a better person for putting myself out there for them.

As you can tell, years after it happened, this event still raises a passion in me.

I was dealing with a rough crowd but I still managed to stand my ground no matter what in sort of the same way. In many cases, I simply had to show them I had the skill sets I proclaimed and that I could actually do their jobs better than they did. Usually shut them up pretty quick. The managers required a little more effort but I often had the upper hand in the situations so that was helpful.

I try not to relive those events now, though I may write a book in the near future regarding my experiences. I'll save my excitement for then.

Self-publish it if you have to, but tell your story and get it out there! Our stories, every single one of them, are IMPORTANT. They are part of our history and need to be told! Do it!

I usually look sardonically at a type of male who is not really creepy and is relatively harmless, but potentially likely to jump into a fray that doesn’t even involve them going all “Duurrrr I am a man! Duuurrrr I deserve to exist!”
Usually those are low power men themselves and not really a threat, beyond the drag of now having to tell this person “would you mind? I am trying to catch this creep and don’t want to do this.”

The worst is the meninist who learns to use the dumbest type of argument I see from a type of “left” in an inverted form as if that has any viability when you are no longer dealing with a fool or a bot. Where I live, this utterly brainless type is common. I see them on my street all the time. Total Darwin Awards candidates. I can read their pea brains without any sensors or implants.

This btw is not the genuinely doltish type. This guy is roleplaying cluelessness. Give me a break:
https://www.science.org/content/article/meet-three-scientists-who-said-no-epstein?__cf_chl_rt_tk=X.jGqrRgZvApcuxsXbEQYhuSNeYeSbJPQVprvN2pl_o-1775486604-1.0.1.1-mGEXBhtyNUXDauFj9pGSwJIaa9EtaRkXapxq87tvjGk

That Angus guy is full of shit. Morality my ass.

To handle tangible sexual/other harassment than this polite expectation that one should pretend not to find a PanOpticon built by people like these innately creepy:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Andy_Rubin,_Google,_and_Sexual_Harassment_in_Tech

My experiences with actual male scientists and doctors was largely pretty decent even in fields like Physics that skew male. But these creepy types unsurprisingly cluster in fields with a high background of snooping, manipulation and social engineering.

Google and Facebook sound like such unhealthy and creepy workplaces. I never felt creeped out in purely academic workplaces, especially as there is way more gender balance closer to the biological and medical sciences. But even physics and engineering can be okay.

The last 20 years of generalisations online imo inadequately identify the precise dynamics that lead to sexist, creepy and hostile workplaces. More research of this type (but focused on sexual harassment) is needed:


I don’t care I realized that it is an uncomfortable topic. But where I get hung up sometimes is when some generalisation or other strikes me as inaccurate due to a statistically significant enough number of counterexamples or where some dynamics are attributed less weight than others while totally being important etc.

I have lately become better at untangling skeins of thought inside my head.

I thought such topics make me uncomfortable. But now I realize it is just that I glitch anytime something is too imprecise. These are topics that are notoriously difficult to parse. But still by now we should be doing a better job than the stuff that passes for discourse.
I liked Allison Taylor’s work on corruption very much and found it comforting and useful over the years:

https://acgc.cipe.org/business-of-integrity-blog/the-characteristics-of-corrupt-corporate-cultures/

Something similar is needed to dissect the dynamics of sexual harassment beyond the truisms we are familiar with. Like how profit driven by building a creepy surveillance capitalist PanOpticon is essentially stealthily laying to waste any common sense understanding of sexual harassment laws as they used to be where so much widespread creepiness and snooping would automatically have been called out as voyeuristic and harassing.
But when forced at scale, crickets..

Who would trust those Google and Facebook creeps.
I read this cynically and contemptuously and rolled my eyes:
https://observer.co.uk/news/international/article/the-academics-who-stuck-by-disgraced-epstein-to-the-end-and-those-who-didnt

I am shocked at the number of women in there. This is an elite disease. You really don’t see these many women lower down actively consorting with such disgusting men in routine life imo.

I am extra scorched earth about these creep types. Which oddly makes me reflexively ingratiating to random men so I don’t get accused of promoting witch hunts. I never make shit up. And it’s not like I just go around randomly attacking men or something. But you cannot go around making spaces hostile and creepy and normalizing that and gaslighting women like me as paranoid.

I try to be all “Hey! I am cool! I don’t just randomly go around demanding that men be rounded up or something! I make jokes! I watch Sunny in Philadelphia! But yeah if you are creep, you have no business accessing stuff with what this creep parade up top deems adequate oversight.”