#MeToo: Women tell their stories
Editors’ note: Some of these stories depict graphic and upsetting scenes of sexual assault, abuse and harassment.
After more and more allegations about Harvey Weinstein, actress Alyssa Milano urged her Twitter followers to respond “Me too” if they’d ever been a victim of sexual assault or harassment. The words soon became a hashtag, and by the next morning, the words were everywhere on social media.
The reason was obvious: The problem isn’t just Weinstein. And it has to stop.
On Facebook, we asked followers if they’d be willing to tell their “me too” stories to the Chronicle. The response was fast — and powerful. Here are just a few. Jennifer Mathieu: I almost felt like I didn’t deserve to put “me, too” because the only bad things that have happened to me have been things like getting groped or having my butt pinched in the grocery store when I was 7 and at an Ikea when I was 23 and, oh yeah, that time my 10th-grade driver’s-ed instructor asked me in front of a male classmate if I wore panties underneath my cheerleading skirt.
It’s not so bad, I tell myself. Like, industry standard for being a woman.
This is why every woman you know has a quiet rage burning inside of her. This is why we walk at night with our car keys pointed out between our fingers and our breaths held. Lavanya Rajagopalan:
I was 5 years old when a teacher held me back after class repeatedly each week, held me on his lap, put his hand under my skirt and in my underwear and fondled me while rubbing himself against me. Every week. After class. (Ironically, it was a religious scripture class).
I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know it was something I should “tell” about — no one had talked to me about anything like this. I told my horrified mother at 13 when we glimpsed him in traffic one day and it all came back to me.
That was the earliest and most egregious instance; there are other sundry instances of groping, masturbating, harassment. Kimberly Miller Yates: I was 22 or 23, working in a law firm, and a state rep asked, “What can I do for you, or to you?” It absolutely impaired my ability to work with him.
This was my first job after college, and the incident was essentially my introduction to one of the facts of work life. Deborah Quinn Hensel: I started walking home from school in fourth grade — about a mile, and almost always with a classmate. With alarming regularity, we’d be catcalled by guys in passing cars, but also, about every six weeks, some car would pull over and the male driver would call us over, offering candy, asking if we needed a ride or saying, “Come here and let me show you something.” This went on through high school. We learned to steel ourselves, turn our eyes away and just keep walking. It became a routine part of our lives — and it never should happen to any child. A ndrea Terrill: Like a lot of us, my problems started at puberty. It kills me that the moment a girl’s breasts start to develop, she’s fair game. I put up with a good bit before I finished high school, but one incident sticks out because I should have been in a safe place.
My family was spending a week at a churchaffiliated retreat in the mountains, and I wanted to play basketball. I went down to the gym where I found a group of men choosing sides for a game. They invited me to join them, and everything was just fine until one jerk suggested that we play shirts vs. skins, and that I should be on “skins.”
I was no older than 14, and these were all dads. There was some uncomfortable laughter, but no one apologized or called the guy out. If a father in a church gym sees no problem harassing an adolescent girl, it’s no wonder the problem is this big. Laura Curtiss: I was never raped, thank God, but assaulted several times.
I was fondled as a 12-year-old by (a city official in my hometown) while being given a tour of City Hall. I think he stopped because I was wearing a pad and had just started my period. Star Massing: It only really occurred to me when my son was about 15 and he wanted to walk to the gym by himself in the early evenings. The gym was only about a mile away, but I was so worried about letting him go on his own that I would constantly offer him rides.
One day, my husband said to me, “Seriously, what are you worried will happen?”
At that moment, I thought about all the times I felt fearful just walking home from school as a teen. All the catcalls, all the offers for a ride, all the lewd comments. I wouldn’t dare walk alone in the evening! No way!! And I didn’t want that to happen to my … Oh, wait a minute. I have a son. That doesn’t happen to boys?!
Apparently, not as much. My husband and I talked at length, and he could recall only one creepy guy that would hit on some of the boys in his neighborhood, and everyone knew about it. Otherwise, it just didn’t happen.
I remember thinking, “Wow! How very lucky for you!!” It was such a big part of my life growing up that I honestly assumed it happened to everyone in their youth — including boys.
I honestly don’t know a single woman who hasn’t experienced this sort of harassment growing up. Katie Leiva: I was probably in seventh grade, maybe eighth. My school bus driver was friendly and would joke with us, but he started this thing when this older girl would get off the bus, as she took each step away, he’d say, “de-dunch, dunch, dunch … .” Sounds silly, but he made the sound with each footfall to let you know he was watching the movement of your ass.
I felt awkward when he did it to her, but they seemed to laugh about it. The first time he did it to me I was embarrassed, I felt red-hot inside, and I couldn’t turn around. I told him to stop it, and he laughed and kept doing it. He didn’t drive away until I took a few more steps so he could continue. I still remember that feeling, and it was worse than any subsequent catcall I can remember. Cynthia Walker: The worst was being 15 years old and having a male piano teacher “press himself ” into my back while I played. And then feeling bad, like it might have been my fault, because I was braless. Debbie Mueller: I was 15, walking from the parking lot to the hospital where I worked for a summer job. A car pulled up at the corner where I was waiting to cross, and a man leaned over and said something.
I thought he was asking for directions, and I wanted to be helpful, so I bent down to figure out what he was asking, and he had his penis in his hand, masturbating.
I cried when I got to work. Some of the ladies I worked with were sympathetic. Others laughed and said I’d toughen up over time. Marisa Brodie: I was at Warehouse Live. I got a margarita from the bartender, who was a friend. I stood for a moment by myself enjoying the opening band while my friends smoked cigarettes outside. A man tapped me on my right shoulder. I turned to look, but he was on my left. I guess this is when he spiked my drink because the next thing I remembered was waking up the next morning with vomit in my hair.
No one in my group believed me. “You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” they said.
“I only had one drink,” I protested.
“You should have eaten more, then.”
Another time, I was at a concert at Rich’s with two friends who were interested in each other, making me the third wheel. All night men asked me to dance, and I politely declined. One man persisted, and I finally gave in. When he got too close for comfort, I excused myself to the restroom. He was waiting for me when I came out.
“There were too many people in there,” I said. “I am going to find another one.”
Suddenly, he picked me up over his shoulder and took me across the building. I was kicking and screaming. No one helped me.
He put me down in a bathroom stall while he was blocking the door. He pushed coke in my face, and then he was kissing me.
I played along long enough to maneuver around him. I pushed the door open and it swung out, hitting a man peeing in a urinal. I ran out and found my friends.
I never went back. In fact, I stopped going out altogether. Brenda Gonzales Jones: The attitude of “live, learn and move on” is precisely what’s gotten me to the here and now without regularly reliving the terrible instances that might have made me a “victim.” I absolutely refuse to live life as a victim. I am a survivor. Hear me ROAR! Rachel Fairbank: In January, I was assaulted in a university library, in the middle of the day, by a complete stranger, the kind of man I would have never looked at twice. In spite of the fact that this assault happened by the elevator, in broad daylight, there were no security cameras that captured either his face or the assault, and he was never caught. Based on his knowledge of the lack of security cameras, as well as his complete brazenness, I suspect I’m not the first woman he’s assaulted, and I probably won’t be the last.
He was a groper and a flasher, and it is so, so hard to describe just how terrifying and humiliating these kinds of assaults are, even the assaults where you remain unhurt and manage to get away. Lynn Goode: When I was in my 20s, and seven months pregnant, I was in a management meeting at the insurance company where I worked. As (a senior member of management) was leaving the room, he whispered in my ear, “Pregnant women turn me on.” I was horrified. Sarah Gabbart: Just one time (because, like many women, there’s more): At 17, I was driving home from a friend’s one night and realized there was a car keeping pace with me. I was in an SUV, they were in an SUV, and their window was even with mine.
I slowed down, they slowed down.
When we passed under the streetlights, I noticed why: It was a man masturbating. He was looking square at me and seemed even more excited by the look of horror and disgust on my young face. It was awful.
I’m 36 now and still have the image of this in my mind. Joyce Abbey: In a summer off from college, I worked … for a company in Clear Lake. One of the engineers there flirted shamelessly with me. One day he entered my office — I had my back to the door. He closed the door, I heard him unzip. I never turned around. After what felt like forever, he zipped himself back up and left the office. Janis Holt Shaffer: I was 18 and working as a medical assistant for an ENT. One day it happened to be just the two of us closing up the office at the end of a long day. He grabbed me, held me in a tight hug and tried to kiss me. I pushed him off, ran to my car in tears and immediately started to plan how soon I could quit that job.
I will never forget it. My skin is crawling even now, 40-something years later. Suzanne Boase Honeycutt: When I was a 21-year-old news intern, an executive at a majormarket television station cornered me and mauled me. He stuck his tongue down my throat and touched me.
I was embarrassed, terrified and did not tell anyone. I didn’t know if I would be believed and thought it would end my career. I had to interact with him several times moving forward and made sure I was never alone with him again. Marcy Goodfleisch: In the military, back in the ’60s, I lost track of the times someone harassed me verbally or physically, and then laughed, called it a joke or even worse, said, “What’s the problem? Isn’t this why you joined the Air Force?”
In the ’70s, a man in my office (private sector) yelled out, “Hey, bitch! Make some coffee!” This was not the first incident, but it was the worst, so I resigned immediately. I reported it, filed an EEOC complaint, and I won. But I refused money because that would have said it was all about money.
I saw the guy in a store sometime afterward, and he laughed and said he’d told the owners (who were in another state) that I was “the type of woman who might complain.” There was a witness who verified what he had done, which is why I won the case, but the guy was not fired. Barbara Friedel McKnight: While working at a five-star hotel in Switzerland years ago, my station had a reach-in that I had to squat down to access. So, one day, the saucier sneaks up behind and places the toe of his clog so as to come into full contact with my lady-parts, causing me to spring up like a jackin-the-box, much to the mirth of 14 other male chefs gathered for the occasion. So I pretend to laugh it off, and the guy turns around to accept kudos and back-slaps. I grab the water hose filling the steam-jacketed kettle and stick it down the back of his jacket. Tap water in Switzerland is ice-freaking-cold. He is completely doused, right down to his woolen socks. Squish, squish, squish. Exec chef makes him work the rest of his shift that way. All invite me out for beers later. Fight back, sisters.
He was a groper and a flasher, and it is so, SO HARD TO DESCRIBE just how terrifying and humiliating these kinds of assaults are, EVEN THE ASSAULTS where you remain unhurt and manage to get away. I was andI DIDN’T embarrassed,did not tell KNOW anyone. terrified IF I WOULD BE BELIEVED and thought it would end my career. I HAD TO INTERACT WITH HIM SEVERAL TIMES MOVING FORWARD and made sure I was never alone with him again.