When I was in grad school for social work in the 1990s, and did my internship in a large, respected nursing home, a 74-year-old retired physicist took to following me around school, and saying truly terrible things in front of other students who were horrified.
He had been kicked out of our internship for many reasons, and was jealous that I not only remained but did well; we were in a few of the same classes.
He thought his papers should be singled out. Mine were read to the classes. I trembled when we were in a class together and my paper was the one read. I hated that because I knew my “success” would make him even meaner to me.
The school was going to have a hearing to see if he should remain in school.
They kept putting it off and he remained continuing to say awful things to me and about me. Everything had a sexual overtone.
He even told people in classes that I had slept with him–never–and told his fantasies of my sexual deviancy.
I went to the powers that be and begged for his hearing to take place.
I explained the story and said that I had many witnesses both in school and at the internship who would back me.
I explained the story and said that I had many witnesses both in school and at the internship who would back me.
My supervisor had spent our sessions complaining about him to me so I didn’t even have supervision. “You’re a mature student with good work experience. You can run a residence hall on your own.” (Because of budget cuts they couldn’t get a replacement for a social worker who was out on maternity leave).
My supervisor hadn’t planned on retiring. The 74-year-old student drove her to retiring that year.
He couldn’t do the simplest assignments. He made it clear that he both hated and disrespected women because of the stories he told about the women in his life.
As I had been given responsiblities no first-year social work student should have had, our supervisor was a woman and the director of social services was a woman, he felt overrun by women. He thought we were conspiring against him. Hell, I didn’t even report him when I heard him say the dumbest things unless whatever he said would harm the resident.
I think they would have let him stay if he was only incompetent but he was nasty, and a danger to residents.
We shared an office where he regaled me with tales about sex. I asked him to stop. He told me that I was obviously highly sexed and secretly liked his stories. When I told him he made me sick, he told me that I prove his point. During a blizzard I came to work with my hair in a top knot, wearing a black, fitted zippered jacket, matching ski pants and combat boots. Before I had time to change he told me that all I needed was a whip as I looked like a dominatrix. I admit I was a flirt and if he were a “normal” man I might have asked how he liked the fantasy. Instead I glared at him. I realized later that was a bigger turn on. What did I know?
It was a relief when they let him go. I would have felt liberated if he wasn’t allowed to attend classes. Other students kept telling me they couldn’t believe what he said to me and how I didn’t react. It wasn’t a normal reaction they thought.
It was a normal reaction for me. I had a street face ever since I was nine and a man exposed himself to me and my best friend. In high school I would go into the city a lot and the noises of the city were drowned out by a cacophony of men making cat calls. I had what I considered to be “usual” experiences–an acquaintance rape, a boss who tried to sleep with me, a boyfriend who stalked me for a year after we broke up.
But that had all happened in the 1960s through 1980s. It was the 1990s and I was older. I thought the world had changed. We even studied abuse in school. Though my teacher (a male) refused to believe me when I said there was mandatory counseling for all men convicted of abuse. I asked my teacher to check my cites. He wouldn’t. I never understood that.
But still we studied abuse.
So when the 74-year-old retired physicist was going to have a hearing I expected to be taken seriously.
The Dean said I was being hysterical. She couldn’t understand it as I was so obviously a strong person, somebody people looked up to; I was a leader.
Yes, I was all those things, but does that make a man saying horrible untruths about and to me, right?
I was shocked and said that I would take legal action.
The hearing was the next week.
He was kicked out.
He was kicked out.
I was in my 40s, and had enough internal power to make that threat. Only the power wasn’t real. Once the Dean thought I was “hysterical,” I lost something important in me.
It must have been me who deserved to be raped. To have her boss try to sleep with her. To be stalked. If it wasn’t me, wouldn’t the school have immediately sided with me? Instead they thought I was a crazy, bitchy female.
School was never the same again. I continued to do very well. I even passed the licensing exam without studying while still in school.
But I had lost my love of social work.
In very real ways my confidence was shot. Later I realized it was because I continued to do well. Because I dressed well–my Betsy Johnson or Chanel-type jackets with jeans could even be construed as sexy. I acted confident, and was friendly. I ate with one of my instructors–a gay male who tried to talk me into switching to the psychology school. I didn’t exhibit most “normal” signs of abuse/harassment.
I should have dropped out. Because the female administration thought I was hysterical.
They thought that I was crazy.
Just a crazy bitchy female.
Women in power thought that.
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