When I was all of 21 or 22, I worked for a publishing company. The VP told me what font and font size to have a certain manuscript set in. When it came in, he denied that he had told me those specifics. The entire book had to be reset.(This was in the days of hot type, way before computers.) No one believed that he had told me incorrectly. Everyone assumed I had made an error.
That was my introduction to “Don’t trust anyone at work, ever, no matter what they say to you.”
Oh, @KKmama , I’m so sorry about what you have endured.
Our D was accused of plagiarizing in middle school because she used words the teacher didn’t think are common for middle-schoolers. D was highly offended and the teacher realized the “big words” are normal in D’s vocabulary.
I feel so sorry for those who weren’t believed by family when complaining of assault/abuse. That would be devastating!
In a more comical episode of me not being believed…
Between my mom’s first and second marriage, she dated a guy who seemed pretty nice. (She probably shouldn’t have dated after divorcing my dad because she ALWAYS chose horrible partners.)
Anyway, Mom really wanted my brother and I to like him. She sent the three of us off on a day trip to a cabin that was owned by an aunt’s family. Mom sent along a small pan of cinnamon rolls so we could have some sort of a treat.
So we spent the day on the beach or fishing in a boat. I know that my brother and I were in and out of the cabin all day (it was a frequent childhood destination.)
At some point, mom’s boyfriend exploded at us, as there were two missing cinnamon rolls. Both my brother and I denied eating them. The guy didn’t believe us and was mad the entire way home (couple hour drive.)
Turns out Aunt’s parents had dropped by and helped themselves to the cinnamon rolls. But noooo… my brother and I were liars. ~X(
I too was not believed many times early in my professional career. What can possibly a blond girl know about chemistry? A senior chemist with a stellar pedigree (Princeton U degrees! Postdoc at a very famous lab!) told me to do something that would have never worked… when I tried to explain that what he suggested was destined to fail for a very simple reason, he went off the rails and told me that he would get me fired for questioning his authority. Guess who eventually got fired? 
i’m ashamed to say that i’m the person who didn’t believe. One of my closest college friends was aggressively approached by one of her professors…he grabbed her and tried to kiss her (this was completely out of the blue) while she was in his office…she was shocked…he backed away and then burst into tears! When she told me about it later (we were both 20), I thought she must have done something…we (everyone) LOVED this professor and couldn’t imagine.
As the decades passed, i’m of a couple of feelings around this…many years ago, I apologized to this friend and we’re still very close…but i’ve also felt a conflict about the moment…had she turned him in (and I"ve talked with my friend about this), we both know that he would have been fired (or taken off track) right away had this gotten out…he had a sad story…his wife had recently died…well, anyway, you guys don’t need to hear about all of this…i guess i"ll just say that life is complicated.
@KKmama: I must have been typing my post while yours appeared; I didn’t see it. If I had, I would have responded to yours before posting my [relatively insignificant] issue.
I know you’ve had a lot of challenges with your husband. {{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}
This happens/happened to me all. the. time.
When I told a friend that I was groped by a high school teacher, she didn’t believe me (“oh, he’s just like that! It doesn’t mean anything.”)
When I first started my research career and would suggest something in lab, like @BunsenBurner , my suggestions were openly derided because I didn’t have a PhD and because I was a “girl” who was only marking time at work until I had a family. (Yes, I was told that…several times…) Of course, this was the same boss who ranked the admins by how pretty they were and how sexy they dressed.
A few years ago, when I was working as a technical writer, I was editing a manuscript for my director – a man with PhDs and MBAs who still couldn’t comprehend the difference between “lose” and “loose.” He went ballistic when I changed his “looses” to “loses.” What did I know? I didn’t have an MBA or a PhD!
All. the. time.
Still.
On a lighter note, my parents STILL don’t believe me about a party in high school. I’d been at a house party at my BF’s house and had a say 10 pm curfew. I called them and they agreed to come get me. I gave them the address. My BF and I sat there on his curb for like an hour waiting. Back before cells, of course. Then I called back and they yelled at me saying I had purposefully given them the wrong info so I could stay later. No ma’am I did not! And it still pisses me off to this day. There have been others but I have tried to forget them.
Ok one more and this is a bit more sexist but also thankfully innocent. I drove to a party in HS where there was drinking. And when I went to come home, the key would NOT go in the ignition. I was buzzed and freaked out. Eventually I called my dad because I was past curfew. And he was all condescending and stuff and “Let a boy try…” REALLY?!? When he finally came to get me (it was a ways, again at night) the ignition had literally fallen apart. Booyah.
“.i guess i"ll just say that life is complicated.”
This.
Just glad we survived on so many levels.
?This…
I have many stories of harassment. Grown men and young men feeling they had a right to talk to me in an inappropriate way. I have heard friends’ stories of assault. Serious, life changing assault. One of my kids (male) is in therapy because of of sexual violence. I hate getting up and turning on the TV and hearing more men talk about how this is a smear campaign.
This thread really is a must-read. My social media feeds are full of similar stories of sexual harassment and assault that were dismissed by parents, bosses, acquaintances, and authorities at the time. And people wonder why more women don’t come forward. Tragic.
Thanks to those of you who have had the courage to be vulnerable and post such personal stuff in this thread.
I had many incidents as a young adult. I had a icky incident with a priest in catholic school in 8th grade. Not touching - but verbal. I’m no longer Catholic. I’m glad to be old and fat and ugly now. #MeToo
When I was a freshmen in high school, I had a really mean, b*stard of an English teacher. He assigned an essay and then failed everyone in the class. When he handed them back, he gave a lecture about proper essay format – Thesus, supporting evidence - conclusion, etc. He was horribly nasty about it, but the information was excellent and something I had never heard before. It clicked with me. For the next essay, I used his format exactly and it was really quite good. He called me out and accused me of cheating because I had shown such improvement. I told him that I just did exactly what he taught but he said that students never listen or follow his suggestions so I must be cheeting. I had to explain my entire process for him and the principle before I was eventually exonerated. I hated him, but his writing lesson served me well.
I am not surprised by any of this at all. I had parents who would have taken any adult’s word over mine just on general principle, and would have thrown me under a bus in a heartbeat if it meant staying in the good graces of someone they deemed important. I never even tried to stand up for myself - I knew it was pointless. Fortunately, sexual abuse was one thing God spared me and for that I am thankful.
A group of my friends and I were discussing this issue this morning. Of the six of us, all understood exactly why women do not come forward - they are not believed and their lives are ruined. We all knew many more women who had not reported attacks/harassment/incidents than who did report. And the few we knew who did report didn’t have good outcomes.
Sexual assault and harassment is so, so, so common. It’s a measure of our society how many of us have experienced this and how rarely does anything happen to the perpetrator.
I was believed, but declined to take it further than telling my parents, who absolutely believed me amd who wanted to report the prof.
Night class - required for my major, and only one guy taught it. He approached me from behind during a test, rubbed my shoulders and asked me something like, “What do you think?” I didn’t feel threatened, but I felt as though an offer had been made. The prof had a reputation.
My parents and my friends absolutely believed me. I didn’t want to report the guy, and I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe because, besides having a sort of “available to date students” reputation personally, he also had a fine reputation as a teacher. He was very well liked, but “everyone” knew he was interested in more. I just wanted to solve the immediate problem without making a big deal out of it. I’d like to believe that if I had felt threatened (what I felt was that a proposal had been made), I would have reported him.
I solved it by making sure I never got to class early, always had a friend there to meet me after class, and always sat in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by others. It never happened again. It didn’t particularly bother me except that it was a night class, and I didn’t want to be alone with him.
I can’t imagine something like that happening today.
"I can’t imagine something like that happening today. "
Maybe that’s part of the problem. It happened to you so you have personal experience of it, women are reporting it’s still happening, women are still raked over the coals if they do report, why the heck wouldn’t you be able to imaging something like that happening today?!?
This is part of the problem. For those of us who treat others with respect, sexual assault and harassment are horrifying, shocking and just plain icky. It’s so much easier to pretend it doesn’t happen, to not talk about it, to not imagine it, to ignore it. We all need to stop ignoring it and face it.
@VeryHappy when I was in Germany my firm had a client like that. We used to write a memo after every meeting with him and fax it to him. It used to infuriate him, but it was the only way that we could prove that he’d agreed to something.
I’m so sorry KKMomma.
I had a couple of icky sexual incidents I did not report. One I certainly should have. I was alone in a train carriage with a flasher. I just moved to a different compartment with a family. But I couldn’t imagine trying to track down a conductor, find the words in French to describe the incident and then what? Delayed train? Would I be believed? Would the flasher even still be there? It seemed like too much trouble. And no doubt that guy continued to harrass other young women travelling alone.
I never disclosed my assault so I don’t know if I would have been believed.
OTOH, although this isn’t sexual, the following has stood with me for my entire adult life. When I was a college freshman, age 17, and on my way to graduating in 2 1/2 years, I suddenly became ill. I was fatigued, achy, lethargic and filled with malaise. I went to my doctor again and again. I was tested for mono, to no avail, several times. He finally told me that I couldn’t handle the pressure of college and needed to see a psychiatrist because I was clearly having psychosomatic symptoms. Meanwhile, my knees were the size of softballs and I could barely walk. If I sat on the floor, I needed help to get up. After about 6 months, I was visiting a friend whose brother was in podiatry school. He saw my knee and said it looked like arthritis. I went back to my doctor to ask him about that and he reiterated that I needed to see a psychiatrist. The pain was so bad that I told my boyfriend I was going to kill myself if I didn’t get help. He took me to the ER. It was my lucky day because the on call doctor was a rheumatologist. He told me I had rheumatoid arthritis and got me into treatment. This doctor actually called my regular doctor to tell him about my diagnosis and the doctor had the nerve to say that I had willed it on myself to spite him! OMG! I filed a complaint with the state licensing board and they told me that he denied everything i said. He was the only doctor I was allowed to see on our plan at the time but I made a stink and they allowed me to change doctors. I am certain to this day that a man would never have been told he needed mental health had he presented with the symptoms I had. It’s almost 40 years and I am still livid.