Sex in the workplace is nothing new. After all, we spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our own families or friends, so even the most conservative among us can understand how office romances ignite.
However, if you’re fortunate enough to have gainful employment, chances are pretty good that you have a boss. Most of us dream about working for Utopia, Inc. where the supervisors are there to support, train and develop you until, one day, you’ll be promoted to their position. The truth is, though, once you fly back from Fantasy Island, you set your clock every morning to report to a job where your boss is probably nothing short of a pain in the ass — and what may complicate matters even more, he or she may have a cute one to boot.
A friend, who works for a major airline here in Charlotte, has been telling me about a supervisor — a woman — who regularly comes to work dressed in tight tops and Daisy Dukes that expose the bulk of her butt whenever she bends over. For our purposes here, we’ll call the woman Erin. Now, Erin’s subordinates are mechanics, 90 percent of them male; their department, obviously, doesn’t have much of a dress code. I mean, why dress professionally when you don’t have to?
What adds to the drama is that Erin, despite her blue-collar profession, happens to be a blonde bombshell — a Britney Spears/Shakira dream mix that has these guys drooling in the hangar on the nightshift.
Some men may think, “Wow, I wish I had a boss that looked like that.” Ask these men, though, and they’ll tell you to be careful what you wish for — it might get you a first class ticket to hell.
As we know, men are visual creatures, programmed by nature to appreciate the female body. Obviously, they like to look at beautiful women. I see nothing wrong with that — appreciation and action are two entirely different things: one is acceptable, and the other could get you canned. Erin is 100 percent aware that her male subordinates are attracted to her. Instead of interpreting the glances as admiration, she prefers to bait them by wearing unprofessional attire. This airport sex kitten sharpens her claws and pumps up the volume by making a production out of flaunting herself. Unfortunately, according to the men in her department, she uses her position as a supervisor to drag her male admirers by the ear into her office, and then breaks out a can of whoop-ass on them for staring at her with “That Look.”
OK, but what exactly does this woman expect?
You hear all the time about men being accused of sexual harassment in the workplace. Recently, it’s reached a level of absurdity that I can compare only with the Salem witch trials — all you have to be is accused, and you’re dead. I’ve worked for at least two Charlotte corporations that did very little to properly investigate allegations that women filed against men. The purpose of finding validity in the woman’s claim was never to find the truth, it was just to prevent a lawsuit. This made the accused male disposable. The standard operating procedure was simply to transfer the guy out of the department, and to warn him that if it happened again he was fired.
Just as in cases of domestic violence, men don’t get the same treatment when they’re the victims of sexual harassment, and they don’t get much support when it happens. When a man files a complaint, the complaint’s seriousness is typically correlated to how attractive his harasser is. Men are highly protective of their egos, and the last thing they want is for their manhood, not to mention their dignity, to wind up in some type of social meat grinder. Consequently, men are probably more guilty of remaining silent than women are.
Most employers expect sexual harassment to come from the top, following the corporate structure chart in a kind of trickle-down effect. Erin is standing the normal course of sexual harassment on its head. Her male employees have to wrestle with the fact that she’s not only beautiful, but also flamboyant, and they’re essentially being dictated to regarding what their eyes are permitted to glance at — or else face her wrath.
Call me shallow, but I really don’t see this woman as a victim, supervisor or not. I see her as a willing participant in doing everything she can to get these men riled up, and then abusing her authority when they do stand up and take notice.
It’s equivalent to women who take jobs as waitresses at Hooters, or as dancers at a strip club, and then scream that men don’t treat them with respect. I mean, so what if Erin catches some guy staring at her with a pressure washing nozzle in one hand, and the other hand in his pocket — just itching to squirt in her direction. Maybe he’s even fantasizing about soaping up the plane and watching her slide down the back of it before dismounting when she stops at the back wing. Who cares about stares?
I guess Erin just needs some advice from the FAA fashion police — if you wear your shorts too tight, they really do get your panties in a wad.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2002.
