Beautiful Young Girl: How my experiences with sexual harassment at work have impacted my self-esteem

I am not who a middle-aged man may think: a “beautiful young girl.”

I am not just a girl shoving sliced green apples into a roaring juicer for your eight bucks. I am not just a girl who you decide to side eye as you sway with your hands in your pockets until something in your rotting brain clicks and you blurt out, “You’re a very beautiful young girl, honey,” and wink, nodding guiltily toward your wife and grandchildren.

No. I’m a young woman who woke up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning to take care of over 100 orders including your disgusting juice with too much ginger. I’m sweating, coffee grounds under my fingernails and smeared onto my Levi’s. I don’t feel like a “beautiful young girl.”

Instead, the unwanted male gaze leaves me with a fragile view towards my own femininity and a broken me when I look in the mirror.

You sip on your juice, looking at the “beautiful young girl” in front of you who is nervously laughing and pushing a fake smile onto her blushed cheeks. But really, you’re looking at a young woman who’s trying to push through her six-hour shift to drive home in silence with teary eyes so she can pay for college.

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My encounters with sexual harassment at work have forced me to completely rethink my own femininity and self-confidence. These encounters haven’t entirely depleted my self-esteem — instead, they’ve forced me to rebuild it. 

Before I worked in customer service, I relied heavily on my physical traits as the basis of my self-esteem, since I had worked hard to accept my body and appearance for how it is.

But when those same physical traits are complimented by a man in a situation that I’m uncomfortable in, I force myself to find value in other aspects of my identity. If I continue to only value those physical attributes that are receiving unwanted attention, I’ll start to resent them. 

But it’s easier to read about overcoming sexual harassment encounters than actually do it. And it’s even more difficult for women to realize why they’re beginning to resent themselves after an unwanted sexual encounter occurs. 

I’m not saying that we don’t discuss sexual misdemeanor enough, I think we absolutely do. I also think that we’re absolutely becoming desensitized to it through doing so. 

Most ways that sexual harassment is discussed is done unproductively online. Women “coming forward” during the rise of #MeToo was productive. Stories being scrolled past on a Twitter timeline by an online audience that’s making no actual change in policy is unproductive, because, unlike #MeToo, it lacks a clear call for action. 

We’re becoming so desensitized to these stories of sexual misconduct that when it happens to us, we think it’s normal. And in some instances, we don’t tell anyone, because it’s normal. This is why so many cases remain unreported and build up to a panic attack that the victim blames on themselves. 

And I know because this is my experience. And you need to believe me, because if you don’t, you’re a part of the problem. 

When my 30-year-old co-worker repeatedly flirted with me through uncomfortable comments and shouting at me as I ran toward my car in the parking lot — I thought it was completely normal. That was until I recounted the incidents to my other coworker with satirical undertones and she said, “He 100% has a crush on you.”

That’s when I got scared for my safety.

And after a few more similar incidents I told someone. And got laughed at. And now he has no idea that his actions and comments are actually considered sexual harassment, since he received no repercussions. And so he’ll go on and do that to another coworker, and then the cycle continues.

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I keep reminding myself, “It could’ve been worse.” which is technically true. Because it can get worse for me, and it has been worse for others.

And because I have no hope that it will get better, and that men will continue to find it appropriate to hit on teenage girls at their part-time job, I’ll continue to work on my own mindset. At this point, I don’t see how I can do anything personally besides affirm my self-esteem toward my body and personality. 

But we can do something together. That’s why I ask that employers, schools and public spaces emphasize their sexual misconduct protocols, hear out their victims and confront the aggressor so they can understand that actions that seem normal are actually harmful. I’m not asking for any public executions, just that teenage girls don’t need to seek psychological therapy from their part-time jobs.