SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Hi Guys! "Happy" is the least way to describe how I feel. We've hit 10 million page views (I meant 10 thousand actually…lolzzz) in less than six months. The excitement is surreal. God bless you guys. And yes, my last article is the blog’s most popular article. We had almost 1000 page views on that topic in less than 24 hours which is happening for the first time actually. I appreciate every one of you. You’re my motivation to keep writing. I wouldn’t be writing if there’s no one to read and also share their thoughts with the rest of us. You don’t know how much all these mean to me. Thanks again!!!

You know how most of the articles I write about is usually about something that happened to me, or someone close, or one of those things I read or hear about right?…yeah, my life has become one storybook. Someone yesterday jokingly told another person to be careful around me before I use them as a topic on the blog. LOL. Is it that bad? Le Boo may start thinking same very soon. Life of a blogger! Do I qualify to be called that sef?

I digress…

‘’Money for hand, back for ground’’, have you heard this before? Have you also heard that men don’t give free gifts? They find a way to collect it back, mostly in ‘’kind’’? Well, this may just be true.

I had this person I looked up to as a senior in the profession, and also because he was strict and a no-nonsense kind of man (or so I thought). So sometime ago when I was job hunting I sought him to help me out with his ‘’connection’’ in the profession. I arranged a meeting at his office on one of his free days, and he obliged me. I got in, and told him my plight. He started bragging about his connections, and how I could make good money in the town, and how there were many job opportunities which generates good money and which people don’t pay attention to…blah, blah, blah. One of my turn offs---BRAGGING. He bragged, and bragged, and bragged some more about so many random things which I cannot remember now sef. I was getting irritated and tired but I endured. Poor me! Then he said he had a friend I could work under. I became interested and ecstatic. He mentioned one friend, then he said he wouldn’t want me to work there because the man was a chronic womanizer. OMG! He had me at heart. Nice! Then he mentioned a second friend, salary wasn’t much, but I didn’t mind. It wasn’t about the salary, I was okay to be associated with the big name for a start before I move on. And just when I was about saying Gracias Deus (as my friend Efoma said in one of her comments)…he began saying plenty mushy mushy things about how things could work out better if I agree to date him.

See me oh! To say I was embarrassed is to put it mildly. I felt like rewinding events and going back to the point where I was calling to fix the meeting, so I can use the airtime I used to call him to buy chewing gum instead. So while he was still spitting out his venom, I had to put him on hold. Holup, holup, holup! I told him straight up that I wasn’t so desperate for the job as to lower my standard because of such meagre sum. I told him it was even demeaning for him to trade a job for my body, my pride. A job that isn’t even his! Long story short sha, I didn’t get the job, neither did I keep in touch, but I got a better salary and less stressful work on a platter of gold! As in, I was offered, I didn’t go in search! You see! God is good oh!

It’s hard to believe that people especially the menfolk give any favor without expecting payment in one way or the other. It’s also below the belt for me, for a guy to think he has to blackmail me into sleeping with him for one favor or the other. Sincerely, if God can increase my physical strength, I would love to give some guys ‘’punches’’ to sink home the message that women are not some goods to be negotiated. We are humans too.

That’s why some partners are always wary when they hear men gives their female partners gifts. I don’t blame them jare. But on a second thought, I blame them too because they feel that way due to their blackmails to other ladies too.

It’s everywhere. In the office, in schools, in worship places…just everywhere. Sexual harassment is everywhere. A senior at the office holds down your promotion because he wants you and you refused. So you get stuck in Level 14 all your life like who the world is ‘’doing’’. Your project supervisor in school stresses you out because he wants more from you and you courageously said a big NO! Even some places of worship exchange ‘’miracles and prophesies’’ for ’’gbenshing’’. Fear God these men!

To be fair to men, I know some women blackmail men into having illicit affairs for whatever reasons too, but this cannot be compared to what women face everyday. These are many reasons why some men don’t want their wives out there for other men to pry on. It is even more embarrassing for a man, when his wife comes home from work and tells him stories of the harassment she faces at the office or even at the market place too, some male sellers would be dragging you and ‘’tapping current’’ while at it so you patronize them. At bus parks too, conductors hailing passengers would be harassing you. I have never seen them harass men to come buy goods or enter their vehicles. It’s terrible. Only women!

So I am forced to ask…Dear Men, what is the problem? Is it that men have lost all sense of dignity? Is it that they have become so lazy and forgotten how to woo a woman? Or has womanhood been so relegated to the background that women aren’t humans anymore, but goods to be negotiated upon? I need answers please…

Then again, I get more irritated, when I think that it is actually easy for a man to camouflage ‘’love’’ and still get the girl to open her legs. By acting like he likes the girl, buying her gifts and showing affection, he can still get what he wants. Is it that they are even too lazy to pretend sef? They just throw it at your face like ’’hey, your project work for your spread legs’’ kinda thing with no remorse at all.

I need to give men general lashing now! Let them all gather. I am getting pissed! Lolzzz.

Dear readers of BD, what have you to say about this?

Enjoy the rest of your week Sugars!
Barby.