#Me Too

I sat at my computer innocently scrolling through Facebook when I see the first signs of a movement. #MeToo written on status after status after status of my female friends and comments following made by men telling them that no one wants to hear it or they're making it up. That they should be glad they got the attention they did. A comment on every status I saw and I felt my anger rising, opening my status bar and typing in the hashtag to lend my voice to the movement sweeping the nation and I stopped... erasing the words and clicking to a different screen. A movement for women to shock people with the rates of sexual assault or harassment that I could lend my voice to but all I could think of was what speaking out cost me.

I was working at McDonald's in my usual closing shift, and I was happy to be almost done. The past few days I had been closing and the exhaustion had seeped into my bones. Restocking the front I was met by a body blocking my way to the front where the new kid Zuzu stood in my way. He offered to carry the case of water I was struggling to hold to the front for me but he never waiting for my reply and instead just took it and started to walk. I thought nothing of it, a person just wanting to help out a fellow worker. But later when he grabbed my hand and told me he wanted to show me something, tugging me towards the crew room, the only place the security cameras didn't cover, I realized that kind act was something too different than what I thought. I was pulled onto the bench beside him, arms bringing me to his chest and refusing to let me leave like a cage made of flesh and bone. My hair was stroked, kissed, his hands roamed places I never thought anyone but my boyfriend would touch. I tried to politely refuse, tried to remove myself from the situation, tried to tell him that I had a boyfriend and wouldn't cheat on him, tried to pull away, to get away but it took a noise too close to the doorway for him to finally let me go. For me ignoring the dirty looks and finger placed over his lips and say that I really had to get back to work and he needed to let go of me for my salvation to arrive. A few minutes later a manager appeared to tell us we need to get back to work.

On the ride home I was quiet, my mom assumed I was tired. I remember thinking, "It could have been worse. You got off lucky compared to some. At least he didn't rape you." It took a good half out and an outraged friend before I finally texted the owner, telling him what happened and calling it a night. But soon enough it got out. Meeting after meeting, nothing being heard from the management, whispered warnings to other girls who say they where closing with him, my story spread and the anger was ignited in my gut. Disgust washed over my face every time I had to work with him after and I dropped male friends like snow dropping from the sky in a blizzard the second any words that tried to accuse me passed their lips. Yet there was silence from the management still.

I called my boss' boss to set up a meeting, tired of the silence and looks I got when people thought I wasn't looking. I got braver after that, telling my story in school and during work. Customers over heard and I no longer had to work with my attacker. And two months later I was called into a shift early to be told I was being let go for reasons they refused to tell me. A friend told me it was because I was a bad victim and made the company look back in their treatment of handling the situation. The same friend told me one of the friends I dumped was promoted twice to assistant schedule manager despite the fact he had six sexual harassment and two sexual assault claims on his record.

Small towns mean word gets around easily and a friend in a job I had applied for overheard her managers talking, saying my previous employers told every business in town that I was a racist troublemaker and make false claims of sexual assault on employees from different races. My attacker was a refugee who I spoke out against which now made me a racist apparently. So I told the town, I told anyone who would listen that McDonald's was a shitty place to work where women are objects to help work and be there for their male counterparts as a nice thing to look at. And now I carry a knife everywhere I go so the next man to lay his unwanted hands on me thinks otherwise fast. I learned that instead of saying "please let me go" I spit "get your hands off of me before I break them." Instead of saying "thank you" I say "fuck you" and I unlearn the things my family taught me as a kid. I'll be that bitch as long as men think my body is their playground. And for those who need it, I'll be that bitch for them too. And you should too.

#metoo